From Micro to Macro Digital Disruptions: A New Prism for Investigating Digital Diplomacy

Despite the recent growth of the digital diplomacy research corpus, few studies have employed the theoretical framework of digital disruption. We contend that digital disruption may help to explain how and why diplomats adopt digital technologies. Moreover, a theory of digital disruption may help to examine the consequences of diplomats’ use of digital technologies at a national or societal level. To date, digital diplomacy scholars have focused on analysing how digital technologies impact the working routines and procedures of diplomats. We conceptualize such studies as focusing on micro-level digital disruption as they illustrate how digital technologies give rise to new professional norms, values, and routines. In this chapter we argue that micro-level analyses do not fully capture the dynamics of digital disruption. This is because micro-level digital disruption often stems from macro-level disruptions. By macro-level disruption we refer to digital technologies’ impact on governments or societies as a whole. We contend that digital disruption at the macro level is what motivates digital disruption at the micro level, or the level of diplomats’ working routines. However, we also contend that micro-level disruptions reverberate and contribute to additional disruptions at the macro level. We demonstrate the interaction between macro- and micro-level disruption through three case studies.