Author: GW

Claudia Auer and Alice Srugies, Public Diplomacy in Germany, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 5, 2013, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. In this comprehensive study, Auer and Srugies (Ilmenau University of Technology) identify and address a long-standing research gap on Germany’s conceptualization and practice of public diplomacy. Grounded in an extensive literature review and 32 in-depth interviews, the authors offer three perspectives: (1) a conceptual framing of public diplomacy through the approaches of communication studies and sociology, (2) the historical development of public diplomacy in Germany, and (3) an empirical and critical analysis of Germany’s public diplomacy actors. They argue Germany’s public diplomacy, often a by-product of organizational actions directed at other goals, has considerable potential.

Mark Bowden, “The Killing Machines: How to Think About Drones,” The Atlantic, September 2013, 58-70. Bowden (Atlantic correspondent, author of Blackhawk Down) surveys strategic, political, legal, and public opinion implications of US drone strikes. Includes interviews with former US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter and US Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes.

British Council, Influence and Attraction: Culture and the Race for Soft Power in the 21st Century, June 2013. The British Council’s latest report examines data, research, concepts, actors, activities and implications for governments of trends in “the field of international cultural relations and cultural diplomacy.” Includes a foreword by British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs William Hague. For an informed critique of the Council’s report, see Robin Brown, “New British Council Report on Influence and Attraction. Not Very Attractive,” June 19, 2013, Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence Blog.

Charles W. Dunn, ed., American Exceptionalism: The Origins, History, and Future of the Nation’s Greatest Strength,(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2013). The authors in this volume, a mixture of scholarship and political advocacy, examine contested issues in the concept of American Exceptionalism. Collectively they defend the claim “that there is still an exceptional aspect of American thought, identity, and government worth advancing and protecting.” Critics of American Exceptionalism will find much to debate in essays by Charles W. Dunn (Regent University), Hadley Arko (Amherst College), Michael Barone (American Enterprise Institute), James W. Ceasor (University of Virginia), Daniel L. Dreisbach (American University), Marvin J. Folkertsma (Grove City College), T. David Gordon (Grove City College), Steven F. Hayword (American Enterprise Institute), Hugh Heclo (George Mason University), William Kristol (The Weekly Standard), and George H. Nash (Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal).

Livia Pontes Fialho and Matthew Wallin, Reaching for an Audience: U.S. Public Diplomacy Toward Iran, Perspective, American Security Project, August 2013. Fialho (American University) and Wallin (American Security Project) provide a succinct critique and informed case study of US public diplomacy strategies toward Iran in the absence of diplomatic relations since the hostage crisis in 1979. The authors focus on online tools, the State Department’s Virtual Embassy Tehran, academic exchanges, and science diplomacy. Missing is any reference to US Farsi broadcasting. They conclude that online tools “should not be the centerpiece of a public diplomacy plan but instead serve alongside real-world components in a comprehensive approach that prioritizes further dialogue and exchanges between Iranians and Americans.”

The Heart of the Matter,Report of the Commission on the Humanities and Social Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2013. Led by Richard H. Brodhead (President, Duke University) and John W. Rowe (former CEO, Exelon Corporation), the Commission’s scholars, artists, and civic leaders call for strengthening scholarship and education in the humanities and social sciences in the service of national goals: (1) intellectual and economic well-being, (2) a more vibrant civil society, and (3) successful cultural diplomacy in the 21st century. Recommendations include: increased language learning, expanded education in international affairs and transnational studies, support for study abroad and international exchanges (Fulbright Program, and the Department of Education’s Title VI international and language programs). For a critique of the report’s “bland commonplaces and recommendations that could bear fruit only in a Utopia,” see Stanley Fish, “A Case for the Humanities Not Made,” The New York Times, June 24, 2013.

Hearing on “Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG): An Agency Defunct,” US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, June 26, 2013. The Committee held its hearing with three former BBG Governors to examine implications of findings early in 2013 by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the BBG is “practically a defunct agency” and by the State Department’s Inspector General that the “BBG’s dysfunction stems from a flawed legislative structure and acute internal dissention.” Website includes video and pdf texts of statements.

— Opening statement by Committee Chairman Ed Royce..

— Statement of former BBG Chairman James K. Glassman, “Beyond Tinkering: Reform of the Broadcasting Board of Governors Requires Full Integration into the U.S. Foreign Policy Apparatus.”

— Statement of former BBG member D. Jeffrey Hisrschberg

— Statement of former BBG member S. Enders Wimbush.

Jorge Heine and Joseph F. Turcotte, “Tweeting as Statecraft: How, Against All Odds, Twitter is Changing the World’s Second Oldest Profession,” Crossroads: The Macedonian Foreign Policy Journal, Vol. III, No. 2, April-October 2012, 59-72. Heine (Wilfrid Laurier University) and Turcotte (York University) discuss ways in which Twitter is changing the practice of diplomacy. Using a variety of examples from different countries, the authors explore Twitter’s categories of use and its strengths, limitations, and potential as a tool in the transition from “club” to “network diplomacy.”

Brian Hocking, “(Mis)Leading Propositions About 21st Century Diplomacy,” Crossroads: The Macedonian Foreign Policy Journal, Vol. III, No. 2, April-October 2012, 73-92. In this stimulating and closely reasoned article, Hocking (Loughborough University) argues much debate on contemporary diplomacy confuses historically contingent diplomatic methods with diplomacy’s enduring characteristics as a process for managing international affairs. This “category mistake” frames his discussion of leading propositions in diplomatic studies that in some senses are “misleading.” These propositions include:
(1) Preoccupation with newness in diplomatic methods that emphasizes discontinuities at the expense of continuities.
(2) Focus on zero-sum relationships between state and non-state actors rather than a nuanced range of normative / analytic frameworks.
(3) Expansion of hyphenated “adjectival” diplomacies (e.g., business, city, citizen, sub-national, NGO, civil society) that can make diplomacy synonymous with broader patterns of global interaction and risk “dangers of engagement without purpose.”
(4) Problematic views that network forms of process and organization have replaced hierarchies.
(5) Assumptions of diplomacy in existential crisis that constrain needed inquiries into the comparative advantages of foreign ministries in national diplomatic systems and ways in which diplomats can redefine their roles.

Ellen Huijgh, ed., “The Domestic Dimension of Public Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2012. This special issue of the Journal is now available online in its entirety as a free sample. Contributors include Guest Editor Ellen Huijgh (The Netherlands), who wrote the Introduction, Mladen Andrlic (Croatia), Shay Attias (Israel), Caitlin Byrne (Australia), Steven Curtis (UK), Kathy R. Fitzpatrick (US), Caroline Jaine (UK), Teresa La Porte (Spain), Susanna Simichen Sopta and Iva Tarle (Croatia), and Yiwei Wang (China). It was previously annotated on Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites #63, December 11, 2012.

