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.
Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu
Bruce Gregory, American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
Matthew Asada, “The Department of State’s Reception Centers: Back to the Future,” The Foreign Service Journal, April 2024, 38-42. State Department Foreign Service Officer Asada is a visiting senior fellow at USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy where he has written a carefully researched history with interesting photos of the Department’s 20th century US-based reception centers (Seattle, San Francisco, Honolulu, New Orleans, Miami, Washington, DC, and New York). All but the New York center were closed decades ago due to budget cuts. Their responsibilities were absorbed by local organizations, many affiliated with the National Council for International Visitors (now Global Ties, U.S.). Asada frames the narrative as a predicate for ways to enhance State’s domestic engagement today. Among his ideas: establish domestic geographic districts (aligned with federal regions and divisions); establish “Diplomatic Engagement Centers” in districts or spanning districts; and bring together existing offices concerned with exchange programs, public outreach, media engagement, public-private partnerships, liaison with city and state officials, and support for foreign embassies and consulates.
Niklas Bremburg and Anna Michalski, “The European Union Climate Diplomacy: Evolving Practices in a Changing Geopolitical Context,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, April 12, 2024. Bremburg (Stockholm University) and Michalski (Uppsala University) examine the evolution of the EU’s climate diplomacy following the “perceived failure” of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 and the consequences of rising geopolitics for the global climate agenda. They use practice theory methods in IR and diplomacy studies to show how the EU’s External Action Service and member states adopted a more “linked-up and universal approach” to its climate mitigation and adaptation diplomacy. Using a combination of elite interviews and systematic analysis of official documents and academic literature they assess the EU’s adoption of four practices. (1) Creation of narratives to persuade other actors to strengthen their global climate agendas. (2) Efforts to co-ordinate the negotiating positions and objectives of EU and member states. (3) Outreach actions tailored to the interests of selected national governments, businesses, and civil society organizations. And (4) the practice of mainstreaming, meaning dealing with climate change in the context of human rights, migration, trade, geopolitics, and other issues. Bremburg and Michalski conclude that, despite these operational practices, deep-seated beliefs by EU diplomats and officials “have remained more or less unchanged,” particularly their reliance on leading in climate negotiations through the power of example. They also call for more context-specific analysis and evidence to support answers to why, how, and with what effects diplomatic practices shape policy outcomes.
Andrew F. Cooper, The Concertation Impulse in World Politics: Contestation Over Fundamental Institutions and the Constrictions of Institutionalist International Relations, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Cooper’s (University of Waterloo) prodigious body of work ranges from deep dives into IR theory and global governance to studies of diplomatic practice, notably in the BRICs, G-7, and G20. His writings include Celebrity Diplomacy (2008), “Adapting Public Diplomacy to the Populist Challenge,” (The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 2019), and other articles on practitioners in diplomacy’s public dimension. Cooper’s new bookcombines a rereading of Hedley Bull’s understudied ideas about the concept and practice of concertation in world politics with a multi-faceted critique of mainstream IR. The latter includes neglect of crises as stimulants of international change, a stereotyped “non-West” as either subordinate to universalistic “rules of the game” or potential disrupters of the system, and inattention to the disruptive effect of domestic forces in the United States (Donald Trump’s personalist-populist challenge). Cooper defines concertation as “an institutional format that places the emphasis on forms of dialogue, mutual exchange of information, knowledge sharing, and the aim of unified proposals, among competing and even fractious actors.” His book explores how the institutional concert format – understood as the construction of patterned practices used to solve problems and facilitate co-existence – is a productive approach to sovereignty and multilateralism. Analytical chapters address Bull’s scholarship and institutional IR as a foil for his book. Other chapters discuss concertation as a foundational and sustained fundamental institution, the G-20 as a modern institutional concertation format, the challenges of personal-populist disruption, and aspirations of the BRICs as a solidarity concert and plurilateral summitry.
