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2018 WR Annual Lecture: Bruce Wharton

Public Diplomacy in an Era of Truth Decay: Constructive Responses

Tara Sonenshine, Amb. Bruce Wharton, Thomas Miller and IPDGC Director Janet Steele.

The Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication’s keynote speaker this year is Ambassador Bruce Wharton, who will be presented his lecture on “Public Diplomacy in an Era of Truth Decay: Constructive Responses.”

Amb. D. Bruce Wharton (ret.) served as an officer in the Foreign Service of the United States from 1985 to 2017. His career included assignments in Latin America, Africa, and here in Washington, D.C., and short-term work in Europe and Asia. In his last assignment, he was the acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. In this role, he provided global strategic leadership for all Department of State public diplomacy and public affairs engagement and oversaw the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs, International Information Programs, Public Affairs and the Global Engagement Center.

 

(Excerpt from GW School of Media and Public Affairs event announcement.)
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Issue #89

Caitlin Byrne, “Introduction for the Special Issue: Recasting Soft Power for the Indo-Pacific,” Politics & Policy, Vol. 45, No. 5, October 2017, 684-705.  Byrne (Griffith University), guest editor of this P&P issue, examines enduring features, themes, and complexities that shape soft power and “its associated public diplomacy practice” in the Indian Ocean-Asia Pacific (Indo-Pacific) region.  Her essay calls for better understanding of the region as a geographic concept and urges increased attention to how its soft power and public diplomacy can contribute to a discourse dominated by European and American concepts and experiences.  Byrne profiles analytical issues and contrasting approaches of contributing scholars.
— Kejin Zhao (Tsinghua University), “China’s Public Diplomacy for International Public Goods”
— Amit Singh (University of Delhi) and Amit Sarwal (Deakin University), “Paraspara, Encounters, and Confluences: India’s Soft Power Objective in the Indo-Pacific Region”
— Ellen Huijgh (University of Antwerp), “Indonesia’s ‘Intermestic’ Public Diplomacy: Features and Future”
— César Villanueva Rivas (Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City), “Mexico’s Public Diplomacy Approach to the Indo-Pacific: A Thin Soft Power”
— Natalie Laifer and Nicholas Kitchen (London School of Economics and Political Science), “Making Soft Power Work: Theory and Practice in Australia’s International Education Policy”
— Stuart Murray (Bond University), “Sport’s Diplomacy in the Australian Context: Theory Into Strategy”
— Robert G. Patman and Lloyd S. Davis (University of Otago), “Science Diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific Region: A Mixed but Promising Experience”
— Efe Sevin (Reinhardt University, Georgia), “A Multilayered Approach to Public Diplomacy Evaluation: Pathways of Connection”
Juan Pablo Cardenal, Jacek Kucharczyk, Grigorij Mesežnikov, and Gabriela Pleschová, “Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Influence,” National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Washington, DC, December 2017.  In this report, NED (a nonprofit foundation funded by Congress) calls for a change in our thinking and vocabulary to take into account subversive “sharp power” instruments used by authoritarian countries to do real damage to democracies.  It defines sharp power as the asymmetrical ability of a country to penetrate and manipulate information environments in targeted democracies abroad while raising barriers to external political and cultural influences at home. (See also The Economist’s article on China annotated below.)  Sharp power is not openly coercive (hard power); nor is it the ability to attract and co-opt (soft power).  The case studies in this 156-page report examine efforts by China and Russia to wield sharp power, in addition to soft power and public diplomacy, in attempts to influence political outcomes and public opinion in four countries: Argentina, Peru, Poland, and Slovakia.  The authors are members of the Network of Democracy Research Institute.  NED Vice President Christopher Walker and senior staffer Jessica Ludwig provide a conceptual overview in their introduction, “From ‘Soft Power’ to ‘Sharp Power.’”  See also, Christopher Walker and Jessica Ludwig, “The Meaning of Sharp Power: How Authoritarian States Project Influence,” Foreign Affairs, Snapshot, November 16, 2017.
“How China’s ‘Sharp Power’ Is Muting Criticism Abroad And Stealthily Trying To Shape Public Opinion In Its Favor,” The Economist, December 16, 2017, 20-22.  This Economist cover story assesses China’s “sharp power” in the context of the National Endowment for Democracy’s meaning of the term.  Sharp power “works by manipulation and pressure.”  As described by Anne-Marie Brady (University of Canterbury, New Zealand) it is a “new global battle” to “guide, buy or coerce political influence.”  (Sharp power differs from Joseph Nye’s (Harvard University) term “smart power,” which he uses to describe the combined uses of hard and soft power.)  In the Economist’s essay, China’s sharp power has three characteristics.  It is pervasive, meaning it is targeted at foreign societies, not just China’s diaspora.  It breeds self-censorship, e.g., academic publishers that censor databases of academic articles and film festivals that avoid screenings critical of China.  It masks Chinese government ties through third parties.  Countries targeted by China’s sharp power face a dilemma, the essay concludes, over-reaction or under-estimating the threat.
Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri, “The Making of an Effective Diplomat: A Global View,” The Foreign Service Journal, December 2017, 22-29.  Hutchings and Suri (University of Texas, Austin) summarize key judgments in their comparative study of the recruitment, training, organization, and promotion of diplomats in eight countries: Brazil, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, India, Russia, and Turkey.  Their FSJ article profiles case studies, discusses similarities and differences, and identifies “best practices” relevant to reform in the US Foreign Service.  The article is based on the project they directed, in collaboration with 15 graduate student research teams organized by country, at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.  The detailed 194-page report is available online.  See Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri, eds., “Developing Diplomats: Comparing Form and Culture Across Diplomatic Services,” University of Texas, Austin, Policy Project Research Report 194, May 2017.