Jorrit Kamminga, Public Diplomacy in Afghanistan Beyond the 2014 Transition: Lessons from the United States and the Netherlands, Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Discussion Papers in Diplomacy, No. 126, June 2013. Kamminga (University of Valencia, Visiting Research Fellow, Clingendael) argues that 2014 presents an opportunity to disconnect foreign public diplomacy from the “military-security paradigm” dominant in Afghanistan since 2001. He compares an American model linked to counterinsurgency and broad ideological debate between “Islam and the West” with a Dutch model, seen to be less ideological, that emphasizes dialogue, cultural sensitivity, and cultural activities and training. For Kamminga, the methods in the Dutch approach have primary value as ends in themselves, as signifiers of universal values, and in presenting a favorable image of the Netherlands. As such, they are indirectly supportive of foreign policy objectives.

Jaron Lanier, Who Owns the Future? (Simon & Schuster, 2013). Lanier (computer scientist, musician, and author of You Are Not a Gadget) offers a critique of the illusion of “free” information in the effects of network technologies. Among the issues Lanier discusses are ways in which Moore’s Law changes how people are valued, the power of corporate and government “Siren Servers” – defined as coordinated computers on a network “characterized by narcissism, hyperamplified risk aversion, and extreme information asymmetry – and “Should I quit Facebook?”

Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The History of an Idea, (The Penguin Press, 2012). This sweeping narrative begins with the 19th century’s Concert of Europe and ends with 21st century forms of networked governance. Mazower (Columbia University) examines the interplay of ideas, government leaders, diplomats, and civil society activists in developing global institutions. Well written and deeply researched, his book mixes broad themes with telling insights that illuminate tensions between ideas and power politics, the contrasting roles of diplomats and non-state actors, tradeoffs in the willingness of national leaders to cooperate and compete, and lessons for an era in which Western dominance of international relations is giving way to multi-centered global networks. (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

Lacey Milam and Elizabeth Johnson Avery, “Apps4Africa: A New State Department Public Diplomacy Initiative,” Public Relations Review, 38 (June 2012), 328-335. In this case study, Milam (MetroStar Systems Support) and Avery (University of Tennessee) discuss the goals, methods, and replicable potential of “Apps4Africa,” a US State Department and World Bank funded program intended to promote “African solutions to African problems.” The program offers competitive grants up to $15,000 for projects using mobile technology applications to address challenges in health, education, youth employment, governance, and other issues. (Courtesy of Kathy Fitzpatrick)

Sherry Lee Mueller, “The Art of Advocacy,”The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol. 37:2, Summer 2013, 171-177. Mueller (President Emeritus of the National Council for International Visitors) offers practical advice on using advocacy skills in “building relationships – often with elected officials – in order to shape public policy.” She discusses eight lessons learned from NCIV’s advocacy activities.

Iver B. Neumann, At Home With the Diplomats: Inside a European Foreign Ministry, (Cornell University Press, 2012). Diplomats: “who are they,” what do they “actually do,” and “how do they think about what they are doing?” In this ethnography of diplomacy, Neumann (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs) combines a scholar’s historical and anthropological insights with practical experience in Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Chapters cover the emergence of permanent diplomacy and foreign ministries, changes in gender and class, diplomatic practices, and knowledge production. A concluding chapter speculates briefly on how globalization may be changing diplomacy.

New Frontiers: U.S. Students Pursuing Degrees Abroad, Institute of International Education, May 2013. In this two-year analysis (2010-2012), IIE finds an increase of 5% in the number of US students pursuing full degrees abroad, most of them in the humanities, social sciences, and physical and life sciences. Nearly 68% study in Anglophone countries. The largest increase in US students (31.1%) was in China.

Roland Paris, “The Digital Diplomacy Revolution: Why is Canada Lagging Behind?” Canadian Defense and Foreign Affairs Institute, Policy Paper, June 2013. Paris (University of Ottawa and CDFAI Senior Fellow) argues Canada “is lagging far behind the US and Britain in digital diplomacy.” With Canada’s online Global Dialogue on Iran (2013) a notable exception, his paper finds a large gap between Canada’s digital diplomacy potential and failure by its Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade “to adapt to the social media revolution.” Unless Canada embraces new methods of diplomacy, it “risks being further marginalized in international affairs.”

“Pentagon Spokesman: Public Affairs Must Change With Times,” News Release, U.S. Department of Defense, July 25, 2013. In a speech at the Defense Media Activity’s headquarters, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs George Little calls for new priorities and approaches to public affairs given changes “brought about by war and the media’s evolution” in a more tightly connected world. News release contains extended excerpts. Full speech available in videobut not in text. (Courtesy of Mickey East)

Pew Research Center, “America’s Global Image Remains More Positive Than China’s: But Many See China Becoming World’s Leading Power,” Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, July 18, 2013. Pew’s 39-country survey finds global publics believe China will supplant the US as the world’s dominant superpower. But “a median of 63% express a favorable opinion on the U.S. compared with 50% for China.” Half or more in 31 of the 39 countries surveyed disapprove of US drone attacks against extremist groups. President Obama’s ratings are lower than when he first took office, with an especially sharp drop in China (from 62% in 2009 to 31% in 2013).

Pew Research Center, “Climate Change and Financial Instability Seen as Top Global Threats,” Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, June 24, 2013. Climate change and international financial instability lead Pew’s survey of global threats followed by Islamic extremism, Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear programs. Americans lead the world in lack of concern about climate change with only 40% saying it is a major threat.

Nico Prucha and Ali Fisher, “Tweeting for the Caliphate: Twitter as the New Frontier for Jihadist Propaganda,” CTC Sentinal, Combating Terrorism Center, US Military Academy, West Point, June 25, 2013. Prucha (University of Hamburg) and Fisher (author of Collaborative Public Diplomacy,2013) examine jihadist social media strategies and the use of Twitter by the Syrian jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra to disseminate links to battlefield videos on YouTube. The authors argue that dense jihadist files show ideological coherence under “the umbrella of al-Qaeda,” and that understanding them can be empowering for governments and helpful to analysts seeking to assess the radicalization process.