“Disinformation is on the Rise. How Does it Work?” The Economist, May 4, 2024, 66-71. The Economist devotes its entire Science & Technology section in this issue to a discussion of what disinformation is, how it works, and how it can be mitigated. The feature article explores the role of AI in creating disinformation, detecting it, and using it to overcome problems it creates. Issues discussed include the uses of analytical tools in combination and challenges of distinguishing between disinformation originators and spreaders. The article includes a case study of the disinformation campaign intended to falsely show that Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zalenska spent $1.1m of Ukrainian aid on jewelry. It summarizes the role of the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center in exposing and responding to a Russian campaign to discredit Western health programs in Africa. The article also takes aim at how US efforts to fight disinformation through coordinated activities of tech companies, academics, government agencies, civil society groups, and media organizations have become entangled in polarized politics and the objects of litigation and right-wing conspiracy theories. The experiences of Taiwan, Finland, Sweden, and Brazil are also examined. Separately, in an editorial, “Truth or Lies?” (p. 10), The Economist optimistically states that although disinformation is a serious problem there is little evidence it alone can influence election outcomes, and “it has not yet revealed itself as an unprecedented and unassailable threat.”
David V. Gioe and Michael J. Morell, “Spy and Tell: The Promise and Peril of Disclosing Intelligence for Strategic Advantage,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2024. CIA director Bill Burns calls it “intelligence diplomacy.” Gioe (Kings College London) and Morell (Beacon Global Strategies), both former CIA practitioners, call it “strategic disclosures.” It is a strategy with a long history in diplomacy’s public dimension: U-2 spy plane disclosures of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, Colin Powell’s satellite images of alleged weapons sites in Iraq, and recent advance disclosures of Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. In their measured assessment, Gioe and Morell assess differences between recent vetted disclosures of secrets that serve public interests, seen as resoundingly successful, and leaks that serve private interests. They conclude with a call for caution and guardrails. Disclosures must protect sources and methods. Revelations that are wrong damage reputations and undermine goals. They are especially concerned that using intelligence as a policy and diplomacy tool risks it being used as a partisan political weapon. Gioe and Morell emphasize that in today’s disinformation environment the disclosed information must be true. “Although it may be tempting to embed disinformation in a disclosure, that line should never be crossed.”
Alan K. Henrikson, “What is Public Diplomacy? Fostering Cooperation, Countering Disinformation,” Baku Dialogues: Policy, Perspectives on the Silk Road Region, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter 2023-2024), 98-117. In this article Henrikson (Professor of Diplomatic History Emeritus and founding Director of Diplomatic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) has adapted and made more accessible an essay he published as chapter 11 in “The Role of Diplomacy in the Modern World,” in Reimagining the International Legal Order, ed. Vesselin Popovski and Ankit Malhotra (Routledge, 2024),145-168. These essays address the international legal framework in which public diplomacy is and should be conducted. He frames his analysis in a discussion of five interrelated steps: (1) the origins and “historically evolved” meaning of the term public diplomacy, (2) the range of public diplomacy activities and how they can vary with country size, (3) his central legal-normative question, (4) challenges to public diplomacy in the international political system and global communications space, and (5) a critique of responses to these challenges and suggestions of ways public diplomacy could strengthen the international legal order and contribute to global comity and human enlightenment. Henrikson’s essays stand out in the vast literature on public diplomacy for their assessment of understudied legal and normative issues, and ways in which narrative and power are related.
Jovan Kurbalija, History of Diplomacy and Technology: From Smoke Signals to Artificial Intelligence, (DiploFoundation, 2023). In this slim, well-resourced, and easy to read volume, DiploFoundation’s executive director examines the ways changing technologies interact with the continuity of diplomacy in human experience. He shapes the narrative in three contexts. The impact of technologies on power distribution, geopolitics, and the relevance of countries, cities, and continents. The topics and issues that diplomats address. And the tools diplomats use to communicate, negotiate, and build relationships. Images, graphics, and affordable pricing make this an excellent book for courses in diplomacy and global communications.
