Mariah Blake. “From All Sides,” Columbia Journalism Review, January/February, 2005. The author examines challenges to first hand reporting in Iraq by Al Jazeera, Al Arabyia and other Arab media. Includes views of raqi officials, the U.S. military, the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ Norman Pattiz, and Williams College Arab media expert Marc Lynch.
Nick Crossley and John Michael Roberts, eds. After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere, Blackwell Publishing, 2004. These essays continue debate on theoretical and practical implications of Jurgen Habermas’ seminal study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. An extended introduction provides a useful summary of Habermas’s ideas and the thinking of his critics for the non-specialist (useful for undergraduates studying public diplomacy). Also useful is James Bohman’s essay, “Expanding Dialogue: The Internet, the Public Sphere, and Prospects for Transnational Democracy.”
Paula J. Dobriansky. “Advancing Democracy,” National Interest (subscription required), Fall, 2004, pp. 71-78. The Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs and former member of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy makes a moral and interest-based case for expanding democracy. Her essay discusses a range of U.S. and multilateral initiatives.
Melinda GedlerMeeting the Enemy, Becoming a Friend. This book discusses methods of diplomacy through a personal narrative. Focusing on Citizen Diplomacy, Track Two Diplomacy, and Public Diplomacy, Dr. Gelder uses her own experiences working with the U.S. military in Japan to elucidate how diplomacy can be achieved.
Roxanne L. Euben. Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism, Princeton University Press, 1999. Wellesley College professor Euben examines Islamic fundamentalist beliefs and activism in terms of their intrinsic meaning and as responses to rationalist discourse and postmodern political theories. Useful for its rich cross-cultural theoretical analysis and practical relevance to public diplomacy in a world where fundamentalist activism grounded in metaphysical beliefs increasingly challenges political knowledge and behavior grounded in language, history, and interests. (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)
Jurgen Habermas. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy, (published 1996, MIT paperback edition, 1998), 631 pages. In his sweeping account of the rule of law and deliberative democracy, Habermas advances thinking in his The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) and Theory of Communicative Action (1981). Perhaps the most influential defender of the Enlightenment in the post-modern era, his chapters on civil society, public opinion, communicative power, and the political public sphere are useful for students interested in engaging theoretical issues in public diplomacy.
Karen Hughes. Ten Minutes from Normal, Viking, 2004. Hughes’ memoir on her career and role as a counselor to President Bush contains a chapter on her White House activities following 9/11 and the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan. Chapter 10 (pp. 273 – 288) contains brief accounts of Alastair Campbell’s (Tony Blair’s then communications advisor) influence on her thinking; her role in establishing the Coalition Information Centers in London, Islamabad, and Washington; her views on communication strategies with the Arab and Muslim world; and her efforts to focus on the plight of Afghan women. (Recently available in paperback, Penguin)
Interagency Working Group on U.S. Government-Sponsored International Exchanges and Training. IAWG is a clearing house for 25 federal agencies engaged in U.S. government-sponsored international exchanges and training programs. Contains links to reports, archives, information resources, non-government partners, and planning and measurement activities.
Stephen Johnson and Helle Dale. “New Leadership, New Hope for Public Diplomacy,” WebMemo #688, The Heritage Foundation, March 15, 2005. Johnson and Dale discuss the nomination of Karen Hughes to be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Recommendations focus on strengthening the role of the Under Secretary, a commitment to building long-term relationships, and a willingness to coordinate other government agencies.
Kishore Mahbubani. Beyond The Age Of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust between America and the World, Lecture at the Foreign Policy Association, February 28, 2005. The Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore and Singapore’s former Ambassador to the United Nations, contends America may be reaching a tipping point where its reservoirs of good will in the world may be off set by reservoirs of ill will. Mahbubani examines sources of both and summarizes arguments in his new book by the same title (Perseus Books, 2005).
Walter Russell Mead. Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America’s Grand Strategy in a World at Risk, Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Mead, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, provides a searching analysis of strengths and limitations in US grand strategy. Highly critical of the Bush administration’s “disastrous performance” on public diplomacy (pp. 147-151), his recommendations emphasize the importance of world public opinion and finding new concepts to debate strategic goals. He agrees with Paul Berman (Terror and Liberalism) on the totalitarian nature of radical Islam. Like Berman, Mead urges an energized non-government role in the struggle of ideas. “Much of this will not come from government, but from the independent, unguided, and uncontrolled efforts of private citizens, religious groups, foundations, universities, and other institutions.” (p. 178)
Hugh Miles. Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That is Challenging the West, Grove Press, 2005. Miles, a journalist and business consultant, provides a comprehensive look at Al Jazeera’s origins, history, programming, and impact.
