Andrew F. Cooper, Brian Hocking, and William Maley, eds., Global Governance and Diplomacy: Worlds Apart? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). Cooper (The Centre for International Governance Innovation, Canada), Hocking (Loughborough University, UK), and Maley (Australian National University) combine essays by scholars and practitioners in a volume that examines the relationship between global governance and diplomatic practice. The authors look at gaps and evolving connections between the two through theoretical frameworks and case studies. The book is published in the Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations Series edited by Donna Lee (University of Birmingham) and Paul Sharp (University of Minnesota, Duluth).
Cooper, Hocking, and Maley, “Introduction: Diplomacy and Global Governance: Locating Patterns of (Dis)Connection”
Iver B. Neuman (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs), “Globalisation and Diplomacy”
Christer Jonsson (Lund University), “Global Governance: Challenges to Diplomatic Communication, Representation, and Recognition”
Jan Aart Scholte (University of Warwick), “From Government to Governance: Transition to a New Diplomacy”
David Spence (European Commission Delegation to the United Nations), “EU Governance and Global Governance: New Roles for EU Diplomats”
Raymond Saner and Lichia Yiu (Centre for Socio-economic Development, Geneva), “Business – Government – NGO Relations: Their Impact on Global Economic Governance”
Ivan Cook and Martine Letts (Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australia), “A Twilight Zone? Diplomacy and the International Committee of the Red Cross”
Shankari Sundararaman (Jawaharlal Nehru University), “Research Institutes as Diplomatic Actors”
Shaun Riordan (British Diplomatic Service, retired), “The New International Security Agenda and the Practice of Diplomacy”
Franklyn Lisk (University of Warwick), “Toward a New Architecture of Global Governance for Responding to the HIV/AIDS Epidemic”
Rorden Wilkinson (University of Manchester), “Family Dramas: Politics, Diplomacy, and Governance in the WTO”
Jovan Kurbalija (DiploFoundtion), “The World Summit on Information Society and the Development of Internet Diplomacy” Megan Davis (University of New South Wales), “‘At Home at the United Nations’: Indigenous Peoples and International Advocacy”
Samina Yasmeen (University of Western Australia), “Interfaith Dialogue, Diplomacy, and the Cartoon Controversy”
Bruce Gregory (George Washington University), “Public Diplomacy and Governance: Challenges for Scholars and Practitioners” Andrew F. Cooper (The Centre for International Governance Innovation), “Stretching the Model of ‘Coalitions of the Willing'”
Jorge Heine (Former Ambassador of Chile to India and South Africa; Executive Committee, International Political Science Association), “On the Manner of Practising the New Diplomacy”
Ramesh Thakur (University of Waterloo), “Conclusion: National Diplomacy and Global Governance”
Steven R. Corman and Angela Trethewey, “State Dept. Blogging One Year Later (Part 1): Success Despite Challenges,” COMOPS Journal, Posted October 9, 2008; Edward T. Palazzolo and Dawn Gilpin, “State Dept. Blogging One Year Later (Part 2): Themes and Categories”, COMOPS Journal, Posted October 25, 2008. The authors assess posts and reader’s comments on the Department of State’s blog Dipnote during its first year online and discuss their interviews with Heath Kern and Luke Forgerson, Dipnote’s editors. Corman and Trethewey discuss challenges common to all blogging and constraints unique to the Department’s government role. Their conclusion: “Dipnote has had a very good first year.” Palazzolo and Gilpin offer findings and recommendations based on their content analysis of the blog. COMOPS is a journal of the Consortium for Strategic Communication at Arizona State University.
James Fallows, “Their Own Worst Enemy,” The Atlantic, November 2008, 72-77. Drawing on his two years of living in and reporting on China, Atlantic national correspondent Fallows asks “How can official China do such a clumsy and self-defeating job of presenting itself to the world?” China is a “better country than its leaders make it seem,” Fallows argues. Those leaders do a better job of listening at home but have “surprisingly little idea of how the world sees it.” American leaders may be no better at understanding foreign sensitivities and effectively phrasing their arguments to the world effectively, but on balance he concludes the U.S. does no have quite the tin ear that China has and may be in a position to help.
“A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future: Fixing the Crisis in Diplomatic Readiness”, Report of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Stimson Center, October 2008. This 75-page report, a collaborative effort of 48 retired ambassadors and other foreign affairs experts, concludes that the U.S. faces critical foreign challenges with inadequate staff and resources as well as “authority shortfalls” relating to some economic and security assistance programs. The study reviews four categories of activity: core diplomacy, public diplomacy, economic assistance, and reconstruction/stabilization. It devotes 13 pages to public diplomacy activities, which it limits narrowly to exchanges, international information programs, and field operations carried out by the Department of State. For these activities, the report recommends increasing U.S. direct-hire staff by 487, locally employed staff by 369, and overall staff and program funding increases totaling $610.4 million by Fiscal Year 2014. In an Appendix, the report devotes a page to international broadcasting and two pages to a skeptical look at public diplomacy activities of the Department of Defense. The report is signed by Ambassadors Ronald Neumann, Thomas Pickering, and Thomas Boyatt and by Ellen Laipson, President of the Stimson Center.
