Diplomacy in the Digital Age

About

This research-based summer school has a two-fold ambition of introducing and involving students in:

(1) the emerging literature and practice on digital technologies and diplomacy (2) the world of research through a concrete book project, resulting from my ERC project DIPLOFACE.

Ad 1) Digital technologies appear to dramatically change how we make war and peace, how we consume, migrate, identify, and relate. Across digital infrastructures and social media platforms, boundaries between private and public, local and global are blurred, while algorithms shape what becomes visible and possible in world politics. Yet, there is little clarity about what we mean by ‘the digital’ and how we understand digitalization as a productive force in international relations. This summer school explores how diplomacy performed with and through digital devices and technologies.

Ad 2) The course is also a master class, allowing students to go under the hood of academia and invite them into the research lab. We will discuss and experience what it means to publish and how we go from observations to analysis and how students themselves might contribute to research.

Course leader

Course Coordinator: Rebecca Adler-Nissen

Target group

Who should participate?

The school is aimed for students interested in:

digitalisation, technology and diplomacy and how we might theorise and study these phenomena.
how research works in practice and how what it means to write an academic book or article

Bachelor and Master level

Course aim

Knowledge:

To aim is to provide participants with:

an understanding of how ‘the digital’ and digital technologies shape diplomacy and world politics in everyday practice
an introduction to different approaches to ‘digitalisation’ and ‘digital transformation’ with a particular emphasis on anthropological and sociologically informed approaches
an understanding of how the academic world works in practice and how to do and evaluate scholarly work
a better grasp of their own knowledge and place in the political science profession
Skills:

Participants will train and improve their ability to present and write concisely and to develop coherent arguments and analyses.
Participants train their skills in reviewing and evaluating different kinds of material, from academic journal articles to webpages and guest talks.
Participants will strengthen their feedback skills and get a better sense of their own professional strengths and development opportunities

Participants will sharpen their writing and reading skills, focusing on how to be more precise and engaging.

Competences:

At the end of the course, participants will have a broader and deeper understanding of practices and theories of diplomacy in the digital age and will be able to apply this understanding to concrete empirical cases and examples.
Participants will have developed a new vocabulary for understanding digital transformation, digitalization and how it shapes social life.

Participants will have obtained a hands-on experience with how research works in practice and what it means to write an academic book or article.

Fee info