Abstract
Diplomacy and foreign policy are central features of global politics. They capture our imagination and their conduct affects our lives through their impact on war, peace, the global economy, human rights, international law, global institutions and the norms that govern relationships between states. Foreign policy and diplomacy provide an opportunity to examine and critically evaluate issues of contemporary global politics with a particular emphasis on the political, economic and decisional dynamics underpinning foreign policy and diplomacy. This paper aimed at examining the various ways diplomacy has been viewed, the role it plays in foreign policy of nation-states and the various challenges it faces. This paper adopted doctrinal method where the relevant primary and secondary sources were utilised. It was found that diplomacy as one of the oldest instruments of foreign policy, is a tool with which the states address the other states and communicate with them in order to explain their national goals, policies, and views on current affairs, and try to influence their interlocutors’ views and positions on issues that are important to them.it is observed that diplomacy and foreign policy are so much interconnected that when one mentions a given concept, the other automatically comes into play. Globalization has further enhanced this interconnectivity partly because of the increased number of players on the international arena. The paper concluded that despite the challenges faced by diplomatic efforts of states today, diplomacy tends to be an important key as far as international relation is concerned. Through diplomacy, universal and essential interests or needs of constituent countries in the global system are addressed. Lastly, it was recommended that Ministries of Foreign Affairs, diplomats and governments in general should New and more open state activities need to be advanced that respond to the ways in which emotionalized publics who wish to participate in governance express themselves.
Keywords: Diplomacy, Foreign, Policy, Role.