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Begin New Search Topic Diplomacy Author Roderick Parkes

1. The Use of Games in Strategic Foresight: A Warning from the Future

Author:
Roderick Parkes and Mark McQuay
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
After a decade of crisis, the EU now routinely uses futures methods to anticipate the unexpected. Its aim is to address its blind spots. This paper details our experience of designing a foresight exercise to help EU diplomats face up to one of the most ingrained types of blind spot: a taboo issue. But our experience showed instead the dangers of such exercises. Far from needing encouragement to address a taboo, our target audience wanted an excuse to do so, reflecting a shift to a more “geopolitical EU.”
Topic:
Diplomacy, Politics, European Union, and Strategic Planning
Political Geography:
Europe

2. City Diplomacy: The EU’s Hidden Capacity to Act

Author:
Roderick Parkes
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
Abstract:
Under the auspices of the EU, mayors are beginning to act like diplomats, brokering deals and defusing geopolitical disputes. On the one hand, such “city diplomacy” offers benefits: cities are reaching spots that the EU ordinarily cannot, flipping conventional hierarchies and making big issues seem small. On the other, it is potentially destabilizing in an era in which the exercise of power can have far-reaching consequences. Harnessing the activism of cities will be difficult, but not impossible.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Political Activism, European Union, and Cities
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, Lebanon, and Belarus

3. EU home affairs diplomacy: why, what, where – and how

Author:
Hugo Brady and Roderick Parkes
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Home affairs matters such as border control, crime-fighting and counter-terrorism are all increasingly subject to international rule-setting and cooperation. The European Union is facing up to this challenge, under pressure of events but also thanks to a high degree of coordination between home affairs officials and diplomats. With its near abroad now host to mass movements of migrants, radical Islamist groups and transnational organised crime networks, the Union is investing in making the relationship between internal and external security processes more substantive. But enhanced coordination can only work if Europeans adopt the right geographical focus, toolkit and strategy. This Chaillot Paper explores the genesis of ‘home affairs diplomacy’ and how it has taken shape, and highlights the challenges as well as the opportunities that bringing together different policy communities (at both national and EU level) generates for a more confident and more ‘strategic’ European approach to an outside world that has become more connected and more complex than ever before.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Migration, International Security, European Union, and Counter-terrorism