James K. Glassman, “The New Age of Public Diplomacy,” Transcript of remarks at Chatham House, United Kingdom, September 11, 2008. The Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs offers his definition of public diplomacy and views on its key goals, which he identifies as diminishing “the threat to Americans and the rest of the world from violent extremism and weapons of mass destruction and to help people around the world achieve freedom.” Glassman outlines four parts of U.S. public diplomacy: education and cultural affairs, international information programs, U.S. international broadcasting, and “ideological engagement.” He devotes most of his remarks to his top priority — public diplomacy as winning an ideological “war of ideas” focused on counter-terrorism.
William J. Hybl, “Answers to FAQs about Getting the People Part Right: A Report on the Human Resources Dimension of U.S. Public Diplomacy,” U.S. Department of State Website, Posted September 24, 2008. The Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy answers questions relating to the recruitment, training, assignments, and evaluation of public diplomacy officers in the Department of State. Includes his discussion of the need for a critical look at the position of public affairs officers in U.S. missions, the role of public diplomacy in policy formation, and the structure of the Department’s regional bureaus.
Roumeen Islam, ed., Information and Public Choice: From Media Markets to Policy Making, (The World Bank, 2008). Roumeen Islam (World Bank Institute) has compiled essays by 17 scholars, journalists, and professional economists that examine the role of media coverage in shaping economic and political choices — and market constraints that influence news content. The essays look at a range of countries and issues such as the effect of media reporting on policy outcomes, objectives of government regulation of the media, sources and impact of bias on reporting, and the effects of market and non market factors on news and policies. Includes essays by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University), “Fostering an Independent Media with a Diversity of Views,” which looks at media information as a factor in public policy and the functioning and failure of markets, and by David Stromberg (University of Stockholm) and James M. Snyder, Jr., (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), “The Media’s Influence on Public Policy Decisions.”(Courtesy of Belinda Yong)
Sherry L. Mueller and Mark Overmann, Working World: Careers in International Education, Exchange, and Development, (Georgetown University Press, 2008). In this guide for job seekers in international affairs, Mueller (National Council for International Visitors) and Overmann (Georgetown University) offer informed thoughts on career planning, networking, interviews, the value of mentors, career development, risking taking, job goals, internships, resources, and profiles of accomplished professionals. Includes information on a broad spectrum of nonprofit, corporate, research, government, and multilateral organizations. Written for students and young professionals, Working World contains useful advice for anyone considering career choices.
George Packer, “Drowning: Can the Burmese People Rescue Themselves,” The New Yorker, August 25, 2008. In his “Letter from Rangoon,” journalist George Packer examines life, repression, political activism, and intellectual currents in Burma. Contains several paragraphs on a “gated compound that is known as the American Center–a cultural outpost of the State Department.” Among Packer’s observations: “The James Baldwin Library and the Ella Fitzgerald Auditorium are open to any Burmese citizen willing to brave the police spies who haunt the area.” “When I visited the Baldwin Library, which has twenty-two thousand members and thirteen thousand volumes, young Burmese were sitting on every available piece of furniture. For all their isolation and lack of analytical training, the citizens of Burma are stupendous readers. The bulletin board at the American Center library was covered with notes requesting books: biographies of Churchill, Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine.” “Political activists attended seminars on human rights and on strategic communications.” “In a country where the law forbids unauthorized meetings of more than five people, none of this could have happened anywhere outside the gates of the Center. (Courtesy of Dick Virden)
Joseph W. Polisi, “The Arts in Global Society,” Fletcher Forum, Vol. 32:2, Summer 2008, pp. 161-169. Forum editors Catherine Pfaffenroth and Erik Iverson interview Polisi (The Julliard School) on the arts in American society, cultural diplomacy via the arts, and the role of artists in society and international discourse. Polisi discusses the New York Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea, the Julliard Orchestra’s visit to China, limited government support for the arts, the need for a focused program of cultural diplomacy, and greater attention by the Department of State to the arts in citizen diplomacy.
Sherry Ricchiardi, “Offscreen,” American Journalism Review, October/November 2008, 16-23. AJR’s senior contributing writer documents the decline in news coverage of the war in Afghanistan. Ricchiardi discusses challenges in covering the war. She concludes the news media’s interest has lagged far behind the importance of the story and that reports continue to show Afghanistan as a success story when conditions are worsening.