Linda Risso, “Radio Wars: Broadcasting in the Cold War,” Cold War History, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2013, 142-152. Risso (University of Reading and guest editor of this special issue of Cold War History) provides an overview of the literature and debates on the roles of Western and Eastern radio broadcasters during the Cold War. Her article frames key historical questions: Radio’s place in larger issues relating to the character of the “cultural Cold War.” Debates on a Western cultural model, the role of US broadcasting, and reciprocal influences between East and West. Problems in defining success and measuring impact. Whether the BBC and VOA were a “leading partner” that shaped the activities of other broadcasters. Other articles in this special issue on Cold War broadcasting focus on British broadcasting to France, US broadcasting to Italy, broadcasters’ uses of letters and literature of exiles, radio and the Hungarian uprising of 1956, and BBC broadcasting to East Germany. (Courtesy of John Robert Kelley)

Tomislav Z. Ruby and Douglas Gibler, “US Professional Military Education and Democratization Abroad,” European Journal of International Relations, XX(X) 2010, 1-26. Ruby (US Air Force) and Gibler (University of Alabama) argue that, notwithstanding prominent examples of negative outcomes in US foreign military education, the preponderance of evidence supports their claim that US professional military education (PME) “provides an important stabilizing force, especially in emerging democracies.” Using quantitative measures and three case studies (Argentina, Greece, and Taiwan), they conclude the cumulative effect of US PME programs is “a depoliticization of foreign militaries during economic and political disruptions . . . and, in many cases, a changed military culture.” (Courtesy of Anne McGee)

Tara Sonenshine, “Bottom Line Diplomacy: Why Public Diplomacy Matters,” Remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, June 18, 2013. In a farewell speech as US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Tara Sonenshine framed “bottom line diplomacy” as “long-term” for Americans, “the fusion of economic statecraft and public diplomacy,” and “strengthening the hyphen between the flow of money and the productive index of people.” Her remarks focus on State Department public diplomacy “as a way of building prosperity and protecting our national interests” through cultural exchanges, trade, workers’ rights, tourism, and other economic priorities.

Tara Sonenshine, ” A Farewell Note from Under Secretary Sonenshine,” June 28, 2013. The Under Secretary offers parting online thoughts on the goals and “compelling” case for public diplomacy that “both ‘sets the table’ for policy and amplifies the policy through the connective tissue of real people.”

Walter Stahr, Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man, (Simon & Schuster, 2012). In this biography of Lincoln’s secretary of state William Seward, Stahr (international lawyer, author of John Jay: Founding Father) strengthens considerably our understanding of US public diplomacy in the 19th century. His account links Seward to US public diplomacy’s enduring characteristics – American exceptionalism, episodic resolve correlated to armed conflict, partnership with civil society actors, values agendas (e.g., the Emancipation Proclamation) and idealism (e.g., libraries as a means to the “intellectual, moral, and social improvement of the whole human family”). Stahr also shows how Seward’s methods foreshadowed tools in modern public diplomacy: Leveraging connections with journalists and political activists to frame public agendas and send messages at home and abroad. Enhancing message credibility through civil society and military voices. Use of electronic technologies (the telegraph) for international communication. Skills as an engaging raconteur in frequent social gatherings with foreign diplomats and journalists. Leading foreign diplomats on a “grand tour” of the US (a precursor to international visitor programs). Publication of US diplomatic correspondence to influence public opinion. And the first official “circular letters” to all US diplomats to support their public outreach and “correct the often erroneous or partial accounts that they would receive through newspapers or private letters.”

Gary Thomas, “Mission Impossible: Is Government Broadcasting Irrelevant,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 2013, 19-21. Retired Voice of America correspondent Thomas argues the core problem in US broadcasting is “institutional schizophrenia” – “a news organization trying to be a government agency and a government agency trying to be a news outlet.” He calls for getting rid of the Broadcasting Board of Governors and changes that reinforce broadcasting’s journalistic credibility. Alternatively, if the broadcasting’s mission is to be “‘messaging’ and policy advocacy,” it should be placed in the State Department and called public diplomacy.

Alex Tiersky and Susan B. Epstein, Securing U.S. Diplomatic Facilities and Personnel Abroad: Background and Policy Issues, Congressional Research Service (CRS), 7-5700, R42843, May 7, 2013. CRS analysts Tiersky and Epstein analyze legal obligations, policy issues, funding levels, and Congressional and Executive Branch roles in providing security for US diplomatic facilities and personnel. They focus on difficulties in balancing security concerns with diplomatic outreach responsibilities. About half of the 27-page report focuses on responses to the attack on US facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.

U.S. Department of State, Office of Inspector General, Inspection of the Bureau of International Information Programs, ISP-I-13-28, May 2013. In a report on State’s Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), State Department inspectors mix sharp criticism of IIP’s leadership (lack of strategic vision, limited outreach within and beyond the Department, and ineffective Bureau management) with positive findings on IIP’s effective use of digital diplomacy technologies and the dedication of its creative staff. The inspectors singled out for praise IIP’s support for “American Spaces” as a “cornerstone of the Department’s 21st century PD effort,” the increased reach of its publications, and expanded use of video. High on their list of concerns: an office of Audience Research and Evaluation that is “producing little work” and a need for greater focus on “PD goals” in its digital diplomacy “rather than raw numbers of social media fans.” The 52-page report contains 80 formal and 6 informal recommendations.

U.S. Department of State, Office of Diplomatic Security, Significant Attacks Against U.S. Diplomatic Facilities and Personnel, 1998-2012, June 2013. This 52-page report catalogs the numerous significant attacks on US diplomatic facilities and personnel that have occurred during the past fourteen years.

Ethan Zuckerman, Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2013). Zuckerman (MIT Center for Civic Media and co-founder ofGlobal Voices) challenges optimistic Internet narratives that emphasize cosmopolitan potential but fail to recognize limitations in practice. Geography still matters. Atoms are relatively immobile. Flows of cheap bits are constrained by limited interest, inattention, “caring problems,” linguistic differences and ambiguity, preferences for groups to “flock together,” and views of the world that are “local, incomplete, and inevitably biased.” Zuckerman offers informed practical advice on making connections through xenophiles, bridge figures, “third culture kids,” “human libraries,” urban serendipity, and new approaches to machine translation and other technologies. His measured insights compare usefully with the exuberance of such technology optimists as Google’s Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, former State Department advisor Alec Ross, and Australia’s Fergus Hanson.

Recent Blogs of Interest

Robert Albro, “The Arts of International Affairs: Time for a New Conversation About Culture,” June 6, 2013, The CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.

Max Boot and Michael Doran, “Political Warfare: Policy Innovation Memorandum No. 33,” June 2013, Council on Foreign Relations.

Rosa Brooks,“The Case for American Propaganda,” July 17, 2013, FP National Security Blog.

Robin Brown, “Inspecting the International Information Programs at State: Kicking Delivered,” June 24, 2013; “A Lesson from the BBC World Service for VOA,” July 5, 2013;“Diplomats vs. Project Management,” July 11, 2013; “Whatever Happened to UK Public Diplomacy Strategy?” July 12, 2013; “Every Day Soft Power,” July 16, 2013; “Fridtjof Nansen and the Birth of Celebrity Diplomacy,” August 7, 2013; “Do We Need American Political Warfare in the Middle East?” August 9, 2013, Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence Blog.

Robert Callahan, “Perspective: Keep Our Embassies Open,” August 9, 2013, Chicago Tribune Commentary.

Brian Carlson, “Is U.S. Public Diplomacy Too Soft?” August 6, 2013, Public Diplomacy Council.

Helle Dale, “U.S. International Broadcasting ‘Defunct’ – Congress Finally Steps In,” July 1, 2013; “How Many Friends Does the State Department Really Have,” July 3, 2013, The Foundry Blog.