Michael Ignatieff, The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World, (Harvard University Press, 2017).  Ignatieff (Central European University, Budapest) enhances our understanding of diplomacy’s global context with reflections on “moral globalization,” not as convergence into a single modernity, but as a “site of struggle.”  Can multinational corporations and NGO advocates serve as the new entrepreneurs of moral globalization?  Will a particular civilizational model (American, Chinese, or some rival’s) define political and moral order in the 21st century?  Ignatieff is less concerned here with these questions as often framed in universal terms by global elites.  He also devotes minimal attention to generalities of moral reasoning in secular vocabularies (human rights, international humanitarian law, and environmentalism) and in religious vocabularies of global solidarity.  Rather he seeks to understand how ordinary virtues – trust, tolerance, forgiveness, reconciliation, and resilience – emerge as unthinking guides to practice in the daily lives of individuals.  How can ordinary virtues and good institutions work in difficult local circumstances?  He explores this reasoning in case studies: diverse communities in Jackson Heights, New York; moral operating systems of Los Angeles as a global city; order, corruption, and public trust in Rio de Janeiro; war and reconciliation in Bosnia; the politics of moral narrative in Myanmar; resilience and the unimaginable in Fukushima; and whether virtue after apartheid will end in tyranny’s return in South Africa.
Marvin Kalb, The Year I Was Peter the Great: 1956 Khrushchev, Stalin’s Ghost, and a Young American in Russia, (Brookings Institution Press, 2017).  Acclaimed journalist Marvin Kalb in his first professional memoir tells stories of his experiences as a young man in the Soviet Union in 1956.  Fluent in Russian, he went to Moscow to finish research for his Harvard PhD and serve as a diplomatic attaché assigned to translator / interpreter duties in the US embassy.  In page after page of compelling writing, Kalb tells of occasional encounters with Khrushchev (who nicknamed him Peter the Great after a conversation on the relative merits of American and Lithuanian basketball players; you’ll have to read the book), travels throughout the country listening to Soviet citizens during the thaw of 1956, US Ambassador Charles Bohlen’s diplomacy, Edward R. Murrow’s role in his decision to become a journalist, and much more.  It’s a great read at many levels, particularly its lessons for diplomats on listening, cross-cultural communication, spending time with ordinary people outside embassies, and learning to take political risks.
National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, Washington, DC, December 2017.  President Trump’s national security strategy, like its predecessors, is a list of threats and capabilities wrapped in generalities.  It is not an analysis of costs, risks, and benefits or a guide to spending and action priorities.  Global warming is not mentioned as a threat.  Military, intelligence, and economic tools of statecraft dominate.  It makes brief reference to diplomats as a “forward deployed political capability” that builds “positive networks of relationships with partners,” “sustains dialogue,” “fosters areas of cooperation with competitors,” and “implements solutions to conflicts.”  In vivid contrast to the Trump administration’s actual treatment of the State Department’s budget and people, it states, “We must upgrade our diplomatic capabilities to compete in the current environment and to embrace a competitive mindset.”  Diplomats must “facilitate the cultural, educational, and people-to-people exchanges that create the networks of current and future political, civil society, and educational leaders who will extend a free and prosperous world.”  Otherwise no mention is made of public affairs, democratization, international broadcasting, or other tools in diplomacy’s public dimension.  The strategy does not use the terms “public diplomacy” or “strategic communication.”
Office of the Historian, US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917–1972, Volume VI, Public Diplomacy, 1961–1963, released online, December 5, 2017.  In this volume, State Department historians Kristin L. Ahlberg and Charles V. Hawley have compiled 153 documents that illuminate US public diplomacy during the John F. Kennedy administration.  As described in the preface, they set public diplomacy in the context of “the Bay of Pigs invasion, the construction of the Berlin Wall, Laos, Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis” as well as “attempts to develop a national cultural policy, the importance of overseas polling, and the Department of State’s educational exchange activities.”  The easily searched website contains lists of published and unpublished sources, abbreviations and terms, and names of persons and their institutional affiliations.  By making its historical records available worldwide in this and earlier online volumes on public diplomacy, State making is making a significant contribution to the research of scholars and practitioners.
Brian Southwell, Emily A. Thorson, and Laura Sheble, eds., Misinformation and Mass Audiences, (University of Texas Press, 2018).  Southwell (University of North Carolina), Thorson (Syracuse University) and Sheble (University of North Carolina) have compiled sixteen scholarly essays on the phenomenon of “deliberately promoted and accidentally shared” misinformation.  Drawing on “evidence and ideas from communication research, public health, psychology, political science, environmental studies, information science and other literatures,” they “explore what constitutes misinformation, how it spreads, and how best to counter it.”
Bruce Stokes, “US Adults Worry About Global Disregard For Their Nation,” December 12, 2017, YaleGlobal Online.  Stokes (Pew Research Center) examines reasons for a growing belief by Americans that the United States is less respected abroad since the election of President Trump.  He finds substantial increases in concern about the US image among both Republicans and Democrats.  His article draws on Pew’s 37-nation survey in 2017, “U.S. Image Suffers as Publics Around World Question Trump’s Leadership,” which found a global median of 49% had a favorable opinion of the United States, a decline from 64% at the end of the Obama administration.  Resurgent doubts, Stokes argues, can be attributed in part to lack of confidence in Trump and opposition to his policies on such issues as climate change, free trade and immigration.
