Our 2022-24 fellow was Chris Teal. Previously, he was the director of the State Department’s Career Development and Assignments Mid-Level Division, heading up a 35-member team in charge of global diplomatic assignments for Mid-Level Foreign Service Officers, some 9,000 officials in total.
He also served a faculty assignment at the Inter-American Defense College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. There he taught graduate classes to senior-level Latin American officials on diplomacy, civil/military relations, human rights, peace keeping, and media/security policy.
Prior to that, Chris was awarded the Una Chapman Cox Fellowship, where he directed, wrote, and produced a documentary on the first African American diplomat, Ebenezer D. Bassett. The film, A Diplomat of Consequence, tells the story of this groundbreaking diplomat 150 years after his appointment.
Overseas assignments include Consul General at the U.S. Consulate in Nogales, Mexico, and public affairs positions in Sri Lanka; Mexico; Peru; and the Dominican Republic. At the State Department, he also held public affairs positions in the European Bureau and at the Foreign Press Center.
Before joining the Foreign Service, Chris worked with award-winning journalist Juan Williams on their biography Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary about the former U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Published In 1998, The New York Times listed it among its most notable nonfiction works of the year. Chris also wrote a biography about Ebenezer Bassett, entitled Hero of Hispaniola, published in 2008.
Chris has a B.A. from the University of Arkansas and an M.A. from George Washington University’s Columbian College, where he graduated in 1997.
Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Alina Dolea, “Diaspora Diplomacy, Emotions, and Disruption: A Conceptual and Analytical Framework,” June 2024, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. In this perceptive article, Alina Dolea (Bournemouth University and USC CPD Research Fellow) develops a theoretical framework for understanding diaspora diplomacy. She advances important claims. (1) Diaspora diplomacy requires a foundational assessment of emotions understood as enabling and disruptive mediating factors in diplomatic agency, practices, and discourses. (2) The way forward lies in a constructivist approach in which identity, belonging, and transnational ties are central analytical categories. (3) Media, migration, and digital technologies are essential gateway perspectives. (4) Diasporas should be examined, not as bounded entities, but as categories of practice in which actors make claims, initiate projects, project loyalties, make judgments, and mobilize support. (5) The intersubjective and sociocultural nature of emotions as political forces linked to relations of power — and the sense of loss and trauma common to all displaced peoples — are key dynamics. Dolea applies her framework to the Romanian disaspora in the United Kingdom. She employs semi-structured interviews with 21 representatives of their organizations to address two research questions. How do these representatives construct their identity? And how do they situate themselves with roles and identities in the diaspora assemblage as a “field of power?” Her essay provides a capacious review of relevant literature and is filled with research enhancing ideas.
Matthew Evans, Matt Lipka, Joshua McDaniel, Isa Nambo, Evan Rein, and Gabriel Teitelbaum, “Partnerships, Policy, and Public Diplomacy: A Deep Dive Into Influencer Diplomacy for the Secretary’s Priorities.” Diplomacy Lab Project, School of International Service, American University (AU). In this capstone project, six AU seniors explore the private sector roles of social media influencers and ways State Department partnerships with 24 selected influencers could advance US public diplomacy objectives. Their project drew on interviews with Public Diplomacy Council of America members, analysis of State Department press releases, and a review of scholarly and practitioner literature on public diplomacy and social media influencers. The authors identify best practices in partnerships with influencers, criteria for selecting events and influencers, themes from past events likely to have future value, and recommended State Department events for influencer partnerships. The project was supervised by Ambassador (ret.) Earl Anthony Wayne, AU’s Distinguished Diplomat in Residence.
Alicia Fjällhed and James Pamment, “Disinformation,” in Eytan Gilboa, ed., A Research Agenda for Public Diplomacy, pp. 173-186, (Edward Elgar, 2023). This essay stands out in the enormous literature on disinformation for its clarity and generative ideas. Fjällhed (Lund University) and Pamment (Stockholm University) argue central challenges for public diplomacy research and practice are (1) to connect disinformation’s development to a volatile political, security, and communications environment and (2) to “deliver cutting-edge insights to practitioners of PD before they become outdated.” To achieve this, public diplomacy requires reciprocity between vast transdisciplinary research domains and diplomacy-specific studies that can enhance research and practice. The authors begin with a summary of the evolution of propaganda and disinformation research. Then they identify “windows of opportunity” for theoretical and empirical inquiry. Continuous engagement between scholars and practitioners is critical to developing evidence-based concepts and enhancing the operational value of theory. Examples of how this can work are drawn from collaborative efforts of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Lund University’s work with the Swedish, U.K., and Finish governments and EU institutions.