Kim Andrew Elliott, “The Battle for the Soul of U.S. International Broadcasting,” July 3, 2013.

Guy J. Golan, “The Case for Mediated Public Diplomacy,” July 19, 2013, Diplomatic Courier Blog.

Craig Hayden, “The Eye of OIG is Upon IIP,” June 21, 2013, Intermap Blog.

John Hudson, “OMG! State Department Dropped $630,000 on Facebook ‘Likes,'” Foreign Policy, July 2, 2013: “Unfriend: State Dept’s Social Media Shop is DC’s ‘Red-Headed Stepchild,'” The Cable Blog.

David Jackson, “Social Media: Plenty of Talking, Not Much Listening,” July 25, 2013, Public Diplomacy Council.

Emily Metzgar, “Fixing the Strategic Dysfunction,” June 26, 2013; “PD Academic Research: Journalism & Mass Communication Scholars Consider Opportunities,” August 13, 2013, The CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.

Paul Rockower, “Keepers of the PD Flame: An Appreciation of Embassy Local Staff,” August 6, 2013, The CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.

Ellie Sandmeyer, “Fox’s Baseless Attack on State Department Online Outreach,” July 3, 2013, Media Matters.

Matthew Wallin, “America’s Public Diplomacy at a Crossroads,” July 3, 2013, American Security Project, Flashpoint Blog.

R.S. Zaharna, “Culture Posts: Domestic Stakeholders in Public Diplomacy: Lessons from Brazil,” July 1, 2013; “Sharpening the Relational Lens in PD, Lessons from Egypt 2013,”August 19, 2013, The CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.

Gem From the Past

Ronald S. Burt, “Structural Holes and Good Ideas,” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 110, No. 2 (September 2004), 349-399. Nearly ten years ago, University of Chicago sociologist Ronald Burt published an article that continues to attract interest as diplomacy scholars and practitioners look increasingly at methods of “convening and connecting,” diplomats as “boundary spanners,” network and relational models, the role of foreign ministries in “national diplomatic systems,” and transforming legacy public diplomacy institutions. Because opinions and behavior are more homogeneous within groups, Burt argued, people (brokers, entrepreneurs, bridge builders) connected across the structural holes between groups are more likely to have good ideas, early access to new and alternative opinions, and an ability to gain competitive advantage or leverage mutual advantages. Whether or not emerging good ideas are acted upon, however, depends heavily on inertia, chance, timing, career ambitions, working relationships, and organizational and cultural contexts.

Michele Acuto, “World Politics by Other Means? London, City Diplomacy and the Olympics,” paper delivered at the International Studies Association, San Francisco, April 2013. Acuto (Program for the Future of Cities, University of Oxford) looks at how global cities participate in world politics as political and “(para)diplomatic” actors. His case study of London’s activities in securing, planning, and managing the 2012 Summer Olympic Games explores the evolving role of cities as diplomatic actors and how sports are used in diplomacy and urban governance. His paper also portrays larger dynamics in multilayered governance, diplomacy, and the complexity of relationships between sub-state, state, and regional actors.

Christina Archetti, “People, Processes & Practices: Agency, Communication and the Construction of International Relations,” paper delivered at the International Studies Association, San Francisco, April 2013. Building on a case study and more than 40 interviews with foreign diplomats and foreign correspondents based in London, Archetti (University of Salford) explores ways in which these official and non-official actors “construct” the United Kingdom, “its images and discourses” in the eyes of foreign publics. She argues an understanding of the micro-processes of diplomats and journalists can illuminate public diplomacy and changes at the macro level in international relations.

Andrew F. Cooper, Jorge Heine, and Ramesh Thakur, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2013). In this comprehensive collection of essays (50 chapters, 941 pages) by leading diplomacy scholars and practitioners from around the world, Cooper (University of Waterloo), Heine (Wilfrid Laurier University), and Thakur (Australian National University) provide a resource that is cutting edge in its focus on theory and practice and relevant to all aspects of 21st century diplomacy. Conceptual frameworks and case studies examine (1) expanding numbers and types of actors, (2) changing diplomacy domains and subjects, (3) levels of diplomatic activity, (4) institutions and mechanisms, and (5) modes, types, and techniques. Chapters of particular relevance to diplomacy’s public dimension include:

— Andrew F. Cooper, “The Changing Nature of Diplomacy.”

— Jorge Heine, “From Club to Network Diplomacy.”

— Jan Melissen (Netherlands Institute of International Relations, ‘Clingendael’), “Public Diplomacy.”

— Patricia M. Goff (Wilfrid Laurier University), “Cultural Diplomacy.”

— Su Changhe (Fudan University), “Soft Power.”

— Joseph S. Nye, Jr., (Harvard University), “Hard, Soft, and Smart Power.”

— Daryl Copeland, (University of Ottawa), “Digital Diplomacy.”

— Shawn Powers (Georgia State University), “Media, Diplomacy, and Geopolitics.”

— David Black and Byron Peacock (Dalhousie University), “Sport and Diplomacy.”

— Geoffrey Pigman (University of Pretoria), “The Diplomacy of Global and Transnational Firms.”

Steven R. Corman, ed., Narrating the Exit from Afghanistan, (Center for Strategic Communication, Arizona State University, 2013). Corman (Arizona State University) and the scholars and practitioners who contributed to this volume address challenges in the identification, construction, communication, and uses of narratives in the ways wars are remembered and storied. Their focus on narrating ISAF’s exit from Afghanistan is complemented by examination of narratives in other wars (Vietnam, the Cold War, and the Soviet departure from Afghanistan) and conceptual issues in narrative structure and validity.

Nicholas J. Cull, “The Long Road to Public Diplomacy 2.0: the Internet in US Public Diplomacy,” International Studies Review, (2013) 15, 123-139. Cull (University of Southern California) provides his version of the adoption of computer and Internet-based technologies in US public diplomacy. He argues the US was “relatively slow to make full use” of Web 2.0 technologies in public diplomacy largely because a risk averse Department of State, which took over the US Information Agency (USIA) in 1999, found it difficult to embrace their advantages and promise. A central theme is the compatibility of digital technologies and networking approaches with USIA’s institutional culture and relational priorities in today’s “new public diplomacy” model. Cull’s account draws on archival research and memories of former practitioners that tend to minimize the resistance to change that also existed in USIA.

El Molinillo, No. 52, March 27, 2013. El Molinillo, the journal of Spain’s Political Communication Association, devotes its March issue to articles on public diplomacy and nation branding. Includes:

— Juan Luis Manfredi (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha), “Estrategia y diplomacia publica: el tiempo de law politica.”

— Teresa La Porte (Universidad de Navarra), “Contribucion de los actors no estatales a la nueva diplomacia publica.”

— Francisco Javier Hernandez Alonso (Universidad CEU San Pablo y del C. U. Villaneuva), “La importancia de lo publico en la nueva diplomacia.”