“Letters-Plus,” The Foreign Service Journal, April 2024, 13-15. In FSJ’s April issue, three seasoned career diplomats respond to the Journal’s March 2024 article, “A Look at the New Learning Policy: How, When, and Where Do State Department Employees Learn,” by Sarah Wardwell. In “A Step in the Right Direction,” retired FSO Alexis Ludwig welcomes State’s intentions but rightly contends that success will depend on harnessing the political will to make implementation mandatory and obtaining the resources needed to achieve results at scale. In “Prioritizing Learning,” acting deputy assistant secretary for passport services Don Jacobson applauds this “potentially transformative commitment to professional development.” Much will depend, he observes, on the time commitments and strategic thinking of supervisors at all levels and the need for all employees to take ownership of their professional development. Career Ambassador James Jeffries in “Deeply Disillusioning” objects that with one exception none of the policy’s 16 Core Curriculum courses seem to address State’s central foreign policy mission.
Keith E. Peterson, American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission, (Armida Publications, 2024). Peterson’s career as a US diplomat included information officer, cultural officer, and PAO assignments in Dhaka, Tunis, Nicosia, Bridgetown, London, Valetta, Stockholm, and Washington. American Dreams is his account of the 52-year history of the independent bicommunal Fulbright Commission in Cyprus, its role in bridging different memories and visions of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, the difficulties it encountered in conflict resolution training, and the commitment of its Greek, Turkish, and American board members. His book is both a narrative of strategic issues and the Cold War politics of Cyprus and a useful case study of one Fulbright Commission facing unusually difficult operational challenges.
Peter Pomerantsev, How to Win the Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, (PublicAffairs, 2024). In his latest book, Pomerantsev (Johns Hopkins University), author of Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible (2015) and This Is Not Propaganda (2020), combines analysis of Russian disinformation under Vladimir Putin with a biography of the British print and broadcast journalist Thomas Sefton Delmer. Through his parties for top Nazi officials and flattering articles, Delmer gained access and scoops. When war began in 1939, he was recruited by British intelligence. Pomerantsev’s book is part history, part biography, and part guide to understanding and countering disinformation. It has garnered praise from Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny (2017), The Atlantic’s Anne Appelbaum, and The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman. For a critical review, see Max Fisher, “The Journalist Who Tried to Fight the Nazis With Radio Stories” The New York Times, March 9, 2024.
David E. Sanger, New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West, (Crown, 2024). Twenty-five years ago, the New York Times’ David Sanger and the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, then rising national security reporters, were quick to accept cold call invites to meet with US and international students in small (14 person) seminars at the National War College. They valued professional education, but they also knew they were connecting with future ambassadors and flag rank military officers. The range and depth of the interviews in Sanger’s latest book demonstrate the wisdom of this reportorial strategy. It is a deeply connected reporter’s easy to read account of “the revival of superpower conflict” and struggles for military, economic, political, and technological supremacy. He examines not only how leaders and key aides assessed strategic choices but also how they sought to frame their choices in the public square. Three cameos are particularly useful. Sanger’s analysis of NSC advisor Jake Sullivan’s reasoning and desire to shape the “information narrative” as to what was happening and who was responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in advance (pp. 210-215). His discussion of how the toxic zero sum domestic debate on US immigration policies damages US soft power and creates many missed opportunities including attracting a younger generation of Russians to emigrate (pp. 447-449). And his Epilogue in which the reporter turns opinion writer on what’s new in the new cold wars and what the future may hold.
Elizabeth N. Saunders, The Insiders’ Game: How Elites Make War and Peace, (Princeton University Press, 2024). Saunders (Columbia University) begins with a paradox. Publics have scarce time for the details of most foreign policies and issues. Yet leaders act as if public opinion matters, even though they rarely change public views and attitudes through persuasion. Why then, she asks, do elites care about public opinion? Her book provides explanations for this paradox and a thoughtful examination of the importance of political elites in democratic governance and decision-making. Elites lead mass opinion in part, she argues, because publics use trusted elite cues as shortcuts. Saunders distinguishes between leaders and three groups of elites with systematic influence: lawmakers, military leaders, and senior government officials. Grounded in survey experiments and case studies, her book is a nuanced assessment of how elites shape choices in war and peace decisions in the United States — with frequent asides for her theory’s implications for other democracies. This is a study of elite politics, decision-making as an “insider’s game,” a “hawkish bias” in a militarily powerful country, elite accountability, and how a democracy initiates, escalates, and ends wars. It combines well written and interesting history with sophisticated theoretical analysis.
