The Scottish Government's Digital Influence

Footnotes

1. See: Scotland's European and International Policy, Jeffery, C., 2010. Scotland's European and international policy. Foreign policy of constituents units at the beginning of 21st century, pp.103-120.

2. See Inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, March 2021: Tech and the future of UK foreign policy

3. See: House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee - Oral evidence: Tech and the future of UK foreign policy (2021) for further examples.

4. Klout, Peerindex and Kred were amongst a number of social influence ranking, or 'social capital' tools that were popular for a period of time but then were either built into other tools or evolved into influencer marketing platforms.

5. "Diplometrics," the new term coined by Ministries of Foreign Affairs for measuring digital impact, seeks, for instance, to identify quantitative combinations of factors (measurable objectives, progress indicators, engagement ratios etc.) that can best track and shape the impact of digital policies and campaigns in real time. At the same time, getting digital diplomacy right cannot be reduced to an exercise of fine-tuning quantitative metrics of message dissemination. It must also involve a qualitative approach by which to capture whether digital engagement can shape the views of the target audience and whether it can generate online relationships of relevance for offline diplomatic activity. Sourced from: The American Academy in Berlin – Digital Diplomacy: From Tactics to Strategy

6. Definition from Holmes (2020): Oxford Bibliographies – Digital Diplomacy. 'Diplomatic objectives' are taken here to include the international activities of the Scottish Government a sub-state actor. See (Douglas-Scott, 2016): European and External Relations Committee – Treaties, Devolution and Brexit

7. Solis, B. and Webber, A., 2012. The rise of digital influence. Altimeter Group.

8. Many of these outcomes may also be measurable offline.

9. See for example: The American Academy in Berlin – Digital Diplomacy: From Tactics to Strategy which makes the point that digital diplomacy has the same goal as traditional diplomacy, that is, the achievement of diplomatic goals.

10. Rogers, Richard. Digital Traces in Context | Otherwise Engaged: Social Media from Vanity Metrics to Critical Analytics. International Journal of Communication, [S.l.], v. 12, p. 23, Jan. 2018. ISSN 1932-8036. Available at: USC Annenberg – International Journal of Comuncation (2018). Date accessed: 15 Sep. 2021.

11. See: The New York Times - Digital Diary: Facebook Poke and the Tedium of Success Theater (2012)

12. Rogers (2018).

13. See: Internation Society - Brief History of the Internet

14. Westcott, N., 2008, July. Digital Diplomacy: The Impact of the Internet on International Relations, Oxford Internet Institute, Research Report 16.

15. Michelis, D. and Stumpp, S., 2021, May. Organisieren ohne Organisationen (Clay Shirky). In Social Media Handbuch (pp. 175-190). Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG.

16. Cosentino, G., 2020. Social media and the post-truth world order: the global dynamics of disinformation. Springer Nature.

17. Marcus Holmes compiles an evolving online bibliography on these topics. See: Oxford Bibliographies - Digital Diplomacy

18. See for example: Johnson, M.A., 2018. Culture as soft power: Digital branding by Catalonia, the Basque Country and Scotland. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 10(1), pp.115-123.

19. See for example: AQMeN - The impact of social media discussion threads on public sentiment

20. See: British Council Scotland: Gauging International Perceptions: Scotland and Soft Power (2019)

21. See: The Scottish Government - Scotland's International Framework (2017)

22. See: The Scottish Government - Global campaign takes Scotland to the world (2018)

23. Audit Scotland - Enabling Digital Government (2019)

24. For a progress report on the Digital Strategy see: The Scottish Government - Realising Scotland's full potential in a digital world: a digital strategy for Scotland Progress Report 2017 – 2021, (2021)

25. See: The Scottish Government - A changing nation: how Scotland will thrive in a digital world

26. See: The Scottish Government - A Fairer, Greener Scotland: Programme for Government 2021-22

27. Elsa Hedling, Niklas Bremberg, Practice Approaches to the Digital Transformations of Diplomacy: Toward a New Research Agenda, International Studies Review, 2021;, viab027, Available at: Oxford Academic

28. Manor, I., & Segev, C. (2015). America's selfie: How the US portrays itself on its social media accounts. In C. Bjola & M. Holmes (Eds.), Digital diplomacy: Theory and practice (pp. 89–108). New York, NY: Routledge.