— Bruce Gregory (George Washington University / Georgetown University), “Entrevista con Bruce Gregory.” Questions and translation by Teresa La Porte and Joyce Baptista, Universidad de Navarra.

Alisher Faizullaev, “Diplomacy and Symbolism,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 8 (2013), 91-114. Fulbright scholar Faizullaev (University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Uzbekistan) examines diplomacy’s use of symbols, rituals, and ceremonies in (1) constructing and communicating meaning, (2) managing and regulating relationships, and (3) affecting collective feelings and motivating people. His article explores such issues as credibility in diplomatic signaling, uses of interactive symbolism in new media and public diplomacy, the relevance of high and low context cultures, language and image symbolism, and limitations of symbolism. He concludes with a call for more research on normative and affective functions of symbolism in diplomacy.

Ali Fisher, Collaborative Public Diplomacy, (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013). Fisher (InterMedia) bridges the study of networks and collaboration in 20th and 21st century public diplomacy with this contribution to the literature on the relational approach to public diplomacy. His book combines analysis of multi-hub, multi-directional networks in the age of social media with deeply researched case studies of networks of scholars, foundations, and government actors that were instrumental in developing American Studies in Europe during the Cold War. Public diplomacy for Fisher “is the attempt to change the odds of certain behaviors or events occurring.” He uses his historical case studies to argue the importance of collaborative negotiations in dynamic networks and diplomatic strategies that seek to make desirable outcomes more likely.

Bruce Gregory, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Implications of the 2012 US Presidential Campaign for American (‘Public’) Diplomacy,” paper delivered at the International Studies Association, San Francisco, April 2013. This paper argues that public diplomacy is becoming a legacy term and concept even as the public dimension in diplomacy becomes much more important in its study and practice. It examines three questions. (1) Did the election demonstrate enduring characteristics of American exceptionalism and episodic attention to public diplomacy? (2) What do the deaths of a US Ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya mean for an understanding of expeditionary diplomacy, diplomacy’s security / public access dilemma, and evolving concepts of diplomatic agency. (3) Are whole of government diplomacy, a blurred distinction between foreign and domestic, and concepts of ‘global public engagement’ changing traditional approaches to diplomacy? Although changes in diplomacy were only marginally on display in the campaigns, they are evident in the activities of practitioners and the contrasting “new public diplomacy” and “integrative diplomacy” models of scholars.

Brian Hocking, Jan Melissen, Shaun Riordan, and Paul Sharp, Whither Foreign Ministries in a Post-Western World, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael Policy Brief, No. 20, April 2013. Clingendael’s diplomacy scholars summarize central ideas in their influential Futures for Diplomacy: Integrative Diplomacy in the 21st Century report (October 2012) and a follow-up conference at the Clingendael Institute (March 2013). Rather than lament the loss of traditional roles or cling to roles more appropriate to other actors, the authors call on foreign ministries and their diplomats to manage a “highly heterogeneous international system” and “shape the parameters of foreign policy” through networked tools and activities in which they have a comparative advantage. Foreign ministries, they recommend, should: (1) Drive innovation in delivery and knowledge networks at home and abroad, within and without government. (2) Influence policy by ensuring these networks map the objectives of international strategy. (3) Serve as the GPS for government and society in “a post-Western world of fragmenting rule sets and contested values.” (4) Provide a 4-dimensional vision that ensures coherence over time and across geography.

Harold Koh, “How to End the Forever War?” Speech at the Oxford Union, Oxford, UK, May 7, 2013. In rejecting a perpetual “‘global war on terror,’ without geographic or temporal limits,” the Obama administration’s former Department of State Legal Advisor offers a three-part strategy: disengage from Afghanistan, close Guantanamo, and discipline drones. Instead of treating the current conflict as a legal black hole where anything goes, the task is to “translate” existing laws of war to cover a new type of international armed conflict involving continuing and imminent terrorist threats. He calls for a clearer distinction between imminent threats and counterterrorism situations in which law enforcement and intelligence resources are more appropriate. Koh’s finely argued proposals for dealing with legal and policy issues relating to Guantanamo and armed drones make this a useful reading for those developing public diplomacy case studies on these issues.

Marc Lynch, “The Persistence of Arab Anti-Americanism: In the Middle East, Haters Gonna Hate,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2013, 146-152. In this review essay on Amaney Jamal’s Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy or No Democracy at All(Princeton University Press, 2012), Lynch (George Washington University) offers a perceptive critique of Jamal’s thesis that US policies, primarily support for authoritarian rule, are at the heart of an Arab anti-Americanism driven by Islamist parties in the region. Lynch offers contrasting views on how the Arab revolutions are reshaping attitudes toward the United States: (1) There are important opposition movements other than Islamists. (2) Despite their antipathy toward the US, Islamists are becoming regime incumbents who benefit from US support. (3) Ironically, leftist opposition movements, now marginalized in a new US supported status quo, are in the vanguard of anti-Americanism. (4) Autocrats of any stripe and their backers “can no longer assume either perpetual rule or unconditional U.S. support.”

Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President at the National Defense University,” Washington, DC, May 23, 2013. President Obama’s broad framework for a US counterterrorism strategy addresses changes in the threat of terrorism, standards for using drones for targeted lethal strikes, study of proposals for a special court or an independent board for deployment of lethal actions, diplomatic engagement and assistance, domestic radicalization, striking a balance between security and civil liberties, and closing Guantanamo. The White House also distributed a Fact Sheet . For an assessment of the speech — drafted by Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication and Speechwriting Benjamin Rhodes — its origins, and underlying policy debates, see Peter Baker, “In Terror Shift, Obama Took a Long Path,” The New York Times, May 27, 2013.

“The Pacific Century,” Public Diplomacy Magazine, Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at the University of Southern California, Summer 2013. This issue of PD Magazine includes:

— Jian Wang (University of Southern California), “Shaping China’s Global Imagination.”

— Caitlin Byrne (Bond University), “The Strategic Century: Australia’s Asian Century in the Context of America’s Pacific Century.”

— Naren Chitty and Li Ji (Macquarie University), “Engaging Chinese Media Project.”

— Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), “Issue Brief: ‘Bulging Ideas:’ Making Korean Public Diplomacy Work.”

— Public Diplomacy Magazine Editors, “An Interview with the USC Master of Public Diplomacy Delegation to China.”

— James Thomas Snyder (Formerly NATO International Staff, Public Diplomacy Division), “Fourteen Articles on Public Diplomacy Practice for the Future American Public Diplomat.”

— Alexander Wooley and Tom Perigoe, “Exporting Democracy.”

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Benghazi Investigation Does not Reignite Broad Public Interest: Reactions Split Along Partisan Lines,” May 13, 2013. Pew finds fewer than half of Americans (44%) are following Congressional hearings on the Benghazi attack “very or fairly closely” – virtually unchanged from late January when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified. A deep split over how the Obama Administration and Congressional Republicans are handling Benghazi divides “cleanly along partisan lines.”

