Citizen Diplomacy: A EU-China Case Study

What role do individual citizens play in the arena of public diplomacy and interstate relations? 

University of Nottingham's Andreas Fulda's article, "The Emergence of Citizen Diplomacy in European Union–China Relations: Principles, Pillars, Pioneers, Paradoxes," seeks to address this question by analyzing the phenomenon of citizen diplomacy in EU-China relations.

In his research, he examines the role of 12 "China practicing" diplomats from Europe who have engaged with mainland China for years in a variety of fields, ranging from psychoanalysis to climate change mitigation.

"After revealing that European policy-makers are only reluctantly acknowledging the role of laymen in foreign policy-making vis-à-vis China, it shows that whilst citizen diplomacy may be a new concept in EU–China relations, it is actually not a new practice," explains Fulda.

The article, published in the journal Diplomacy & Statecraft, is an open-access publication and can be found in full here.