International Negotiations in the Digital Age

Abstract

The digital revolution has a significant impact on world politics, including the practice of international negotiations and diplomacy, which, being extremely conservative areas of human activity, still have to adapt to the new digital reality conditions. The practice of digital diplomacy, which involves using social networks to interact with a wide international audience, is becoming widespread. New diplomacy formats are emerging that focused on working with big data, machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies. This study explores the impact of the digital revolution on the practice of international negotiations. Methodologically, the analysis is based on the structural-functional approach, according to which international negotiations act as a structural element of diplomacy and foreign policy. At the same time, the authors single out the invariants of negotiations, which include the stages of international negotiations - preparation phase, discussions and implementation of the results of negotiations. The digital revolution is changing the nature of international negotiations, creating new opportunities for negotiation tactics, as well as new challenges, primarily related to information security and confidentiality. In addition, the development of digital technologies produces new subject areas of international negotiations that focus on Internet regulation, information security and other digital society problems, and contributes to the emergence and development of new international negotiations formats - multistakeholder negotiations and online remote negotiations. The authors conclude that the main negotiation invariants remain the same. However, digital technologies are transforming the available negotiating tools and tactics. Under these conditions, new knowledge and competencies are in demand among diplomats, in particular, in the field of data management and information security.