“Focus on AI for Diplomacy,”The Foreign Service Journal, June 2024. Forward leaning diplomacy practitioners have often shaped change at technological (telegraph, shortwave, internet) and geopolitical (WWI, Cold War, 9/11) turning points. This month’s FSJ offers a rich collection of essays by serving and retired diplomats that focus on artificial intelligence as a technology turning point.
Dan Spokojny (CEO of the think tank fp21), “New Tools for Better Foreign Policy,” 21-23. His scene setter urges regard for the art of diplomacy and four enduring characteristics shaping change in diplomacy as a human enterprise: defining national interests; intellectual agility, challenging orthodoxy, and anticipating surprise in setting goals; moral clarity; and strong interpersonal and communication skills.
Zed Tarar (Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State), “An AI Primer for Policy Professionals,” 24-27. A superb clearly written survey of AI’s evolution, characteristics, and models; the threat/promise debate; and guidelines for diplomats.
Paul Kruchoski (Director, Office of Planning and Resources for Public Diplomacy, Department of State), “At the Crossroads of Tradition and Innovation With AI,” 28-30. Adopting AI to support diplomacy’s core missions is not a technology problem, it is a State Department culture problem. Resistance to sharing information. A fragmented, stove-piped environment. Technology tools as sources of inefficiency. Cultural change, he argues, requires sharing “dramatically siloed data,” a common data model, leadership and incentives that reward collaboration and innovation. Important ideas, reminiscent of US public diplomacy’s “reinvention” agendas in the 1990s.
Paula Osborn (Chief Data Officer, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Department of State), “Toward Data-Informed Multilateral Diplomacy,” 31-34. A case study of the potential benefits and obstacles encountered in adopting AI and data science in State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.
Evanna Hu (CEO of Omelas and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council), “AI Disruption and Responsible Use in Diplomacy,” 35-37. A summary of the debate between AI accelerationists and decelerationists; AI’s implications for international rules and norms, democratic values, collective action, and global engagement; and the concept of “Responsible AI.”
Bettyjane Hoover, “Strengthening Japanese Public Diplomacy: Steps for the Future,” Substantive Research Paper, School of International Service, American University, Spring 2024. Hoover, a graduating MA student, examines the history of four actors in Japan’s public diplomacy: the Japan Foundation, the Japan House, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), and the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET). Building on an analysis of their activities, her well-organized and clearly written paper makes recommendations for conceptual and operational changes that would strengthen the nation’s public diplomacy. Leading the list is her call for Japan to rely less heavily on promoting culture and soft power and consider “integrating its strategic communications, currently the domain of the Self Defense Force (SDF) with its PD activities.” Her paper was supervised by Ambassador (ret.) Earl Anthony Wayne, AU’s Distinguished Diplomat in Residence.
Harry W. Kopp, The Voice of the Foreign Service: A History of the American Foreign Service Association, second edition, (American Foreign Service Association, 2024). In this essential second edition, historian and retired FSO Harry Kopp, takes AFSA’s story forward from the Obama administration through the turmoil of the Trump administration to the third year of the Biden administration. New chapters focus on leadership and internal governance issues, professional and labor-management issues, and questions relating to Foreign Service reform and the role of a career service in American diplomacy. Particularly useful is his account of the legal and professional challenges confronting AFSA during the first impeachment of President Trump and the predations of his administration. Earlier chapters — on the nation’s first diplomats and consuls, AFSA’s origins, its evolution into a professional association and then an employee union — are slightly revised. Kopp states accurately that his book “is unashamedly pro-AFSA.” “Failures and scandals are not ignored, but neither are they highlighted.” It is a well written account of people, events, and contested issues based on deep research in AFSA’s records and meeting minutes, the Foreign Service Journal, online interviews in the American Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training’s oral history project, and published primary and secondary sources. Practitioner oriented scholars will find it is more than the history of an organization; it illuminates larger concerns in understanding societal drivers of an American way of diplomacy.
