Andrew Chadwick. Internet Politics: States, Citizens, and New Communication Technologies, (Oxford University Press, 2006). Chadwick, a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of London, takes a fresh and in-depth look at ways in which the Internet is changing relations between citizens and states, and thereby is causing “fundamental shifts in patterns of governance.” Contains a thorough look at the origins and nature of the Internet, the Internet’s role in political deliberation, the development of online political communities, and speculation on the future of Internet politics and institutions.
David von Drehle. “A Lesson in Hate: How an Egyptian Student Came to Study in 1950s American and Left Determined to Wage Holy War,” Smithsonian Magazine, February 2006, pp. 96-101. Washington Post reporter von Drehle describes Sayyid Qutb’s experiences as a young man while briefly in Washington, DC and as a graduate student at the Colorado State College of Education. Qutb returned to Egypt to become active in the Muslim Brotherhood, “to refine a violent political theology from the raw anti-modernism of his American interlude,” to long prison stays, and to become a significant influence on the thinking of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other Muslim radicals.
“Forum: Mobilizing the Media,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2006, pp. 3-50. The editors of Georgetown’s quarterly journal explore the role of the media in mobilizing activists, as a channel for government messages, and as space for public discourse in international politics. Includes an introduction (pp. 3-8) by John Walcott, Knight Ridder’s Washington Bureau Chief and adjunct professor at Georgetown, and the following articles:
— Yong-Chan Kim and Kyun-Soo Kim, “Online Storytellers: Blogging in South Korea,” pp. 9-16.
— Adel Iskandar, “Egypt’s Media Deficit,” pp. 17-23.
— Roger Atwood, “Media Crackdown: Chavez and Censorship,” pp. 25-32.
— Claude Salhani, “Media in Conflict: Inciting Violence in Kosovo,” pp. 33-39.
— Mia Malan, “Exposing AIDS: Media’s Impact in South Africa,” pp. 41-49.
International Crisis Group. In Their Own Words: Reading the Iraqi Insurgency, February 15, 2005. The ICG’s report analyzes the textual discourse of Iraq’s insurgents and concludes that the US “fights an enemy it hardly knows.” The ICG finds there are fewer groups, less divided between nationalists and foreign jihadis than assumed. They are focused on responding to US actions and maximizing acceptance by Sunni Arabs, and have rising confidence in defeating the occupation. Counterinsurgency approaches that emphasize reducing the insurgents’ perceived legitimacy rather than military defeat are more likely to succeed.
Tony Judt. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, (The Penguin Press, 2005). New York University’s professor of European studies provides a sweeping account (831 pages) of changes in Europe during the last half century from social, cultural, political, economic, and military perspectives. Judt pays close attention to the history of ideas. Public diplomacy specialists will find of particular interest his brief overview (Chapter 7, “Culture Wars”) of the struggle over ideas during the 1940s and 1950s, the views of U.S. and European intellectuals, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and USIA’s early cultural diplomacy.
(Courtesy of Dick Virden)
Thomas N. Hale and Anne-Marie Slaughter. “Transparency: Possibilities and Limitations,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Winter 2006, pp. 153-163. Hale, a Princeton graduate, and Slaughter, Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, explore ways in which market pressures, personal and institutional values, and dialogue with civil society can take transparency mechanisms beyond monitoring to accountability.
Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al-Qa’ida’s Organizational Vulnerabilities, Combating Terrorism Center, United States Military Academy, February 14, 2006. This study by faculty and research fellows at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center examines al-Qa’ida’s documents, scholarship on organization theory, and case studies in developing views on al-Qa’ida’s vulnerabilities and elements of successful counterterrorism strategies. The authors stress the importance of scholarship and content analysis in understanding terrorist networks. Includes a case study on Syria and texts of al-Qa’ida documents in English and Arabic.
International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) website. INSNA is a professional association for researchers interested in social network analysis — the interdisciplinary study of patterns and networks in human interaction. The association publishes online bulletins and scholarly articles, hosts conferences, and through its website serves as a clearinghouse for scholars and practitioners interested in the field. Social network analysis and computer software programs designed to analyze structural data hold promise for public diplomacy scholars and for practitioners interested in influence structure analyses in embassies and foreign ministries.