Atushi Tago, “Public Diplomacy and Foreign Policy,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, Online publication, July 2017.  Tago (Kobe University) provides a cruising altitude overview of approaches to the study and practice of public diplomacy.  His essay begins with a look at old and new definitions.  He continues with discussions of nation branding, so-called public diplomacy 2.0, and computerized qualitative text analysis studies.  Tago briefly summarizes research on policies and issues (Israel’s military operations against Hamas in Gaza, the US HIV/AIDs campaign PEPFAR, and Chinese and Japanese aircraft deployed in the East China Sea).  He concludes with support for a “new public diplomacy” framework that illuminates roles for civil society actors and the promise of empirical research methods.
Daya Kishan Thussu, Hugo de Burgh and Anbin Shi, China’s Media Go Global (Routledge, 2017).  Thussu, de Burgh (University of Westminster, UK), and Shi (Tsinghua University, China) have compiled a diverse collection of essays by leading Chinese and Western journalism and communications scholars on China’s media globalization.  Areas of analytical focus include the global expansion of CCTV and China Radio International, soft power and the strategic context for China’s media policies, the effectiveness of China’s cultural centers in China’s public diplomacy, foreign correspondents in China, China’s financial media, its social media, and Chinese media in Africa and Southeast Asia.
US Department of State, Office of Inspector General, “Inspection of Embassy Beijing and Constituent Posts, China,” ISP-1-18-04, December 2017.  In the public diplomacy section of their report, State’s Inspectors found overall that embassy officers use a full range of tools and programs, and manage resources effectively, despite Chinese-government barriers to public engagement.  Inspectors issued positive findings on strategic planning, financial management, alumni outreach, English language programs, and social media engagement, and five America Spaces in China.  On the downside, Inspectors found the American Cultural Center to be “largely ineffective” and called for a suspension of new funding pending a formal evaluation of its programs.
US Government Accountability Office, Democracy Assistance, GAO-18-136, December 2017.  Combined annual expenditures for US democracy promotion activities total about $2 billion per year.  GAO’s report evaluates and makes recommendations to improve funding accountability for democracy assistance activities conducted by the US Agency for International Development, Department of State, and National Endowment for Democracy.  The report is useful for its detailed information on funding for “activities related to rule of law and human rights, good governance, political competition and consensus-building, and civil society” through for-profit and nonprofit partner organizations.
Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A World History, (Basic Books, 2017).  Westad (Harvard University) offers a view of the Cold War that is radically different from traditional accounts of conflict between two superpowers after World War II.  For Westad, the Cold War “as an ideological conflict and as an international system” is a century long phenomenon that began with “the global transformations of the late nineteenth century and was buried as a result of tremendously rapid changes a hundred years later.”  Its significance can be understood in profound changes in post-colonial Africa, Asia, and Latin America; the rise of US global hegemony; defeat of the Leninist Left; the political and social revolutions of the Chinese Communist party; a democratic consensus that became institutionalized in the European Union; the threat of nuclear destruction; and the rivalries in two world wars and global conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s.  Westad’s world history is sweeping, different, and provocative.  His Cold War did not influence everything, but it “did influence most things because of the centrality of its ideologies and the intensity of its adherents.”
William Lafi Youmans, An Unlikely Audience: Al Jazeera’s Struggle in America, (Oxford University Press, 2017).  Youmans (George Washington University) has written a definitive account of successes and failures in Al Jazeera’s attempt to compete in US media markets.  More than a narrative of what happened, his book explores imaginative arguments relating to the central role of cities as “media ports of entry” for global media – drawing on his case studies of Al Jazeera’s strategies in Washington DC, New York, and San Francisco.  Youmans’ argument challenges “methodological nationalism” in cross cultural communication.  His book is a strong contribution to the literature on the interaction of “universalizing and particularizing” tendencies of global and local.  And he adds considerably to our understanding of the growing importance of cities as interdependent actors and interdependent systems in politics, economics, and diplomacy.  His research draws extensively on numerous interviews with Al Jazeera’s employees and his command of theoretical literature in media and communications studies.
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
Nick Anderson, “Report Finds Fewer New International Students on US College Campuses,” November 13, 2017, The Washington Post.
Mark L. Asquino, “Two Tragedies: Benghazi and Niger,” January 2, 2018, Take Five Blog, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University.
Devlin Barrett and David Filipov, “RT Agrees to Register as an Agent of the Russian Government,” November 9, 2017, The Washington Post; Andrew Roth, “Russian Legislators Pass Law Targeting International Media as ‘Foreign Agents,’” November 15, 2017, The Washington Post.
Michael Birnbaum and Greg Jaffe, “Frustrated Foreign Leaders Bypass Washington In Search of Blue State Allies,” November 18, 2017, The Washington Post.
Richard Boucher, “Diplomacy: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Just Doesn’t Get It,” November 22, 2017, The Cipher Brief.
Nicholas Burns and Ryan C. Crocker, “Dismantling the Foreign Service,” November 27, 2017, The New York Times.
“Inspector General Statement on Broadcasting Board of Governors’ Major Management and Performance Challenges,” November 2017, Office of Inspector General, US Department of State & Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Joe Johnson, “A New Challenge for Public Diplomacy,” December 26, 2017, Public Diplomacy Council.
Alan Heil, “Straight Facts: A World of Many Voices,” December 30, 2017, Public Diplomacy Council.
Nicholas Kralev, “The State Department’s Loss is Corporate America’s Gain,” January 2, 2018, Huffington Post.
Billy Perrigo, “How the U.S. Used Jazz as a Cold War Secret Weapon,” December 22, 2017, TIME.com.
Adam Powell, “Media Blackout of U.S. Public Diplomacy – and Much of Diplomatic Work,” (Adapted from remarks at Broadcasting Board of Governors meeting, November 15, 2017), USC Annenberg Center on Leadership and Public Policy.
