La "Diplomacia Ciudadana" y la política exterior en el hemisferio. El encuentro de dos mundos

Abstract

The irruption in the international scene of new actors capable of influencing decisions already adopted, has forced international agencies to change forrner traditional negotiation rnethods exclusively reserved to States.

The classical international diplornacy behind closed doors has ceased being a rnyth for the civil society, which little by little has won a special place at the different forurns worldwide. Among these new actors, the Non-Governrnent Organizations (NGOs) stand out like direct representatives ofthe civil society in their clairns, thus covering all those areas where the State has not been capable of providing irnrnediate answers.

The need to respond to this new international dynamics to allow the invigoration of the organized civil society's involvernent within the international agencies, has forced the introduction of specific lineaments for its participation in thern, thus enriching the negotiation processes and giving rise to the coining of a new foreign policy concept: the so-called citizen diplornacy.

This essay is intended to examine the influence gained by the NGOs in the national and international sphere, by analyzing their evolution and how they actually work, for a subsequent suggestion of outlines designed to transparently reveal and legitirnize their actions.