National Intelligence Council. “Mapping the Global Future.” Report of the National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project, March 2005. The NIC’s third report looks at global trends drawing on conferences with nongovernmental experts from around the world and focuses on possible scenarios. The report features an interactive web site to facilitate ongoing discussion. Useful are sections on challenges to democratization, new forms of identity politics, universalization of the Internet, projections in growth of religious adherents, estimated ratios of Muslims to ethnic Europeans, and a pervasive sense of insecurity, “which may be as much based on psychological perceptions as physical threats.”
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. “Marketing America,” March 16, 2005. The NewsHour’s Terrence Smith discusses the nomination of Karen Hughes to be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs with Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Shibley Telhami, professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, Harold Pachios, a four-term member and former chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
Kenneth Payne. “The Media as an Instrument of War,” Parameters, Spring 2005, pp. 81-93. Payne discusses U.S. media-military relations in post-Cold War conflicts, gaps between practice and international law, embedding, public affairs as an information operation, and strategic communication.
Thomas Pickering. “Diplomacy: The Future,” The Fletcher Forum, Winter 2005. In an artice adapted from his September 2004 convocation speech at The Fletcher School, Ambassador Pickering addresses challenges facing the profession of diplomacy. He defends his support for integrating USIA into the State Department, advocates continued responsibility for public diplomacy by “The Secretary of State and the leadership team in the State Department,” and suggests a number ways to strengthen public diplomacy “fallen on hard times.”
Shaun Riordan. Dialogue-based Public Diplomacy: A New Foreign Policy Paradigm, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, November 2004. Riordan, also author of The New Diplomacy (2003), makes a compelling case for the centrality of public diplomacy to new thinking about terrorism and a broad range of other global issues. Needed are credible non-government agents; engaging Muslims at home as well as abroad; a rich mix of tools including web-based dialogue and an array of civil society initiatives; diplomats more willing to listen, network, debate and “go off-message;” and a “revolution in diplomatic affairs.” (Courtesy of John Brown)
David J. Rothkopf. “Inside the Committee that Rules the World,” Foreign Policy, March/April, 2005, pp. 30-40. Rothkopf looks at the National Security Council, rivalries between transformative (Bush 42) and traditional (Bush 41) forces, and implications of Condoleeza Rice’s move to the Department of State. A useful overview for advocates of new roles for the NSC in public diplomacy and other fields. Rothkopf’s new book Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, (Public Affairs) will be published in May 2005.
Jesse Sunenblick. “Into the Great Wide Open,” Columbia Journalism Review, January/February, 2005. Sunenblick looks at expansion of “spread spectrum,” a broadcasting technology in which “a transmission is disassembled and sent out over a variety of frequencies, without causing interference to whatever else might be operating within those frequencies, and is reassembled on the other end by a ‘smart’ receiver.” The author discusses regulatory issues and the transforming potential of more powerful Wi-Fi, “frequency hopping,” low cost Internet access, “frequency agile radios,” and increasing miniaturization for journalists, diplomats, soldiers, bloggers, media and citizen activists, and cross-cultural education.
Douglas Thomas and [[Joshua Fouts]]. “New Technology and Public Diplomacy: ‘Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds’,” USC Center for Public Diplomacy. Thomas and Fouts are principal investigators in a cutting edge research project that is looking at the potential role of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) in public diplomacy. Their inquiries seek to understand the opportunities and potential role of virtual worlds in fostering intercultural dialogue and perceptions of values and ideals.
U.S. Department of Defense. Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Publication 1-02, (April 12, 2001, as amended through November 30, 2004). The Pentagon’s comprehensive online dictionary recently and for the first time has included a definition of public diplomacy: “Those overt international public information activities of the United States Government designed to promote United States foreign policy objectives by seeking to understand, inform, and influence foreign audiences and opinion makers, and by broadening the dialogue between American citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad.” (Courtesy of Dan Kuehl)
U.S. Department of State. Virtual Presence Posts. State continues to expand the number of virtual posts in its engagement strategy to promote contact and interaction between the citizens of a foreign city or region and citizens of the United States. Virtual posts added in March: Canada, “North of 60,” and Colon, Panama.