Dan Robinson, “Part I: Trump’s Big Fail (So Far) at the BBG/VOA,” November 17, 2017; “Part II: Trump’s Big Fail (So Far) at the BBG/VOA,” November 20, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Josh Rogin, “China’s Foreign Influence Operations Are Causing Alarm in Washington,” December 10, 2017, The Washington Post.
Stephanie Saul, “As Flow of Foreign Students Wanes, U.S. Universities Feel the Sting,” January 2, 2018, The New York Times.
Rick Stengel, “What Hillary Knew About Putin’s Propaganda Machine,” November 15, 2017, Politico.
Vivian Walker, “Strategic Communication: Influencing Public Perception,” December 5, 2017, Interview by the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies.
Matthew Wallin, “US Public Diplomacy Strategy for 2018,” December 18, 2017, American Security Project.
Gem From The Past
Thomas Sorenson, The Word War: The Story of American Propaganda, with a forward by Robert F. Kennedy, (Harper and Row Publishers, 1968).  The 2018 New Year signals another historical benchmark in US public diplomacy.  Fifty years ago, Congress passed PL 90-494 (the Pell-Hays Bill).  It established a Foreign Service Information Officer (FSIO) corps in USIA with the same rights, salary scale and retirement benefits as State Department Foreign Service Officers (FSOs), albeit the “I” in FSIO signaled functional and pecking order differences.  1968 was also the year veteran USIA field officer Tom Sorenson published his vivid coming of age description of the Agency’s field officers as a community of practice.  Since 1951, Sorenson had served in Beirut, Baghdad, Cairo, and Washington.  A former journalist and well-connected brother of John F. Kennedy’s speechwriter Ted Sorenson, he was appointed by Edward R. Murrow as the Agency’s Deputy Director (Policy and Plans).  The Word War, unusually in the secondary literature of the day, captured what public diplomacy professionals did overseas.
“Modern diplomacy is no longer conducted exclusively in hushed, high-ceilinged chanceries.  It also takes place in the press, in the marketplace, and in the street, in a daily, unremitting war of words.  This makes the overseas propagandist as much a diplomat, and sometimes as important a diplomat, as the embassy’s Political or Economic Officer.
“The first-rate American propagandist usually speaks the language of those he is seeking to persuade, and has a reasonable grasp of their history, aspirations, prejudices, motivations, and thought processes.  He also is knowledgeable about the United States and its people, history, culture and policies.  He understands the media of communication which are the tools of his trade, and can skillfully engage in one or more of the following: writing a news story, laying out a pamphlet, administering an exchange of persons program, making a speech, preparing a radio or film script, operating a public library, or designing an exhibit.  He is willing to put up with monsoons, insects, and inadequate schooling for his children.  He is willing to live on a government salary and away from the familiarity and security of his own country, amidst a different people of a different culture – and sometimes amidst hostility.
“The successful PAO is equally effective as an administrator, counselor, and communicator.  He must plan a program, persuade his ambassador and Washington of its validity, and then direct his staff in carrying it out.  He must counsel the senior embassy staff on the propaganda implications of what they were doing.  He must be able to entertain gracefully and purposefully, for persuasion is as often effected over a drink as over a desk (pp. 56-57).”
Sorenson wrote with the flair of the journalist he had set out to be.  His prose reflected the gender habits of his day.  He was comfortable with the rhetoric of “propaganda” and “war of ideas.”  His book is a remarkable early story of the rise of “an integral part of modern diplomacy.”
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Issue #88

Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie, “The Future of Truth and Misinformation Online,” Pew Research Center, Internet & Technology, October 19, 2017. Anderson (Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center) and Rainie (Pew) posed the following question to 1,116 internet and technology experts.  Will trusted methods emerge to block false narratives and allow accurate information to prevail in the online information environment during the next 10 years?  Or will the quality and truth of online information continue to deteriorate?  The study finds consensus that “the current environment allows ‘fake news’ and weaponized narratives to flourish.”  But respondents are evenly divided on the future.  51% believe the situation will not improve; 49% forecast improvement.  The report summarizes their wide diversity of views on strategies, the impact of new technologies, and the influence of social divisions and human nature.  See also “Tech Experts Split on Whether People and Technology Can Conquer Misinformation Online,” October 19, 2017.
Corneliu Bjola, “Trends and Counter-trends in Digital Diplomacy,” Working Paper, Project ‘Diplomacy in the 21st Century,’ No. 18, September 2017.  Bjola (University of Oxford) considers a fundamental challenge facing foreign ministries.  Will they continue to see trends in technological acceleration as an opportunity for adaptation and “getting it right?”  Or will counter-trends that technologies unleash (emotional contagion, algorithmic determinism, and strategic entropy) cause foreign ministries to put the brakes on integration of digital technologies in diplomacy?  His paper identifies key issues for diplomacy: (1) a cognitive shift away from following current trends to anticipating new trends; (2) an operational change that replaces a privileged role for foreign ministries with emphasis on a “digital diplomatic system” that features multiple actor (governance and civil society) “networks of networks” in national diplomatic systems; (3) using the concept of “digital emotional intelligence” in navigating fact-based reasoning and amplification of emotional content online; (4) understanding and dealing with negative consequences of artificial intelligence; and (5) understanding and managing “how to balance and prioritize digital outputs vs. policy outcomes.”