(Courtesy of Jarol Manheim and Al May)More information is online.
Alexander Nikolaev and Ernest A. Hakanen, eds. Leading to the 2003 Iraq War: The Global Media Debate, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). The editors have assembled 15 essays not previously published by leading media scholars from around the world on the media’s role in reporting and shaping views on the decision to go to war in Iraq. Chapters analyze media coverage in the US, UK, Australia, Europe, Middle East, Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America.
Includes essays by
– William Dorman. (California State University, Sacramento), “A Debate Delayed is a Debate Denied,” (Chapter 1).
– W. Lucas Robinson (Adger University College, Norway) and Steven Livingston (George Washington University), “Strange Bedfellows: The Emergence of the Al Qaeda-Baathist News Frame Prior to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq,” (Chapter 2),
– M.G. Piety (Drexel University) and Brian J. Foley (Florida Coastal School of Law), “Their Morals are Ours: The American Media on the Doctrine of ‘Preemptive War,'” (Chapter 4).
(Courtesy of Steve Livingston)
Amartya Sen. “Chili and Liberty: The Uses and Abuses of Multiculturalism,” The New Republic, February 27, 2006, pp. 25-30. Should human beings be categorized in terms of inherited traditions, particularly the inherited religion of the community in which they were born? Should that unchosen identity be privileged over other affiliations — politics, class, gender, profession, language, etc.? Should perceptions of identity reflect multiple associations based on an individual’s reasoned choice? Should the fairness of multiculturalism be judged on the extent to which people with different identities are “left alone” or on ways civil society supports their reasoned choices? Nobel laureate Sen, author of The Argumentative Indian (2005), addresses these and other “foundational questions” in this TNR essay and in his forthcoming book, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (W.W. Norton, spring 2006).
Transnational Broadcasting Studies. Electronic Journal No. 15, 2005. TBS’s latest online edition contains several articles of interest. The following articles and others can be found on the journal’s web link below.
— Marc Lynch, “Reality TV is Not Enough: The Politics of Arab Reality TV.”
— Lindsay Wise, “Whose Reality is Real? Ethical Reality TV Trend Offers ‘Culturally Authentic’ Alternative to Western Formats”
— Nicholas J. Cull, “‘The Perfect War’: US Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, 1900/1991.”
— William A. Rugh, “Anti-Americanism on Arab Television: Some Outsider Observations.”
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. International Visitor Leadership Program Outcome Assessment, February 2006. Evaluation based on 827 in-person interviews of program alumni conducted November 2004 to March 2005 in Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine conducted by ORC Macro.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Visiting Fulbright Student Program Outcome Assessment, February, 2006. Evaluation survey of 1,609 Fulbright student alumni conducted by SRI International from June to October 2004.
Gabriel Weimann. Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, The New Challenges, (U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2006). Weimann, a professor of communication at Haifa University and former USIP fellow, has written a comprehensive analysis of terrorist uses of the Internet based on eight years of monitoring and archiving terrorist websites. Weimann discusses their common characteristics, the psychology of terrorism, communicative and instrumental uses of the Internet for terrorism, and what he views to be an exaggerated fear of cyberterrorism. He concludes by looking at responses and missed opportunities in counterterrorism, the challenge of balancing security and civil liberties, and an inability thus far to grasp the full potential of the Internet for nonviolent conflict management and virtual diplomacy.
Weimann’s book develops themes in his 2004 USIP fellowship study, How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet, USIP Special Report 116, pp. 1-12, available online.
Molly Worthen. The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill, (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005). In this unusual, well written biography, a recent Yale graduate chronicles Charles Hill’s life as a diplomat and his second career as a professor at Yale. Teachers and students of public diplomacy will find of interest her account of Hill’s career as a foreign service officer; his role as an advisor to Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and others; his transition to the world of teaching; and his development (with John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Kennedy) of Yale’s renowned “Grand Strategy” course.