29. See: The Scottish Government - International Relations

30. This requirement is spelled out in the foreword to the Ireland-Scotland Joint Bilateral Review (2021)

31. See: Scotland's International Framework US Engagement Strategy pg. 1

32. See: Government of Ireland and Scottish Government - Ireland-Scotland Joint Bilateral Review Report and Recommendations (2021-25)

33. See for example Franco-Scottish Links In Research, Innovation And Higher Education (March 2021), especially the "informal individual connections" between researchers in Scotland and France.

34. See: Diplo - Ancient History of e-Participation

35. See: The Guardian - Bye Bye Bilaterals: UN general assembly to embrace Zoom diplomacy (2020)

36. IOs are defined by the OECD: "IOs take different forms: international, regional, groups of like-minded countries or institutions sharing common issues and priorities. They underpin collective action in different ways, including through developing and managing common rules through a wide variety of international instruments."

37. See: Bjola, C. and Zaiotti, R. eds., 2020. Digital diplomacy and international organisations: Autonomy, legitimacy and contestation. Routledge.

38. See: The Scottish Government - Europe

39. See: The Scottish Government - A Fairer, Greener Scotland: Programme for Government 2021-22 (2021)

40. See: The Scottish Government – Arctic Connections: Scotland's Arctic Policy Framework (2019)

41. The Arctic Council consists of eight countries with land areas north of the Arctic Circle: Norway, Sweden, Denmark (with the Faroe Islands and Greenland), Iceland, Finland, Russia, the United States of America and Canada.

42. See: The Anholt-Ipsos Nation Brands IndexSM: 2020 Report for Scotland

43. See: Germany maintains top "nation brand" ranking, Canada and Japan overtake the UK to round out the top three

44. Hicks, J. (2021). Defining and Measuring Diplomatic Influence. K4D Helpdesk Report 950. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. DOI: 10.19088/K4D.2021.032

45. Rogers (2018), p.6.

46. Scottish Government n=5, External: Agencies and External Bodies n=6. In addition, 1 agency supplied written responses to the core interview questions. Executive non-departmental public bodies: NatureScot, Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, Scottish Enterprise; the Improvement Service, classed as an 'other Scottish body', and Universities Scotland, the membership organisation working for the Principals and Directors of Scotland's 19 higher education institutions.

47. This view was expressed in one interview. It is worth noting that the academic literature suggests that small scale may not be an advantage in international relations as the challenges facing small (EU) states are often of an entirely different order to those faced by larger polities and that the lack of resources, especially human resources, is a limiting factor to the ability to change and modernise." A Resarch Agenda for Public Administration, Randma-Liiv and Sarapuu (2019)

48. See: Scottish Environment Protection Agency - Cyber Attack

49. See, for example: Summa, G., 2020. Media@ LSE Working Paper Series.

50. The pandemic has necessarily changed the way we engage with our international neighbours. But it has also reminded us that the world we live in is fundamentally interconnected, and that we need to work internationally to resolve global problems, whether COVID‑19 or the climate crisis. Scotland will retain and enhance an outward looking, international focus, acting as a good global citizen and demonstrating our commitment to democracy, fairness and human rights. We will retain and showcase our distinctive national identity on the world stage, supporting the recovery of Scotland's culture and tourism sectors. We will maintain time‑tested friendships with our European neighbours in the aftermath of EU Exit, and seek to re‑join the European Union as soon as we can." Executive summary, sourced from: The Scottish Government - A Fairer, Greener Scotland: Programme for Government 2021-22 (2021)

51. See: Switzerland Federal Department of Foreign Affairs - Coherent foreign policy in the digital space (2020)

52. See: The Tech for Democracy Initiative

53. See: Diplo - Digital foreign policy

54. Digital Foreign Policy Strategy 2021-24, p.5.

55. See: Diplo - Digital Foreign Policy

56. See: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark - Denmark at the digital forfront

57. See: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark - The Tech for Democracy initiative

58. President Biden opened the first Copenhagen Democracy Summit in 2018. See: Alliance of Democracies - 2018 Copenhagen Democracy Summit . The relationship between technology and democracy was a theme of the Summit.

59. See: UK Government - Joe White appointed HM Consul-General, San Francisco, and Technology Envoy to the USA (2020)

60. Olubukola S. Adesina | James Summers (Reviewing Editor) (2017) Foreign policy in an era of digital diplomacy, Cogent Social Sciences, 3:1, DOI: 10.1080/23311886.2017.1297175

61. Lowy Interpreter. (2015). Does Australia do digital diplomacy?

62. See: Diplo - 2021: The emergence of digital foreign policy (2021)

63. See: Centre for Strategic and International Studies - Global Digital Governance: Here's What You Need to Know (2021)

64. See: City Nation Place - Launching Brand Scotland (2021)