“City Diplomacy,” Public Diplomacy Magazine, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Issue 18, Summer/Fall, 2017.  Scholars and practitioners in this timely edition of PD Magazine examine city diplomacy, an increasingly important category of diplomatic study and practice attributed to urbanization, the rise of populism, the growth and power of megacities, and their capacity to wield diplomacy on critical global issues more effectively than state-based actors. Their articles address a variety of topics: city networks, countering violent extremism, culture, sports, climate, immigration, city branding, and governance.  Particularly useful is the overview essay on “City Diplomacy in the Age of Brexit and Trump” by Benjamin Leffel (University of California Irvine) and diplomacy and urban theory scholar Michele Acuto (University College London) who has written extensively on the subject.  Also included is Nicholas Cull’s thoughtful memorial tribute to the late Ben Barber, his life, scholarship, and contributions to the work of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Atlantic Council, “State Department Reform Report,” August 2017.  Think tank and advisory panel reports on structures and process have been a standard approach to improving performance in US diplomacy for decades.  This 50-page report, signed by ten longtime State Department professionals, led by Ambassadors Chester A. Crocker, David C. Miller, and Thomas Pickering, continues the tradition.  This is an “insiders” report.  It’s about trying to make the State Department more efficient as a hierarchical organization while preserving its control, and that of the Foreign Service, as the primary actor in US diplomacy and foreign affairs.  One key recommendation: make foreign assistance and public diplomacy “stand-alone” agencies with separate budgets, personnel, and responsibilities reporting to the Secretary of State.  One looks in vain in this report for the implications for foreign ministries of power diffusion, powerful sub-state and non-state actors, networks, digital technologies, city diplomacy, globalization, the huge complexity of today’s “strategic buffet,” and any serious approach to whole of government diplomacy.  See Karen DeYoung, “Report Recommends Consolidating State Dept. Foreign Aid Programs under US State Dept.,” September 7, 2017, The Washington Post; Jared Serbu, “Report Calls for Flatter State Department with Fewer Bureaus,” September 7, 2017, Federal News Radio; “Bipartisan Experts Call for Strengthening US State Department,” September 7, 2017, Voice of America.
Nicholas J. Cull, “A New Beginning? The Obama Administration and U.S. Public Diplomacy,” in Maud Quessard et Maya Kandel, Les États-Unis et la fin de la grande stratégie ? Un bilan de la politique étrangère d’Obama, Études de l’IRSEM, September 2017, 149-169.  Cull (University of Southern California) deploys his historical knowledge, contacts with practitioners, and five core categories of public diplomacy analysis (listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchange diplomacy, and international broadcasting) in this critique of US public diplomacy during the Obama administration.  His central theme: despite initial promise, the administration “slipped into bad habits which would severely limit its ability to deliver a new beginning.”  Key elements in this trajectory were leadership deficiencies in the White House, State Department, and Broadcasting Board of Governors.  Within this narrative, Cull’s essay identifies some achievements and one area of “impressive success” – partnerships with private sector and civil society actors.  He credits “the professional strength and individual resourcefulness of public diplomats in the field.”  He also notes that US international standing “remained remarkably stable” during Obama’s eight years.  Scholars and practitioners will find plenty to agree with and to debate in Cull’s arguments.  His discussion of “partnership” as an emerging sixth “area of work” is particularly useful in that it raises innovative questions about how contextual drivers of change are reshaping concepts and practice in diplomacy’s public dimension.  (The article, in English, can be found by downloading the full report at the link and scrolling down to page 149.)
Nicholas J. Cull, “Soft Power’s Next Steppe: National Projection at the Astana Expo,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, 2017, 13:269-272.  Cull (University of Southern California) evaluates national pavilions and spaces at Kazakhstan’s recent international expo.  Its theme: “future energy.”  He offers brief descriptions and judgments on their strengths and limitations and usefully frames his essay in the context of “world” and “specialized” expos of the past.  Expos, for Cull, reflect the competitive use of soft power, place branding, and public diplomacy by states.  He awards high marks to Austria, the UK, Japan, and France.  He gives kudos to Kazakhstan for hosting the event and planning for long-term use of the site (reserving judgment on its return on investment).  And credit to the US for its excellent deployment of engaging Russian-language qualified student guides (shades of the Cold War), a film portraying American vitality and diversity as the source of its energy (avoiding the issue of US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord), a popular cardboard Hollywood sign for selfies (in the social media competition), and the “miracle” that the US found resources to “deliver a solid contribution.”
Cory R. Gill and Susan B. Epstein, State Department Special Envoy, Representative and Coordinator Positions: Background and Congressional Actions, Congressional Reference Service (CRS), R44946, September 15, 2017. CRS analysts Gill and Epstein have written a timely study of the State Department’s special, temporary positions.  With gem-like precision, they identify purposes and authorities for a wide variety of special envoys and related positions, arguments for and against their use, issues for lawmakers (and practitioners), and their use in US diplomacy since 1789.  The report contains information on specific positions, current occupants, reporting requirements, compensation, and proposed changes.  Most temporary positions have a bearing on US diplomacy’s public dimension.  One, the “Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center,” created by legislation in 2016, reports to the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.  Concerns about the growth and use of special positions expressed by the American Foreign Service Association, some lawmakers, and many current and former practitioners raise questions.  Which positions should be continued and discontinued?  What is their impact on public policy?  To what extent do they adversely affect the career Foreign Service?  Are some special positions (e.g., the “Coordinator for Cyber Issues” and the “Special Envoy for Climate Change”) essential for dealing with complex “whole of government” issues that exceed the expertise of most career diplomats and capacities of the Department’s bureaus?  The CRS report is an indispensable resource on these issues.
Niall Ferguson, “The False Prophecy of Hyperconnection: How to Survive the Networked Age,” Foreign Affairs, September/October, 68-79.  Ferguson (Hoover Institution, author of the forthcoming The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, From the Freemasons to Facebook) challenges utopian visions of a networked world, as being “at odds with everything we know about how networks work.”  Today’s networks are bigger and faster.  But in other respects they have properties in common with smaller and slower networks that have been ubiquitous in the natural world and social life of humanity.  Using historical examples, Ferguson offers arguments that explore past dominance of hierarchies as networks, the strength of weak ties, network structures as causes of “virality,” networks as complex adaptive systems, innovation and conflict as consequences of networks interacting, and networks as profoundly inegalitarian.