Carlos Lozada, “Is America a City on a Hill or a Nation on the Precipice?” July 2, 2024, The New York Times.In this lengthy but easily read essay, opinion columnist Lozada gives us a thoughtful summary of what numerous scholars and political leaders have said about claims of American exceptionalism — from sociologist Daniel Bell, to historian Andrew Bacevich, to historian Ian Tyrrell, from the Puritan John Winthrop to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden. American exceptionalism’s reality or falsity is not an unambiguous fact, Lozada argues, but an endless argument over a political or cultural belief. It is a discourse in which America’s leaders praise a shining city that is, or once was, or imagined in the future. Diplomacy is a political instrument of power, and this complex discourse is characteristic of an American way of diplomacy. US diplomats must contend with how it is framed in intensely partisan contests in the moment, with how foreign publics understand their own histories, and with how conflicting versions create differences and misunderstandings in diplomatic practice. There are significant implications for how the State Department creates a learning culture and adopts needed reforms in professional education.
Anna Helene Kvist Møller, Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Yevgeniy Golovchenko, Kristin Anabel Eggeling, “The Social Aesthetics of Digital Diplomacy,”International Political Sociology, Vol. 18, Issue 3, September 2024. These respected diplomacy scholars at the University of Copenhagen argue that social media images posted by diplomats can be analyzed, not as strategic or representative signifiers, but as “ritual, performative, and symbolic markers” that encode social norms and project authority, power, and privilege. Drawing on explanations of visual social theories and ideas in the sociology of taste — and their analysis of 55,559 images in tweets by more than 1,000 ambassadors worldwide using computer vision techniques — the authors assess recent scholarship in digitalized diplomacy and advance several claims. Using graphics and categories of photographs as evidence in the article, they assert that collectively the images diplomats share display harmony and conceal conflicts. They reveal a global uniformity and “formalized code” that reinforces ideals of mediation and sovereign equality. They convey a “we” orientation that often excludes alternative narratives and largely adheres “to a Western and elite-oriented visual repertoire.” The social aesthetics of these images does not mean there is homogeneity among incredibly diverse diplomats; rather the images are carefully curated to project an illusion of equality. Their projection on social media represents tradition as much as innovation. The article provides further support for blended diplomacy, meaning integration of analog and digital technologies in diplomatic practice, argued persuasively by two of the authors in earlier research. See Adler-Nissen and Eggeling “Blended Diplomacy: The Entanglement and Contestation of Digital Technologies in Everyday Diplomatic Practice,”European Journal of International Relations28(3), (2022), 640-666.
Richard Rorty, Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism, (Harvard University Press, 2021, 2024). In 1996 the American philosopher Richard Rorty (1931-2007) delivered ten lectures in which he voiced his mature views on pragmatism as an intellectual and political commitment at the University of Girona in Spain. They were published in Catalan and Spanish, but not as a unified collection in English (with an excellent foreword by Robert B. Brandom) until 2021. This year they were published in paperback. Rorty’s ideas turn on his belief that our practices — grounded in individual autonomy and what emerges from human conversations — should form the basis for knowledge, ethics, and politics, not truth criteria beyond human experience. In the tradition of John Dewey and Jurgen Habermas, Rorty’s “anti-authoritarian” pragmatism animates thinking about ideas, democracy, and discursive social practices. In diplomacy’s public dimension, Rorty and other pragmatists inform a variety of assumptions, tools, and methods: cognitive framing of a mediated world beyond immediate grasp, treating publics as participants not spectators, managing relations between groups through discourse and face-to-face relationships, public opinion research, democracy promotion, and educational and cultural exchanges. These lectures are Rorty at his best — a thinker and provocative public intellectual who wrote clearly and has much to say about our understanding of democratic politics and diplomacy.
Efe Sevin, “Unpacking Soft Power for Cities: A Theoretical Approach,”Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, accessible online June 2024. Sevin (Towson University) continues his excellent work on city diplomacy and city branding with this inquiry into how a soft power framework can be used to theorize and operationalize international activities of cities and relationships with their home countries. He begins with an overview of Joseph S. Nye’s definition of soft power, its evolution and conceptual characteristics, and critical assessments by scholars over time. Sevin then constructs a framework grounded in three “soft power logics:” resources (assets and capabilities), representation (city diplomacy), and reputation (city branding). His goals are to create stronger links between city diplomacy and city branding, examine limitations caused by activities that don’t easily fit within these categories, and point to issues raised by connections between cities and their home countries. His intent is to encourage greater attention to cities as diplomatic and branding actors and the value of soft power for understanding activities of political entities other than nation-states. His open access article provides a comprehensive literature review and raises important questions for debate and research.
