Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, Asim Ijaz Khwaja, and Tristan Zajonc. Religious School Enrollment in Pakistan: A Look at the Data, RWP05-024, Faculty Research Working Paper Series, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, March 2005. The authors find that data and established statistical methodologies do not support widespread assertions that enrollment levels in Pakistan’s madrassas are high and increasing. “Madrassas account for less than 1 percent of all enrollment in the country and there is no evidence of a dramatic increase in recent years.”
Richard T. Arndt. The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, Potomac Books, Inc., 2005. Dick Arndt’s thoughtful and lengthy (602 pages) book — history, analysis, memoir, bureaucratic struggle, lament, and advice — reflects a lifetime of commitment to cultural diplomacy. His treatment of American cultural diplomacy from World War I to the present gives scholars and practitioners much to ponder and will dominate discussion of this important element of diplomacy for some time to come. Experts will agree and disagree with this rich assessment at various points. The author would have it no other way.
Daniel Byman. “How to Fight Terrorism,” The National Interest, Spring, 2005. Georgetown professor Daniel Byman reviews and focuses on public diplomacy elements in three recent books: George Friedman, America’s Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between America and Its Enemies (2004); Adam Garfinkle, ed., A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism, (2004); and Ray Takeyh and Nikolas K. Gvosdev, The Receding Shadow of the Prophet: The Rise and Fall of Radical Political Islam (2004). Byman urges a public diplomacy strategy that points out “the brutality and poor record of radical Islamists in and out of power.” (Courtesy of Mary Ann Gamble)
Romeo Dallaire. Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, (Foreword by Samantha Power), Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005. Canadian Lt. General Dallaire’s memoir on his service as force commander of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda is a searing account of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and a blunt assessment of the failure of the world community to respond. Useful for its analysis of “chapter six and a half” UN peacekeeping, the role of humanitarian NGOs, Dallaire’s media strategy, and the “hate radio” broadcasts of Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).
Khaled Abou El Fadl. Islam and the Challenge of Democracy, Princeton University Press, 2004. The author, a professor of law at UCLA, in the lead essay contends that constitutional democracy is best suited to achieve social and political values central to Islam. Eleven experts in democracy and religion engage his thinking. Contributors include John Esposito, Mohammad Fadel, Noah Feldman, Nader Hashemi, Bernard Haykel, Saba Mahmood, Muqtedar Khan, David Novak, William Quandt, Kevin Reinhart, and Jeremy Waldron. (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)
Tom Fenton. Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All, HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. Veteran CBS News foreign correspondent Fenton takes a sharply critical look at the decline in international reporting, the rise of sensationalist “junk news,” the culture of spin, and what the rest of the world sees. Fenton concludes there are huge gaps in the American news media’s coverage of world events. The media have abdicated their responsibility, he argues, and endangered the citizens they serve.
Harry G. Frankfurt. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 2005. In this slim volume with its catchy title and dry wit, a noted Princeton philosopher examines a form of rhetoric he distinguishes from truth telling and lying — a rhetorical form in which truth values and lies are of no central interest. Its characteristics include lack of concern about how things “truly are,” phony modes of representation intended to conceal ones enterprise, and words chosen because they suit a purpose not for whether they are true or false.
Thomas L. Friedman. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005. Six years after The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman’s new book builds on earlier arguments and provides fresh insights into the causes and challenges of globalization. “Globalization 3.0,” as he puts it, “is going to be more and more driven not only be individuals, but also by a much more diverse — non-Western, non-white — group of individuals.”
John Gaddis. “After Containment: The Legacy of George Kennan in the Age of Terrorism,” The New Republic, April 25, 2005, pp. 27-31. Gaddis mines Kennan’s containment strategy for elements that are situation specific and those that are transferable. He argues containment strategists valued maintaining American power “more by invitation than imposition,” the importance of allies and accountability, and exploiting contradictions in an adversary’s position. Gaddis urges current strategists to consider these and other elements in Kennan’s legacy.
Adam Garfinkle, ed. A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism, Stanford University, Hoover Institution Press, 2004. Garfinkle, former editor of The National Interest and chief writer of the Hart-Rudman Commission report, and fifteen collaborators provide views on “nonkinetic aspects of the war on terrorism.” Essays by Martin Kramer, William Rugh, Daoud Kuttab, Ellen Laipson, and Robert Satloff address public diplomacy and related issues. Essays by Lisa Anderson, Graham Fuller, Oliver Roy and others look at conceptual and country-specific issues.