H-Diplo Article Review Forum 721 on ‘Diplomacy and Sport’ in Diplomacy & Statecraft 27:2 (2016): 207-378, published online November 2, 2017.  H-Diplo’s forum begins with “Prologue: Diplomacy and Sport,” the introduction by J. Simon Rofe (University of London) and Heather L. Dichter (Western Michigan University) to their compilation of articles on sport and diplomacy published by Diplomacy & Statecraft in 2016.  The authors, scholars from different disciplines, examine sport and diplomacy as a field of study; its relevance to public diplomacy, soft power, and participatory diplomacy; and a variety of case studies.
In her generally positive review, Jessica M. Chapman (Williams College) highlights efforts to frame conceptual boundaries, multi-directional relations between state actors and sports federations, and issues calling for further research.  Limitations of the collection, she notes, include apparent restrictions of actors to states and sports federations and its relative inattention to the significant role of sport and diplomacy in the decolonizing and post-colonial world.
Paul Sharp’s (University of Minnesota Duluth) close reading of these “original, stimulating” articles is valuable both for his constructive critique of their arguments and his discussion of how they reflect larger issues in diplomacy as “also a relatively new field of inquiry.”  The articles provide ample confirmation that sports diplomacy is increasingly important, he argues; they also demonstrate numerous challenges in analyzing sport and diplomacy separately and in the way they fit together.
Harry W. Kopp, “The State of Dissent in the Foreign Service,” Foreign Service Journal, September 2017, 41-45. Kopp (retired diplomat and author of The Voice of the Foreign Service: A History of the American Foreign Service Association) profiles historical lessons and examines dilemmas (professional and moral) that career diplomats face in making difficult choices at the crossroads of dissent and Foreign Service discipline.  His article opens with a brief survey of the contrasting responses of career diplomats during the McCarthy era, Vietnam, and the Iraq War.  He discusses the State Department’s Dissent Channel, created in 1971, its purpose, frequency of use, and minimal effect on policy.  Two recent dissents, on Syria and the Trump administration’s travel ban, became public through leaks to the press and social media.  Kopp warns that dissent should remain private.  Public dissent erodes trust, undermines the Foreign Service as an institution, and puts professional diplomats in the political arena where they are “ill-equipped to play, and where they will almost surely lose.”
Harry W. Kopp and John K. Naland, Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the U.S. Foreign Service, (Georgetown University Press, 2017, 3rd edition).  Retired US diplomats Kopp and Naland provide a guide to the Foreign Service as an institution and a profession in this updated and revised third edition.  Drawing on their experiences and numerous interviews, they offer insights into what to expect in a Foreign Service career, from the entrance exam to senior assignments.  They discuss work in its five career tracks: political, economic, public diplomacy, consular, and management.  This edition includes new information on relations with other agencies and the US military’s combatant commands, more in-depth analysis of hiring procedures, an examination of the changing nature and demographics of the Foreign Service, and views on the proliferation of political appointments in the Department of State.
Richard LeBaron, “A New Citizen of London Shines on the Other Side of the Thames,” The Foreign Service Journal, September 2017, 57-61.  Ambassador (ret.) LeBaron draws on his experience as former deputy chief of mission in London to discusses challenges in achieving the new US embassy: (1) a fraught site selection process that turned out well (in center city, not out near Heathrow), (2) an architectural design that met strict Bureau of Diplomatic Security guidelines and also created “a welcoming and impressive structure – not Fortress America,” and (3) a building that sets “new standards of sustainability” with systems that conserve power and have the capacity to sell surplus energy to neighbors.  LeBaron anticipates the new space will not satisfy some critics.  He cautions that people who manage security and energy systems will matter as much as the structure.  His role in its construction gives him a vested interest.  Nevertheless, the new US Embassy London is an instructive chapter in the ongoing story of space, access, security, and efficiency in diplomacy’s public dimension.
Stuart Murray and Patrick Blannin, “Diplomacy and the War on Terror,” September 18, 2017, Small Wars Journal.  Murray and Blannin (Bond University, Australia) contend that, although diplomacy has played a vital role in the “war on terror” since the attacks of 9/11, it is now a marginalized instrument and analytical perspective in US national security and foreign policy.  Their paper begins by examining the spread of extremist groups and efforts to counteract them in what promises to be a decades long conflict.  It then constructs a framework that describes and maps diplomatic methods and practices used by state, non-state, and radical actors to achieve political ends.  Their goal is to increase attention to diplomacy in the fight against terrorism, address deficiencies in the academic study of diplomacy, and guide future scholarship.  In discussing traditional state diplomacy, the authors give attention to summit diplomacy, defense diplomacy, secret diplomacy, public diplomacy, and digital diplomacy.  They argue the diplomacy of large numbers of non-governmental organizations is just as dynamic as the diplomacy of states, and they link the two with a deep dive analysis of the study and practice of networked diplomacy.  They also address in persuasive detail the concept that radical actors engage in diplomacy.  Murray and Blannin conclude their thoughtful and challenging analysis with recommendations for theorists and practitioners.  A lengthy series of endnotes provides references to the practitioner literature and recent work of leading diplomacy scholars.