Sarah E. K. Smith and Sascha Priewe, eds., Museum Diplomacy: How Cultural Institutions Shape Global Engagement, (American Alliance of Museums, 2023). Smith (Western University, Ontario) and Priewe (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto) have compiled 18 chapters by practitioners and scholars on the global engagement of museums. Contributors address a range of professional, cultural, political, and academic issues. The editors situate their contributions in a conceptual framework that treats museum diplomacy as a subset of cultural diplomacy now carried out by state actors, cities and other substate actors, and a diverse array of nonstate actors. Museums exist to educate and provide enjoyment. They also serve political agendas as “arbiters of cultural significance, custodians of prized objects, and narrators of histories, communities, and identities.” Chapters address ways museums have advanced hegemony and current efforts to achieve decolonization and social justice. The collection, which includes case studies, contributes helpfully to current debates over cultural diplomacy, network diplomacy, cross cultural globalism, and boundaries between what is and is not diplomacy.
Elise Stephenson and Susan Harris Rimmer, “Bolstering the Boys Club: Security Vetting, Diversity and Diplomatic Gatekeeping,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, May 8, 2024. Stephenson (Australian National University Canberra) and Rimmer (Griffith University) turn the focus on gender and diplomacy away from serving diplomacy practitioners to the security clearance processes that influence levels of clearance and career progression. They argue that clearance processes include not only criteria use to assess potential national security risks but also values (loyalty, maturity, trustworthiness), which may lead to bias or discriminatory exclusion. Their research is grounded in a larger Australian project that also focuses on cultural and linguistic diversity, First Nations and Indigenous inclusion, generational differences, sexuality, neurodiversity, mental health, and people living with disabilities. The authors discuss a variety of issues related to security vetting processes and methodological challenges for researchers. They conclude that problematic security clearance processes mean the exclusion of women and sexual minorities remains “explicit policy and practice.”
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Celebrating 75 Years of ACPD Reporting: ACPD Official Meeting Minutes,” February 26, 2024, Transcript here and Video here. The Commission’s meeting, held at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and moderated by Executive Director Vivian Walker, achieved two goals. First, the Commission presented its Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting: Focus on FY 2022 Budget Data. The report provides detailed budget and program data on the public diplomacy activities of the US Department State and activities of the US Agency for Global Media. Critically important are the Commission’s 25 policy, program, and structural recommendations to the White House, Congress, State Department, and USAGM at pp.13-16. Second, Commissioners and a panel reflected on the presidentially appointed, bipartisan Commission’s essential and durable role in US public diplomacy for 75 years. Panelists included: Tom C. Korologos, ACPD Commissioner and Chairman, 1981-1994, former Ambassador to Belgium, and founding member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors; Katherine Brown, President and CEO of Global Ties U.S. and APCD Executive Director, 2013-2016; and Bruce Gregory, Visiting Scholar, George Washington University and ACPD Executive Director, 1985-1998.
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “The Global Engagement Center: A Historical Overview 2001-2021,” May 2024. In this timely, important, and deeply researched 47-page report, the Commission’s senior advisor Adele E. Ruppe and executive director Vivian S. Walker examine the origins, evolution, mandates, objectives, tools, methods, and activities of the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC). The GEC’s mission is to counter foreign state and non-state disinformation threats to US national security. The report is grounded in interviews with 22 former and current political appointees and senior officials, legislative and archival records, and the insights of the Commission’s professional staff. Following a detailed historical overview, illuminated by helpful graphics, the report identifies a series of findings and lessons learned. Findings include the importance of Senate confirmed under secretaries of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, the need for White House validation and strong bipartisan support, and alignment of expectations and activities with budget realities. Other findings point to the disruptive impact of changes in administrations and funding delays due to cumbersome authorization processes and bureaucracies in the State and Defense Departments.
