Diplomacy: Analyzing Success and Failure in International Relations

This essay delves into the practice of diplomacy, examining its effectiveness in managing conflicts and influencing international relations. It explores both the successes and failures of diplomatic approaches, highlighting the Casamance Conflict as a case study. The essay analyzes the conflict between the Government of Senegal and the MFDC, discussing the reasons behind the conflict and the attempts at diplomatic solutions. It examines the limitations of diplomacy, such as its unwritten nature and the challenges posed by changing governments, concluding that diplomatic relationships are complex and can be difficult to navigate. The essay references various sources to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Running head: PRACTICE OF DIPLOMACY
Practice of Diplomacy
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Topic: When diplomacy works and fails?
Diplomacy has been a long practiced method for managing war situations and
minimizing the risks of war. Diplomacy can be used in negotiations between states and to
influence the decisions and behavior of the governments of the other states (Viotti & Kauppi,
2013). These have been effective in many instances though, there are also incidents, past and
ongoing where diplomacy has failed. The Casamance Conflict is one such issue. In this essay,
the effectiveness of democracy, its failure in the Casamance Conflict and its limitations have
been analyzed.
The Casamance Conflict is a low level conflict that started from 1982 and is
continuing till date. The conflict has been going on between the Government of Senegal and
the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance or MFDC. The conflict started with the
MFDC demanding independence of the Casamance Region. The reason behind that demand
is that the population of the Casamance region is has distinct ethnic and religious beliefs and
practices which differs greatly form the other part of Senegal. Most gruesome years of the
conflict lasted from 1992 to 2001 that caused more than thousand lives taken. In 2004, the
Senegal government and the MFDC reached an agreement. Despite that, some of the factions
of MFDC defected and continued their struggle for independent state (Foucher, 2013).
Negotiations went on for years and both the parties tried to impose the terms of their own
with no concrete result. This has resulted in the current situation where Casamance has
become a test subject and the conflict is still present.
Diplomacy is one of the most popular strategy for avoiding war situations. In most
cases, when ethnic groups want independence, the government applies this form of
relationship management and start a discussion and negotiation process. They try to
understand their demands and the reasons behind it and try to come up with viable solutions

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(Kerr & Wiseman, 2017). The solutions could include their inclusion in state politics, military
or other offices. The government might also allow them to practice autonomy in
governmental works in order to diplomatically handle any overly tense situation. In this
scenario, the government of Senegal applied diplomacy and provided the members of MFDC
an inclusion to paramilitary forces, economic recovery programs for the area, de-mining and
help for the refugees that will return after the conflict is resolved. The defection of some of
the fighters in MFDC led to the failure of the diplomatic solution that both the parties wanted
to ensure. The failure was also due to the cause that both the parties were unable to predict
the defection of the parts of MFDC that resulted to the continuation of the conflict (Lilja &
Manga, 2013).
In this scenario, diplomacy was not the only option. The failure of the negotiation
shows that many of the MFDC members wanted complete independence which needed to be
taken into account. They Senegal government could have consulted with the world
diplomatic councils like United Nations to manage the situation effectively. They could have
made informal governmental ties or peace treaties. Diplomacy is different than other forms of
international relations as other relations have written or decided conditions on which the
nations agree to. In case of diplomacy most of the negotiation is verbal and it is through and
understanding and agreement of serving mutual interest that the situation is handled. In case
of treaties or other peace negotiations, all the terms and conditions and the consequences of
non-compliance are clearly written (Bodian & Kelly, 2018). Diplomatic conversations do not
have such structure and are based on the verbal agreement between two parties.
This context shows several limitations to diplomatic relationships. The major
limitation is the un-codified and unwritten nature of diplomatic exchange. The diplomatic
conversations take place between the two parties involved in a political situation. They try to
come to terms with each other and solve the underlying issue through dialogue. This creates

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better relationship but are easy to overrule if that serves any of the two parties; interest.
Another limitation is that, due to lack of written document, a change of government in any of
the two parties involved, requires renewal of the diplomatic conversation. They both need to
establish that the previous agreement is still effective even after the change. The third
limitation is that diplomatic decisions are difficult to explain. People or other political
personnel may interpret the decision differently and criticize them. This might create further
turmoil, as happened in the case of Casamance Conflict (Jeng, n.d).
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that diplomatic relationships are
complex. This complexity id further increased due to the non-documented nature of the
relationship. In case of Conflict, the failure of the diplomatic relationship proves the
problems that diplomats might face while engaging in these kinds of relationship for
international relations.

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References
Bodian, M., & Kelly, C. L. (2018). Senegalese Foreign Policy: Leadership Through Soft
Power from Senghor to Sall. In African Foreign Policies in International
Institutions (pp. 327-351). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Foucher, V. (2013). Wade's Senegal and its Relations with Guinea-Bissau: Brother, Patron or
Regional Hegemon?.
Jeng, A. The Casamance Conflict.
Kerr, P., & Wiseman, G. (2017). Diplomacy in a globalizing world. Oxford university press.
Lilja, J., & Manga, M. L. (2013). Going it alone: The Casamance conflict and the challenges
of internal peacemaking. In Mediation and Liberal Peacebuilding (pp. 134-148).
Routledge.
Viotti, P. R., & Kauppi, M. V. (2013). International relations and world politics (p. 207).
Boston, MA: Pearson.