Dina Smeltz, Ivo Daalder, Karl Friedhoff, and Craig Kafura, What Americans Think About America First, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2017.  The Chicago Council’s survey, led by experienced public opinion analyst Dina Smeltz, tested the appeal of President Trump’s slogans and ideas among the American public.  They found that, aside from his core supporters, most Americans continue to endorse an active role in world affairs and maintaining alliances.  A record number say international trade is good for consumers, the economy, and job creation.  The perceived threat from immigration has gone down, and support for citizenship opportunities has gone up.  A majority supports the Paris Climate Agreement.  Overall, they conclude, most Americans favor sustaining policies of engagement typical of US administrations of both political parties since World War II.
U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2017 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy & International Broadcasting, Washington, DC, September 2017.  As is now customary for this bipartisan, Presidential Commission, its 2017 annual report divides into two parts.  A sizeable majority of its 350-pages constitutes a reference guide to objectives, funding levels, and management of public diplomacy activities conducted by the Department of State, US missions abroad, and international broadcasting activities of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).  In rich detail, and with useful cautions on interpreting the data collected by State and the BBG, the Commission provides context, historical comparisons, and analysis of costs per program, country, exchange participants, and other indicators.  Policy analysts, lawmakers, scholars, and practitioners will find it an indispensable resource.
The second part of the report contains the Commission’s recommendations.  Key recommendations call for (1) new “clean slate” legislative authority to consolidate and replace “labyrinthine and antiquated” 20th century legal mandates and reform a sclerotic bureaucracy that inhibits “coordinated, synchronous” State Department responses to new public diplomacy challenges; (2) leadership and training for all practitioners that will enhance strategic planning, calculated risk-taking, continuous learning, and appreciation of learning by mistake; (3) a variety of legal and management changes intended to increase State’s capacity to “conduct industry-standard research and evaluation;” (4) a full strategic review of the scope and organization of more than 75 educational and cultural affairs programs leading to consolidation of similar programs, greater efficiencies, and improved public understanding of their value; and (5) a “blue-sky conversation” on reform of the BBG and ideal structures and functions of US-funded international media.  Overall the Commission seeks sweeping changes in authorities, structures, and practice.  It is uniquely positioned in future reports to illuminate in greater depth reasons, desirable outcomes, and politically viable roadmaps leading to the transformations it seeks.
Vivian S. Walker, The Floating Tree: Crafting Resilient State Narratives in Post-Truth Environments: The Case of Georgia, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paper 3, October 2017.  Walker (Faculty Fellow, USC Center on Public Diplomacy) continues to provide informed, teachable, and well-written case studies.  Here she examines Russia’s efforts “to shape a narrative about Georgia as a security and economic partner that at the same time serves as a counterpoint to Euro-Atlantic interests.”  Her paper weaves together insights on Russia’s use of disinformation, national identity, memories, aspirations, and external threats in narrative construction.  She discusses problematic elements – strategic ambivalence and structural dysfunction — in Georgia’s strategic communication and efforts to create its own narrative.  She also analyzes broader implications for creation of resilient state narratives and offers recommendations for official responses to disinformation.  As usual, citations in her endnotes and her trademark distribution of discussion questions throughout the text make her study ideal for classroom use.
R. S. Zaharna, “Diversity in Publics and Diplomacy,” Working Paper, Project ‘Diplomacy in the 21st Century, No. 15, September 2017.  Zaharna (American University) argues “Western diplomacy needs an expansive vision of communication to match the global reach of its communication tools.”  Diplomatic actors need to give the same intensive attention to what makes communication meaningful as they do to digital communication tools.  She urges greater attention in particular to mediating identity and emotion in relations with diverse publics and political actors.  Her 5-page paper is a menu for further research.
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, “Top U.S. Diplomat Blasts Trump Administration for ‘Decapitation’ of State Department Leadership,” November 8, 2017, Foreign Policy; Barbara Stevenson, “Time to Ask Why,” Letter to American Foreign Service Members, forthcoming December 2017, The Foreign Service Journal.
Matthew Armstrong, “Don’t Do It: Why the Foreign Agent Designation Is Welcomed by RT and Sputnik,” September 21, 2017, MountainRunner.US
Kathy Artus, “Cultural Exchange: The Intangible Benefits,” October 2, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Mark L. Asquino, “Uzbekistan,” November 2, 2017; “Senate Committee on Appropriations Slams Proposed Cuts to State/USAID Budgets,” September 14, 2017, Take Five Blog, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University.
Andrew Beaujon, “Can This DC TV Show Win the Messaging War Against Russia?” November 1, 2017, Washingtonian.
Corneliu Bjola, “Satellite Remote Sensing and Diplomatic Crisis Management,” October 11, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Mieczyslaw Boduszynski and Philip Breeden, “Russian Disinformation and U.S. Public Diplomacy,” November 1, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Tom Fletcher, “How to Become a Soft Power Superpower,” October 13, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Yoichi Funabashi, “Japanese Strength in Soft Power Foreign Policy,” November 6, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Irwin Steven Goldstein, Nominee for Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Written Statement for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, November 1, 2017.
Joe Johnson, “New Public Diplomacy Chief Named for US State Department,” September 26, 2017, Public Diplomacy Council.
Markos Kounalakis, “Donald Trump Is Decimating America’s Tourist Economy,” October 16, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Olga Krasnyak, “Evolution of Korea’s Public Diplomacy,” October 9, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Tomás Kroyer, “Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in Latin America: A View From Argentina,” September 15, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Laura Kyrke Smith, “Digital Power and the Power of Citizen Networks & Advocacy Organizations,” October 25, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Mel Levine, Rockwell Schnabel, and Jay Wang, “American Public Diplomacy Is Our Country’s Best Foreign Policy Tool,” September 9, 2017, The Hill.
Pippa Norris, “Trump’s Global Democracy Retreat,” September 7, The New York Times.