Looking ahead, the Commission identified eight lessons learned: (1) the United States needs a GEC located within State to counter global disinformation threats; (2) the GEC requires appropriate legislative and executive branch legal authorities; (3) adequate support from interagency stakeholders is essential; (4) the Defense Department and intelligence community are crucial partners; (5) direct funding is required rather than highly inefficient indirect funding through other government entities; (6) special authorities and hiring mechanisms are necessary to recruit specialized expertise; (7) flexible capabilities and funding are key to coping with constant change in the threat environment; and (8) mistaken past assumptions that disinformation threats can be “eliminated” means a robust and sustained GEC or similar entity is necessary to counter a radically new global disinformation environment.
The Commission’s bipartisan report provides essential knowledge and advice in the context of partisan attacks from critics in Congress and elsewhere (e.g., Elon Musk, The Federalist, the Daily Wire, and the state of Texas). See “Don’t Defund the Fight Against Russia and China’s Disinformation,” Editorial, The Washington Post, March 19, 2024 and Steven Lee Meyers, “State Department’s Fight Against Disinformation Comes Under Attack,” The New York Times, December 14, 2023.
US Department of State, “United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy,” May 2024. The State Department’s strategy, framed as a policy of “digital solidarity,” sets forth goals for achieving effective uses of technologies in diplomacy by the US and its allies and partners; an open, inclusive, secure, and resilient internet; and responsible behavior by political entities in cyberspace. The document states that a US goal also is to maintain global technology primacy and set global standards and norms. Part one of the document examines threats to national security and internet freedom, protection of physical infrastructures, competing internet norms, challenges to digital economies, the future of AI technologies governance, and working with the private sector and civil society. Part two sets forth priorities and examines four “action domains” to achieve policy goals. The Department’s Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nathaniel Fick summarized its importance in an interview with The New York Times, “Just about everyone is willing to acknowledge that technology is an important element of foreign policy, but I would argue that tech is not just part of the game — it’s increasingly the entire game.” The “entire” game is debatable. Technologies are tools of diplomacy and policies. As with most strategy documents, much will depend on how road maps are implemented, how cost/benefit choices are made, and how bureaucratic wars are fought and won. See also, David Sanger, “A New Diplomatic Strategy Emerges as Artificial Intelligence Grows,” May 6, 2024, The New York Times; Rishi Iyengar, “Washington Takes Its Cyber Strategy Global,” May 8, 2024, Foreign Policy; Office of the National Cyber Director, “2024 Report on the Cybersecurity Posture of the United States,” May 2024; and report Fact Sheet.
Recent Items of Interest
Madison Alder, “State Department to Use New Purdue Tech Diplomacy Platform to Train Officials,” April 30, 2024, Fedscoop.
Anne Applebaum, “The New Propaganda War,” May 6, 2024, The Atlantic.
Phillip C. Arceneaux, “‘Nation of Storytellers”: Ireland’s Public Diplomacy Success Centers on Storytelling,” March 22, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Matt Armstrong, “Main Street on a Flattop aka Operation Flattop,” May 6, 2024; “Political Warfare: The Obvious Choice Against Our Maginot Line,” April 19, 2024; “It’s Not New, We’re Just Ignorant,” April 4, 2024, Arming for the War We’re In.
Michael Birnbaum, “U.S. Diplomat Explains Why She Quit Biden Administration Over Gaza War,” April 30,2024, The Washington Post.
Antony J. Blinken, “Building a More Resilient Information Environment,” March 18, 2024, US Department of State.
Doug Cunningham, “State Department Invites 22 Countries for Some Hip-hop Diplomacy,” April 17, 2024, UPI.
“Don’t Defund the Fight Against Russia and China’s Disinformation,” March 19, 2024, Editorial Board, The Washington Post.
Andrew Dubbins, “Public Diplomacy in the News: Michael Douglas as Ben Franklin, Global Health, and Election Misinformation,” April 22, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Jorge Heine, “Attacks on Embassies in Ecuador and Syria Set a Dangerous Precedent,” April 23, 2024, The Washington Diplomat; “Are Embassies Off-limits? Ecuadorian and Israeli Actions Suggest Otherwise — And That Sets a Dangerous Diplomatic Precedent,” April 9, 2024, The Conversation.