Google Scholar. Google Scholar is a search engine for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports, from all broad areas of research. Includes articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, and scholarly articles on the web.
Corey Pein. “The New Wave: America’s Faltering Voice,” Columbia Journalism Review, May/June 2005. Assistant CJR editor Pein examines the Voice of America in the context of leadership changes, budget cuts, termination of VOA’s Arabic Service, reductions in English language programming, Radio Sawa, and the Al Hurra television network.
Bruce Stokes. “Public Diplomacy: America is Job No. 1,” National Journal, May 7, 2005, pp. 1402-1403. “What if our problems abroad,” Stokes asks, “are caused not by Americans’ failure to communicate, but by their failure to learn about and comprehend the world around them.” The author cites recent Pew polls and other evidence to support his view that incoming Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes’ task would be much easier if Americans were better informed about the world. (Courtesy of Ellen Frost)
Steven Kull. Who Will Lead the World? Shifting Alignments in World Public Opinion, The Brookings Institute, April 6, 2005. New polls directed by Kull, Director of the Center on Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, and GlobeScan find that publics are looking more to Europe and China to play a more prominent role in the world. The surveys in 23 countries confirms findings in other studies regarding negative perceptions of the U.S. and Russia. Powerpoint slides and a brief summary are online.
Senator Richard Lugar. S. 192, “A bill to provide for the improvement of foreign stabilization and reconstruction capabilities of the United States Government,” Section 4 of S. 192, a bill introduced by Senator Lugar and referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee on January 26, 2005, contains “sense of Congress” language calling for a Presidential directive to “(1) to better understand global public opinion about the United States, and to communicate with global audiences; (2) to coordinate all components of strategic communication, including public diplomacy, public affairs, and international broadcasting; and (3) to provide a foundation for new legislation on the planning, coordination, conduct, and funding of strategic communication.”
Richard A. Melanson. American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War: The Search for Consensus from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 4th edition, 2005. National Defense University Professor Dick Melanson has refined and updated his analysis to include policies of President Bush’s first term and the U.S. response to 9/11. Public diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find useful Melanson’s focus on Presidential rhetoric and the role of public opinion.
David Ronfeldt. “Al Qaeda and Its Affiliates: A Global Tribe Waging Segmental Warfare?” First Monday, vol. 10, no. 3 (March 2005). RAND political scientist Ronfeldt suggests that viewing Al Qaeda mainly as a post-modern phenomenon of the information age misses a crucial point. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are using the information age to reiterate ancient patterns of tribalism on a global scale — a war more about virulent tribalism than religion. The tribal paradigm, he argues, should be added to network and other prevailing paradigms in determining strategies for countering these violent actors.
Rep. Mac Thornberry. “H.R. 1869, “Strategic Communication Act of 2005.” H.R. 1869, a bill introduced by Rep. Thornberry, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas and the House Armed Services Committee, calls for creation of a non-partisan and non-profit Center for Strategic Communication. His bill would require the Secretary of State to solicit bids from interested and qualified organizations to establish the Center. Thornberry seeks “a revitalized public diplomacy” and states his bill was influenced by the Defense Science Board’s Task Force Report on Strategic Communication.
U.S. General Accountability Office. U.S. Public Diplomacy: Interagency Coordination Efforts Hampered by the Lack of a National Communication Strategy>, GAO-05-323, April 2005. [http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d05323high.pdf Highlights. GAO’s study, requested by Rep. Frank Wolf, recommends (1) the White House Office of Global Communications fully implement the role mandated by its Executive Order and (2) the State Department develop a strategy to guide department efforts to engage the private sector in pursuit of common public diplomacy objectives. State, BBG, and USAID “generally concurred with the report’s conclusions and recommendations.” GAO also lists and summarizes key findings of recent reports of the Defense Science Board, 9/11 Commission, Djerejian advisory group, Council on Foreign Relations, and U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
Michael Walzer. Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism, Yale University Press, 2004. Now at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, long time Harvard political philosopher Walzer combines deep commitment to democracy and social justice with a realistic appraisal of instrumental activities distinguished from the idea of deliberation. Public diplomacy scholars will find especially useful Walzer’s chapters on global equality, on political values in tension with deliberative reasoning (e.g. mobilization, bargaining, campaigning, ruling), and a revised version of his influential 1989 essay on John Dewey and the communitarian critique of liberalism.