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “A Historical Overview of the Global Engagement Center [GEC]: ACPD Official Meeting Minutes,” May 15, 2024. At its quarterly public meeting held at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, the bipartisan Commission presented its special report “The Global Engagement Center: A Historical Overview 2001-2021.” A panel, moderated by Executive Director Vivian Walker, discussed the Commission’s report, the evolution of the GEC, and its value in understanding and countering foreign and non-state disinformation and propaganda. Panelists included James Glassman, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and Chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors; Kitty DiMartino, former Chief of Staff to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale; and Graham Brookie, former Advisor for Strategic Communication at the National Security Council. As noted in a previous edition of this list, the Commission’s report identifies lessons for the future from the GEC’s history. Importantly, it also provides essential knowledge and advice in the context of partisan attacks on the GEC in Congress and by critics elsewhere. A transcript and video of the meeting (approximately one hour) can be downloaded at the link.
The Commission acknowledged the many contributions of Vivian Walker, who is departing as executive director after five years of extraordinary service during a difficult time for the Commission and US public diplomacy. During her tenure the Commission published comprehensive annual reports and numerous special reports on cutting edge issues; maintained a regular schedule of quarterly public meetings in person and on Zoom; and fully carried out its statutory mandate to advise and report to presidents, secretaries of state, Congress, and the American people. All at a time when it faced the Covid pandemic, contrasting challenges of the Trump and Biden administrations, and a gridlocked Congress that failed to confirm presidential nominations of Commissioners of both parties. Vivian stands out in the Commission’s 75-year history as a talented professional who has performed a difficult job exceptionally well — successfully navigating the often-contested terrain between lawmakers, Congressional staffs, government officials, and diplomacy practitioners. Hats off also to Commission Chair Sim Farar and Vice Chair Bill Hybl who have served long past their expired terms as they await Senate confirmation of their successors.
Hugh Wilford, The CIA: An Imperial History, (Basic Books, 2024). Histories of institutionalized foreign intelligence and public diplomacy in the United States have separate trajectories but also much in common. The fortunes of both have been episodically connected with wars throughout American history. Durable institutions were not established until the late 1940s. Covert operatives and citizen front groups were public diplomacy practitioners during the Cold War. Americans have supported covert funding of information and cultural programs until exposure damaged reputations and their perceptions of the nation’s values. Hugh Wilford (California State University, Long Beach) explored the CIA’s covert Cold War front groups in detail in his excellent earlier book, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America (Harvard University Press, 2008). Now, in The CIA, he frames its evolution in the context of America’s “modern imperial history, comparing, contrasting, and connecting it with prior colonial intelligence services.” He uses experiences of key CIA operatives — Sherman Kent, James Angleton, Cord Meyer, Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, Edward Lansdale, and others — to illuminate patterns of practice and the book’s central themes: the United States as a “covert empire” and the CIA “as an imperial intelligence service.” Diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find of particular interest his chapter on the CIA’s cultural Cold War; Walt Raymond’s activities as director of the Reagan administration’s Office of International Communication and Public Diplomacy at the NSC, his role in creating the National Endowment for Democracy, and his support for Oliver North’s Iran-Contra project; and Otto Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean in the State Department. This is a beautifully written book filled with compelling stories and superb scholarship.
Paul Kruchoski, Director, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Office of Policy Planning and Resources, “Planning for the Future: PD 2034,” (70-minute video), June 19, 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America, GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Deborah N. Cohn and Hilary E. Kahn, eds., International Education at the Crossroads, (Indiana University Press, 2020). Title VI of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) has been a funding source for foreign language and area studies programs through the US Department of Education since 1958. Less well known perhaps than other educational and cultural activities in US diplomacy’s public dimension, it nevertheless has long been an important category of practice in the nation’s cultural diplomacy. In this compendium, Cohn and Kahn (Indiana University) bring together 29 scholars, educators, and policymakers to examine diverse approaches to the future of international education. The volume builds on a symposium hosted by Indiana University in 2018 celebrating the 60th anniversary of Title VI. Chapters are organized in separate but interrelated categories. Perspectives on international education in a global context. The current and future roles of area studies, global studies, and language learning. The impact of Title VI in the United States and tensions between area studies and global studies. A deep dive into language learning in the United States. Tensions between practice and scholarship and critical thinking about how internationalization is approach by institutions of higher education. And contrasting approaches to international education of the US Departments of Education, State, and Defense; other federal agencies; and key actors in civil society.