Ellice Huang, “Can You Change Your Mind? Decision-making and the Debate on AI Regulation,” April 17, 2024, guest post, fp21.
Zhao Alexandre Huang, “China’s Digital Public Diplomacy Towards ASEAN Countries: How Beijing Frames the South China Sea Issue,” May 6, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Patricia H. Kushlis, “Santa Fe Forum Reviews US Place in the World,” May 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.
Don Jacobson, “Speaking Out: It’s Up To Us to Implement the Learning Policy,” May 2024, The Foreign Service Journal.
Umme Laila, “Chinese Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in the United States,” May 15, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Joseph I. Lieberman and Gordon J. Humphrey, “How to Start Winning the Information War,” April 2, 2024, The Washington Post.
Ilan Manor, “From ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’ To ‘Lone Wolf Diplomacy,’ The New Logic of Digital Diplomacy,” May 15, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
“Meet the Author: Bruce Gregory on ‘American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension,” April 22, 2024, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Sherry Mueller, “Citizen Diplomacy — The Role of the Individual in Foreign Affairs,” April 2024; “International Visitor Leadership Program,” April 2024; “Senator Fulbright’s Letter To President Reagan On The Importance Of Exchange Programs To U.S. National Security,” March 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America. Letter available here.
John K. Naland, “AFSA and the Evolution of the Foreign Service Career,” May 2024, The Foreign Service Journal.
Caroline Nihill, “State Department is Launching an Internal Chatbot,” April 2, 2024, Fedscoop.
David Pierson, “U.S.-Funded Broadcaster [Radio Free Asia] Leaves Hong Kong, Citing Security Law,” March 29, The New York Times.
Katie Robertson, “Voice of America Will Get a New Director,” April 19, 2024, The New York Times.
Jon Schaffer, “Youth Exchanges: ‘The Perfect Fit’ For This Volunteer,” May 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.
Alexander Smith, “Antony Blinken’s Guitar Diplomacy Draws Criticism in Ukraine,” May 15, 2024, NBC News.
Tara D. Sonenshine, “How Russia and China are Ridiculing America,” April 9, 2024; “A Triple Threat in the Middle East: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis,” March 21, 2024, The Hill.
Dan Spokojny, “Should Artificial Intelligence Be Used in Foreign Policy?” May 7, 2024; “Should I Distrust Story Telling?” May 1, 2024; “A Roadmap to Modernize Foreign Policy,” April 11, 2024; “Foreign Policy Expertise Requires a Culture of Evidence,” April 2, 2024; “The World is Hard to Change,” March 29, 2024; “Foreign Policy Doesn’t Promote Expertise: But It Could,” March 20, 2024, fp21substack.
Jillian Steinhauer, “For U.S. Pavilion At Venice Biennale, a Bold Rainbow,” April 14, 2024; Julia Halperin, “Indigenous Artists Are the Heart of This Year’s Venice Biennale,” April 14, 2024, The New York Times.
Bill Wanlund, “Worried About Disinformation? Chill [Thoughtfully],” April 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.
Gem from the Past
Taylor Owen, Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age, (Oxford University Press, 2015). Almost a decade ago, Taylor Owen (McGill University) took the measure of ways in which digital technologies were transforming states and key institutions underpinning world order. Luminaries who endorsed his book included Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michael Ignatieff, Clay Shirkey, and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Although technologies and the global environment have changed greatly in subsequent years, his central arguments in this slim volume are worth another look. Owen rehearses now familiar themes: the decentralization of hierarchical power, the rise of individuals and groups empowered by digital technologies, and the challenges states face in giving up power to achieve success in a networked world. Today, when much of the literature prioritizes technologies over diplomacy and governance, Owen puts power, accountability, stability, and democratic engagement first and technologies second. His final three chapters constitute a prescient examination of public diplomacy’s uses of social media, how the “violence of algorithms” is blurring boundaries in war and international relations, and models for the structural adaptation of traditional institutions.
An archive of Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.
