Online Citizen Diplomacy

Abstract This article reconceptualises online citizen diplomacy as an autonomous, ethically anchored diplomatic practice emerging within the global virtuality as an operational power. Departing from state-centric frameworks such as soft power and public diplomacy, it advances a constructivist model centred on relational, collaborative and networked forms of engagement. In this recursive framework, informed and responsible citizens co-construct shared problem-spaces through dialogic interaction, aiming not to influence foreign policy directly but to reshape its legitimising environment by fostering mutual recognition and dignifying difference. Empirical analysis across three cases illustrates the conditions under which such diplomacy succeeds or stalls. Its enduring value lies not in replacing statecraft, but in structurally conditioning it: by sustaining global discursive spaces where moral, political and reputational pressures – generated through ethically anchored, dialogic engagement in the global virtuality – recalibrate or complement the legitimising environment within which foreign policy operates.