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Egyptians Increasingly Glum: Not Optimistic About Economy or Certain They Are Better Off Post-Mabarak,” May 16, 2013. Two years after the revolution of 2011, Pew’s surveys find that “Only 30% or Egyptians think the country is headed in the right direction, down from 53% last year and 65% in 2011 . . . Roughly three-in-four say the economy is in bad shape and optimism about the country’s economic situation has declined sharply.”

Darlene J. Sadlier, Americans All: Good Neighbor Cultural Diplomacy in World War II, (University of Texas Press, 2012). Sadlier (Indiana University, Bloomington) adds to the growing historical literature on the 20th century origins of US public and cultural diplomacy with this carefully researched study of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA). Her narrative explores conceptual issues in cultural diplomacy, its strengths and limitations, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s motives in creating the CIAA to combat Axis penetration and promote solidarity in the Americas, Nelson Rockefeller’s roles as Assistant Secretary of State and CIAA Coordinator, and chapters on CIAA’s uses of motion pictures, radio, press and publications, museums, and libraries.

Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013). Part transformational enthusiasm, part Google triumphalism, and part penetrating analysis, Schmidt (Executive Chairman of Google) and Cohen (Director of Google Ideas) offer their vision of “a world where everyone is connected.” Their analysis includes such issues as online identities, implications of WikiLeaks and their interview with Julian Assange, virtual statehood, intellectual property laws, digital provocation and cyber war, armed conflict, and alternative futures of revolution and terrorism, armed conflict, and post-conflict reconstruction.

Jordan Michael Smith, “The U.S. Democracy Project,” The National Interest, May/June, 2013, 26-38. Smith (a contributing writer atSalon and the Christian Science Monitor), surveys the origins and activities of the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and other democracy promotion organizations funded by US Government grants. He focuses on US democratization activities in Russia, the Middle East, Iran, and Cuba and questions whether it is “smart diplomacy” for the US to fund programs perceived as undermining existing governments, contributing to a double standard in the context of US support for “friendly dictators,” and American meddling in the civil societies of others.

R.S. Zaharna, Amelia Arsenault, and Ali Fisher, eds., Relational, Networked and Collaborative Approaches to Public Diplomacy: The Connective Mindshift, (New York: Routledge, 2013). Zaharna (American University), Arsenault (Georgia State University), and Fisher (InterMedia) bring together 14 essays by scholars and practitioners that explore conceptual frameworks and case studies in the relational approach to public diplomacy – an approach that privileges “genuine cooperation and collaboration” and relational strategies as a “core imperative” of public diplomacy. Chapters assess political, cultural, and ethical issues; network theory; uses of social media; and collaborative strategies of state and non-state actors. Defenders and critics of the relational model will find this an essential collection of views by its leading proponents.

Recent Blogs of Interest

Robert Albro, “Cultural Diplomacy and Heritage Wars,” May 22, 2013, ARTSblog.

Rosa Brooks, “Authorize This: Can Obama Put the War on Terror on a New Legal Footing?” May 23, 2013; “The War Professor: Can Obama Finally Make the Legal Case for His War on Terror?” May 23, 2013, Foreign Policy National Security Blog.

Robin Brown, “Post ISA Thoughts,” April 12, 2013; “Why I’m a Network Realist,” April 16, 2013; “The Warring Tribes of US Cold War Public Diplomacy,” May 8, 2013; “Can Non State Actors Do Public Diplomacy,” May 10, 2013; “The National Endowment for Democracy and US Public Diplomacy: Part 1,” May 15, 2013; “The National Endowment for Democracy: Part 2,” May 17, 2013, Public Diplomacy Networks and Influence Blog.

Lindsey Horan, “India and Africa Building Ties Through Youth Populations,” May 2, 2013, Take Five Blog, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University.

Tim Lowden, “Ain’t No Sonenshine When She’s Gone. . . .” May 6, 2013, Take Five Blog, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University.

Domani Spero (pseudonym), “37 Former Ambassadors Urge Appointment of a Career Diplomat to State Department’s Public Diplomacy Bureau,” May 24, 2013.

Philip Seib, “Public Diplomacy’s Impact and Prospects,” May 9, 2013; “Beyond Conflicts, The Arab World’s Other Challenges,” The CPD Blog, Center for Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California.

R.S. Zaharna, “Culture Posts: Who is the Public in Public Diplomacy?” May 22, 2013, The CPD Blog, Center for Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California.

Amy Zalman, “Post-Boston: Keep Calm and Think Clearly (Part I),” April 23, 2013; “Post-Boston: A More Effective Battle of Ideas (Part II),” April 24, 2013, theGlobalist.

Gem from the Past

Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics, (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932; Westminster John Knox Press, 2013). The coincidental release of this new edition of Niebuhr’s classic book on individual morality and group behavior and today’s popular relational and collaborative approaches to diplomacy is fortuitous. Although Niebuhr was open to the possibilities of social intelligence and moral good will in human history, particularly as they might occasionally mitigate social conflict, he was deeply skeptical of the capacity of groups to overcome “the power of self-interest and collective egoism in all inter-group relations.” Groups, he argued, are constrained by the “limitations of the human imagination, the easy subservience of reason to prejudice and passion, and the constant persistence of irrational egoism.” For these reasons Niebuhr insisted, as Langdon B. Gilkey (University of Chicago) observes in his introduction to the 1960 edition, “no group will ever be dislodged from power by persuasion, by arguments, however academically or legally elegant those arguments might be.” Quoting Niebuhr: “Reason is the servant of impulse before it is its master.” Includes a new foreword by Cornel West (Union Theological Seminary).

Christina Archetti, Understanding Terrorism in the Age of Global Media: A Communication Approach, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). In a book that challenges conventional approaches to understanding the role of the media in terrorism studies, Archetti (University of Salford, UK) offers a new framework to explain ways “in which terrorism is socially constructed through communication.” Her book includes four areas of inquiry: (1) the role of communication, “more or less mediated by technologies,” in mobilizing terrorist groups in geographic and virtual contexts; (2) multidisciplinary perspectives on the relationship between terrorism and communication; (3) analysis of perceptions and stories that explain the way social actors mobilize and pursue political change; and (4) an understanding of the ways social networks affect scholarship and the need for greater self-awareness by researchers in the field.

G. R. Berridge, “A Weak Diplomatic Hybrid: U.S. Special Mission Benghazi, 2011-12,” January 2013. Berridge (Emeritus Professor, University of Leicester) provides a useful analysis of the history and confused character of the US Special Mission in Benghazi, reasons its “non-status” led to bureaucratic consequences that created security vulnerabilities, and insights into implications for diplomacy. His paper examines US Ambassador Chris Stevens’ role as an expeditionary diplomat and findings of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board. Berridge concludes that “diplomatic hybrids” will become a main feature of expeditionary diplomacy. Accordingly, it would be well to abandon the category of “temporary residential facility.” It sends the wrong signals to local populations and foreign ministries in both sending and receiving countries.