Philip Seib, The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics, (Potomac Books, Inc., 2008). Using “the Al Jazeera effect” as a paradigm for the influence of new media, Seib (University of Southern California), looks at the global impact of satellite television and the Internet on the politics of conflict and collaboration. His book looks at global information flows, the influence and diversity of multiple channels, media and virtual states, terrorism, the “cyber-struggle for democracy,” and the media’s role in transforming the Middle East. Contains a few pages on U.S. Arabic language television and radio broadcasting networks Al Hurra and Radio Sawa.
“A Reliance on Smart Power – Reforming the Public Diplomacy Bureaucracy,” Hearing before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, September 23, 2008.
Opening statement, Chairman Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)
Opening statement, Senator George V. Voinovich (R-OH)
Testimony of Christopher Midura, Acting Director, Office of Policy, Planning and Resources, U/S for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Department of State
Testimony of Douglas Bereuter, President and CEO, The Asia Foundation
Testimony of Elizabeth F. Bagley, Vice Chairman, U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy
Link to the Commission’s 2008 report, “Getting the People Part Right: A Report on the Human Dimension of U.S. Public Diplomacy”
Testimony of Stephen Chaplin, Senior Advisor to the Stimson Center and American Academy of Diplomacy
Testimony of Ronna A. Freiberg, Former Director of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, U.S. Information Agency
Testimony of Jill A. Shuker, Fellow, Center for Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California
Link to Subcommittee’s website and hearing webcast.
“Technorati, State of the Blogosphere 2008”. Technorati, a leading search engine and authority on blogs, has issued its latest annual report on trends and themes in the “Active Blogosphere,” which it defines as “the ecosystem of interconnected communities of bloggers and readers at the convergence of journalism and conversation.” Technorati tracks blogs in 81 languages. The report, based in part on a survey of bloggers in 66 countries, has five parts: “Who Are the Bloggers,” “The What and Why of Blogging,” “The How of Blogging,” “Blogging for Profit,” and “Brands Enter the Blogosphere.” Among the conclusions in a report that contains a wide range of analytical findings and current data: “Bloggers have been at it an average of three years and are collectively creating close to one million posts every day. Blogs have representation in top-10 web site lists across all key categories, and have become integral to the media ecosystem.” (Courtesy of Charles Maher)
Three Views on Web 2.0 and the “Wisdom of Crowds”
— Exuberance
Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, (Portfolio, Penguin Books, Inc., 2006, 2008). Tapscott and Williams (New Paradigm, an international think tank) explore how “new competitive principles such as openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally” are creating deep changes in the structure and operations of corporations. Although their focus is on the economic implications of Web 2.0 technologies, they argue throughout the compelling virtues of mass collaboration for the arts, culture, science, education, and governance. Tapscott and Williams acknowledge that hierarchies are not vanishing. This study by two “digital natives” is written for “digital immigrants” in a variety of endeavors, including public diplomacy, who are seeking to leverage collaboration and self-organization strategies.
— Pessimism
Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur: How Blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the Rest of Today’s User-generated Media are Destroying our Economy, Our Culture, and Our Values, (Doubleday, 2007, 2008). Keen, a self-described polemicist and “pioneer in the first Internet gold rush,” makes the skeptics case: user-generated free content is too narcissistic, too uninformed, too unfiltered, and too destructive of economic and political information and values grounded in expertise. He argues a moral responsibility to protect mainstream media — “with its rich ecosystem of writers, editors, agents, talent scouts, journalists, publishers, musicians, reporters, and actors” — against the avalanche of amateur content and the democratized chaos of Web 2.0.
— A measured look
Cass R. Sunstein, Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge, (Oxford University Press, 2006, paperback edition, 2007). Sunstein (Harvard University) provides a sweeping examination of the strengths and limitations of deliberation and Internet-based methods for aggregating information. Grounded in the work of thinkers as diverse as Jurgen Habermas (rational discourse), Friedrich Hayek (price system), and Lawrence Lessig (innovation and openness), Sunstein offers a range of ideas on wikis, blogs, open source software, prediction markets, amplification of errors, cascade effects, hidden profiles, group polarization, information cocoons, echo chambers, mob psychology, group think, and collective wisdom. Although he provides many reasons for pessimism, Sunstein concludes that “it makes sense to bet on optimism” in weighing promise and risk in the information society.
Gem from the Past
Charles Frankel, The Neglected Aspect of Foreign Affairs, American Educational and Cultural Policy Abroad, (The Brookings Institution, 1965). Frankel, a professor of philosophy at Columbia University, wrote this study for Brookings before his appointment as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs in 1965. Frankel’s study is an inquiry into the controlling principles of American educational and cultural affairs and what those principles mean in practice. The book examines the role of Cultural Affairs Officers, conceptual issues in the conduct of educational and cultural relations, and proposals for reform.