Edward Comer, “Digital Engagement: America’s Use (and Misuse) of Marshall McLuhan,” New Political Science, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2013, 1-18. Comer (University of Western Ontario) looks at the “use and misuse” of McLuhan’s “global village” and “the medium is the message” aphorism in the context of the Obama administration’s digital engagement and internet freedom initiatives. He argues that US use of digital technologies and strategies intended to “empower people and further inter-cultural understanding through dialogue” are dubious and “dangerously misguided.” He concludes that despite ambiguities in McLuhan’s work, it provides a useful foundation for analyzing assumptions in American policies.

Ian Hall and Frank Smith, “The Struggle for Soft Power in Asia: Public Diplomacy and Regional Competition.” Asian Security, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2013, 1-18. In this comparative analysis of investment by Asian states in public diplomacy, Hall and Smith (The Australian National University) use a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence to suggest it has had “little or no positive effect on foreign public opinion.” Continued investment in public diplomacy absent evidence of effectiveness, they argue, turns on policymakers’ beliefs that “it is a consequential instrument of statecraft” and “an appropriate way to conduct diplomatic affairs.” They conclude public diplomacy in Asia’s competitive relationships “may deepen mistrust and increase the potential for hard-power conflict in the region.”

Jeffrey R. Halverson, Searching for a King: Muslim Nonviolence and the Future of Islam, (Potomac Books, 2012). Halverson (Arizona State University) explores narratives of nonviolence in the lives of five Muslims: Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Pashtun), Badshah Kahn (Syria), Mahmoud Muhammad Taha (Sudan), Muhammad ibn Mahdi al-Shirazi (Iraq), and Wahiduddin Khan (India). His book discusses themes of nonviolence in religion and society with extended inquiry into the possibilities for complementary approaches to microfinancing and women’s education programs. (Courtesy of Steve Corman)

Justin Hart, The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1936-1953, Oxford University Press, 2012. Drawing extensively on government archives and the private papers of US officials, Hart (Texas Tech University) provides an account of the origins of American public diplomacy from the Buenos Aires Conference in 1936 to the creation of the US Information Agency in 1953. He places his narrative in the context of evolving foreign policy issues and the varying agendas and conceptual approaches of key players in the development of public diplomacy as an organized instrument of US statecraft. Hart’s book is particularly useful in its examination of the numerous tensions surrounding what was perceived by many as a “radical departure” in the conduct of foreign relations.

Falk Hartig, “Panda Diplomacy: The Cutest Part of China’s Public Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 8 (2013) 49-78. Hartig (Queensland University of Technology) explores the history and practice of panda diplomacy as a sub-set of a larger category of using animals as gifts in public diplomacy. His article focuses on the characteristics and objectives of China’s use of panda diplomacy in Canada, France, Taiwan, the Soviet Union and the United States.

Craig Hayden, “Envisioning a Multidisciplinary Research Agenda for Public Diplomacy,” e-International Relations, January 11, 2013. Hayden (American University) makes an informed case that larger issues underlying disparate public diplomacy concepts, goals, and modes of practice provide an array of research opportunities for students of international studies, communications, and other disciplines. His essay identifies challenges in public diplomacy research and singles out three broad areas of inquiry with particular merit: media studies and communication, diplomatic institutions, and transnational politics. “Public diplomacy as a field of study does not require a rigid theoretical template to flourish,” Hayden concludes, “but rather a broader audience for its relevance to pressing questions that scholars continue to grapple with at the borders of communication, international politics, and culture.”

Adam Hug, ed., Europe and the World: Can EU Foreign Policy Make an Impact? The Foreign Policy Centre, 2013. Scholars and practitioners look at how Europe is seen on the world stage, the effectiveness and organizational challenges facing the EU’s External Action Service (EEAS), the UK’s difficult relations with Europe, and other issues in EU diplomacy. The essay by Josef Batora (Comenius University) usefully analyzes the EEAS, not as a classic diplomatic service, but rather as an “organization spanning different fields and recombining external resources in innovative ways.” He argues that despite early difficulties, the EEAS “could soon set the standard.” The study includes contributions by Thiago de Arago (Foreign Policy Centre), William Gumede (Foreign Policy Centre), Jacqueline Hale (Open Society Foundation), Richard Howitt MEP, Stefan Lehne (Carnegie Europe), Simon Lightfoot and Balazs Szent-Ivanyi (University of Leeds), Anand Menon (Kings College London), Rt. Hon. Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG, QC, MP, Edward Macmillian-Scott MEP, John Peterson (University of Edinburgh), Neil Winn (University of Leeds), and Rt. Hon. Douglas Alexander MP (Shadow Foreign Secretary).

“Inspection of the Broadcasting Board of Governors,” Office of the Inspector General, US Department of State, ISP-IB-13-07, January 2013. In a 23-page report, State Department inspectors assess and make recommendations relating to the legislative mandate, structure, and activities of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the independent Federal agency that oversees US Government civilian international broadcasting. They find the Board “is failing in its mandated duties” due to “a flawed legislative structure and acute internal dissension,” which render “its deliberative process ineffectual.” Recommendations include implementing a “chief executive officer position” and new policies on Board membership and activities.

Jane C. Loeffler, “Beyond the Fortress Embassy,” The Foreign Service Journal, December 2012, 20-27. Loeffler (architectural historian and author of The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America’s Embassies, updated 2010) provides a critique of the remote and hardened US embassies built following the Inman Panel’s report on the Beirut Embassy and Marine barracks bombings in the 1980s and the “Standard Embassy Design” one-size-fits-all approach adopted by the State Department after 9/11. Look-alike fortress embassies project a negative image, isolate diplomats, and impair diplomacy. Loeffler hails the State Department’s recent turn to a “Design Excellence” initiative in the construction of embassies and consulates that are “maximally safe, secure, functional, and attractive.”

Emily T. Metzgar, Considering the “Illogical Patchwork”: The Broadcasting Board of Governors and U.S. International Broadcasting, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paper 1, 2013. Metzgar (Indiana University) examines the role of US international broadcasting and issues relating to its leadership, organizational challenges, performance, and future. She concludes that difficulties in its management structure, relationships with Congress, and production of journalistic content “require meaningful action…sooner rather than later.”

Evgeny Morozov, “Not By Memes Alone: Why Social Movements Should Pay Less Attention to the Internet,” The New Republic, February 11, 2013, 47-52. In this review of Steven Johnson’s book, Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age,Morozov (a New Republic contributing editor) argues against the “Internet-centrism” of such thinkers as Johnson, Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody) and Yochai Benkler (Berkman Center for Internet and Society). Morozov makes a case for the role of hierarchies and centralizing strategies in the “long, slow, and painful” process of political reform. “Ideas on their own do not change the world,” he observes, “ideas that are coupled with smart institutions might. ‘Not by memes alone’ would be an apt slogan for any contemporary movement.”

Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, (Public Affairs, 2013). In his earlier book,The Net Delusion, Morozov discussed the resilience of many authoritarian regimes and challenged “the means, not the ends, of the ‘Internet freedom agenda.'” His new book questions both the means and ends of Internet-centric strategies that promote “efficiency, transparency, certitude, and perfection” by seeking to eliminate “friction, opacity, ambiguity, and imperfection.” The latter are necessary to human freedom, he argues, and attempts “to root them out will root out that freedom as well.”

“Social Networking Popular Across the Globe: Arab Publics Most Likely to Express Political Views Online,” Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, December, 12, 2012. Pew’s 21-nation survey documents social networking’s rapid global spread, the “nearly ubiquitous” use of cellphones, and the popularity of these technologies among the young and well-educated. “Expressing opinions about politics, community issues and religion is particularly common in the Arab world.” Globally, pop culture and sports are popular. Fewer comment on their religious opinions.

“Sports Diplomacy,” Public Diplomacy Magazine, Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at the University of Southern California, Winter 2012. This issue of PD Magazineincludes the following:

— Stuart Murray (Bond University), “Moving Beyond the Ping Pong Table: Sports Diplomacy in the Modern Diplomatic Environment”

— Rook Campbell (University of Southern California), “Specifying the Global Character of Sports Authority”

— John Nauright (George Mason University), “Selling Nations to the World Through Sports: Mega Events and Nation Branding as Global Diplomacy”

— Andreia Soares e Castro (Technical University of Lisbon), “2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games: Brazil’s Strategy ‘To Win Hearts and Minds’ Through Football”

— Guo Qing (Chengdu Sport University) et al., “A Study on Chinese National Image Under the Background of Beijing Olympic Games”

— Lee Satterfield (US Department of State), “Smart Power: Using Sports Diplomacy to Build a Global Network to Empower Women and Girls”

— “The Pacific Century: An Interview with Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Tara Sonenshine”

Deborah Lee Trent, American Diaspora Diplomacy: U.S. Foreign Policy and Lebanese Americans, Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael,’ Discussion Paper in Diplomacy, No. 125, November 2012. Trent examines the US government’s diaspora diplomacy with Lebanese Americans, its relevance to US policies toward Lebanon, and two key challenges to US credibility among Lebanese and America’s Lebanese diaspora: “(1) lack of Arab-Israeli peace; and (2) lack of inclusive engagement with all of Lebanese society.” Her case study argues the potential of collaborative and trans-sectarian diaspora diplomacy for practitioners seeking to strengthen the credibility of US policies. Her paper adds to the growing academic literature on diaspora diplomacy.

US Government Accountability Office, Broadcasting Board of Governors: Additional Steps Needed to Address Overlap in International Broadcasting, GAO-13-172, January 2013. In this recent report, one of many on US international broadcasting, GAO examines the extent to which US language broadcasts overlap with each other and with language broadcasts by other international broadcasters. It found 23 instances of overlap involving 43 of 69 language services. GAO recommends (1) systematic annual review of the cost and impact of internal overlap among the services, and (2) systematic annual consideration of better ways to increase impact due to similar or complementary activities of US commercial broadcasters and other government broadcasters.

Matthew Wallin, The Challenges of the Internet and Social Media in Public Diplomacy, Perspective, American Security Project, February 2013. Wallin, a Senior Policy Analyst at ASP, takes a critical look at difficulties and possibilities facing public diplomacy practitioners in their uses of social media. Key judgments in his thoughtful overview: (1) Practitioners often do not fully appreciate the limitations of online tools. (2) Effective use of social media platforms is time and labor intensive. (3) Engagement through the internet and social media works best in association with real-world diplomacy. (4) Metrics should measure effect and influence as well as quantitative indicators of use. (5) Traditional radio and television “broadcast” mediums have considerable potential to be used interactively.

Ethan Watters, “We Aren’t the World,” Pacific Standard Magazine, February 25, 2013. Watters (author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche) discusses field research by UCLA anthropologist and MacArthur Foundation grant recipient Joe Henrich among indigenous people in Machiguenga, Peru and 14 other societies from Tanzania to Indonesia. Henrich’s behavioral experiment used a game comparable to “the prisoner’s dilemma” to investigate whether isolated cultures “shared with the West the same basic instinct for fairness” and the “same evolved rational and psychological hardwiring.” His research challenges fundamental assumptions that humans share the same cognitive machinery and conventional ideas about cultural diversity and the way we think about ourselves and others. (Courtesy of Vivian Walker.)

Recent Blogs of interest

Robert Albro, “Collaborative/Creative Diplomacy/Partnerships,” The CPD Blog, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California, January 24, 2013.

Andrew F. Cooper, et al., “Does Diplomacy Need Star Power” [Celebrity Diplomacy], Room for Debate blog, The New York Times,March 17, 2013.

Jeanette Gaida, “The Use of Social Media in Public Diplomacy: Scanning e-diplomacy by Embassies in Washington, DC,” Take Five Blog, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University, February 19, 2013.

Susan Gigli, “What is ‘Disruptive Metrics'”? Disruptive Metrics Blog, InterMedia, March 20, 2013.

Kim Elliott, “Repeal of Smith-Mundt Domestic Dissemination is Good Unless it Goes Over to the Dark Side,” January 3, 2013; “With Repeal of the Smith-Mundt Domestic Dissemination Ban. De Jure Catches Up with De Facto,” January 11, 2013, Kim Andrew Elliott’s International Broadcasting Blog.

Craig Hayden, “Uncovering Logics of Technology in U.S. Public Diplomacy,” The CPD Blog, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California, February 11, 2013.

Lindsey Horan, “Analyzing ‘Cultural Diplomacy in Africa’ Through the IR Positioning Spectrum,” Take Five Blog, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University, March 20, 2013.

Kate Shriver, “Harlem Shake: Arab Spring Protest Edition,” Take Five Blog, Institution for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, March 25 2013.

R.S. Zarhana, “Culture Posts: Four Fallacies of Network Public Diplomacy,” The CPD Blog, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California, March 20, 2013.

Gem from the Past

W. Russell Neuman, The Future of the Mass Audience, (Cambridge University Press, 1991). More than two decades ago, before the worldwide web and internet browsers and well before Facebook and Twitter, Russ Neuman (University of Michigan) explored ways in which new electronic media and personal computers would lead to a “demassification” of the mass audience. Published just before he became director of the Edward R. Murrow Center at the Fletcher School, his book provided an early look at audience fragmentation, narrowcast media, the psychology of media use, and the interplay between technology and political culture. Although events have challenged some of his forecasts that economics of scale would “put natural constraints on special-interest, small-audience programming,” his book nevertheless was ahead of its time and a gem from the past.