Michael Pelletier, “Owning Leadership,” November 2017, The Foreign Service Journal.
Shawn Powers, “Valuing Public Diplomacy,” November 3, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Sean Riordan, “The Real New Diplomacies,” September 11, 2017; “What is a Diplomat,” September 4, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Sayed Salahuddin and Pamela Constable, “U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Apologizes for ‘Highly Offensive’ Leaflets,” September 7, 2017, The Washington Post.
Jason Zengerle, “Rex Tillerson and the Unraveling of the State Department,” October 17, 2017, The New York Times Magazine.
Gem From The Past
Geoffrey Cowan and Nicholas J. Cull, eds., “Public Diplomacy in a Changing World,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Volume 616, March 2008.  It soon will be ten years since Cowan and Cull (University of Southern California) compiled what has become a truly seminal collection of articles intended “to explain the concept of public diplomacy, to put it into an academic framework, and to examine it as an international phenomenon and an important component of statecraft.”  Innovative articles by scholars and practitioners writing from academic perspectives in this special edition of The Annals have influenced subsequent scholarship, and they are still widely assigned as course readings in college classrooms and foreign ministry training programs.  The table of contents and inexpensive used copies are available online.
Articles especially useful for students over many years, in this writer’s experience, include:
— Geoffrey Cowan (University of Southern California) and Amelia Arsenault (Georgia State University, US Department of State), “Moving from Monologue to Dialogue to Collaboration: The Three Layers of Public Diplomacy.”
— Nicholas J. Cull, “Public Diplomacy: Taxonomies and Histories.”
— Joseph S. Nye, Jr., (Harvard University), “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power.”
— Monroe E. Price, Susan Haas, and Drew Margolin, (Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania), “New Technologies and International Broadcasting: Reflection on Adaptations and Transformations.”
— Giles Scott-Smith (University of Leiden), “Mapping the Undefinable: Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Exchange Programs within International Relations Theory.”
— Michael J Bustamante (Florida International University) and Julia E Sweig (University of Texas, Austin), “Buena Vista Solidarity and the Axis of Aid: Cuban and Venezuelan Public Diplomacy.”
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Issue #87

Eleanor Albert, “China’s Big Bet on Soft Power,” Backgrounder, Council on Foreign Relations, May 11, 2017.  CFR’s Albert writes that China is seeking a leadership role in globalization and economic integration by increasing its investment in international media networks, cultural centers, its “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure initiative, unconditional development assistance with South-South partners, and other soft power programs.  China ranks third among the world’s international education destinations.  It supports five hundred Confucius Institutes.  Chinese firms are expanding investments in US entertainment companies.  Despite this, opinion polls show static levels of support for China in some countries and steady decline in others. Albert argues China has yet to realize significant gains in influence due to inconsistencies between the image it seeks to convey and its actions on multiple issues: environmental pollution, food safety, overcapacity of state-enterprises, rising nationalism, territorial disputes, repression of NGOs, censorship of domestic and foreign media, and its rigid authoritarian system.  If China’s actions and narratives don’t credibly address these inconsistencies, it will remain challenging to win friends and influence nations through its culture and ideas.
Alyssa Ayres, “Creating a State Department Office for American State and Local Diplomacy,” Policy Innovation Memorandum, Council on Foreign Relations, June 7, 2017.  Ayres (CFR Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia) argues “a new strand in diplomacy” is occurring due to the rise of sub-national global actors (cities, states, local legislators) in domains such as investment, trade, tourism, education, climate change, and counter terrorism.  She calls on the State Department to create an office to facilitate ongoing activities, clarify and deconflict messages, “prevent policy confusion,” and enhance coordination of the sub-national global activities of multiple US government agencies.  Only two Department employees currently focus on sub-national diplomacy through informal networks.  Ayres recommends an appropriately staffed office to manage an information bank, provide support to local leaders, and enable strategic planning to leverage American state and city diplomacy in support of national diplomacy priorities.  (Courtesy of Ellen Frost)
Hamilton Bean and Edward Comor, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment,”All Azimuth, (2017): 1-16, published online, June 15, 2017.  Bean (University of Colorado, Denver) and Comor (University of Western Ontario) assess efforts to measure and evaluate public diplomacy in this critique of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy’s 2014 report, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress Towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities.”  The authors make two strong claims worth close attention – and that summon equally strong debate.  First, they argue the technology framed goals of the Commission’s report, and public diplomacy’s attention to digital technologies more broadly, are in part an ideological legacy of Cold War thinking, with “violent extremism” replacing the Soviet Union as the dominant threat.  Here they draw on information technology scholar Paul Edwards’ concept of “closed world” discourse – meaning material and symbolic conditions that supported Cold War uses of technology.  Second, they argue the report lacks clarity as to what measurable impacts public diplomacy officials seek to achieve.  Bean and Comor base this claim on what they call “technological fetishism” – an adaptation of Karl Marx’s “commodity fetishism” (his argument that social relations are mediated through economic objects such as commodities and money).  In developing these claims, they bring a Gramscian perspective to the work of scholars generally and those who contributed to the Commission’s report.  They point to the “pragmatic complexity model” of strategic communication, advanced by Stephen R. Corman, Angela Trethewey, and Bud Goodall, as a place from which to reassess foundational premises of public diplomacy.  And they warn the data-driven approach steers too close to quantitative assessment and to government interests and ambitions at the expense of mutual understanding, peace, and public diplomacy’s humanistic capabilities.  For a measured critique, see Ilan Manor, “Why is Public Diplomacy Data Driven? A Response to Bean & Comor,” Exploring Digital Diplomacy Blog. August 13, 2017.
Broadcasting Board of Governors, 2016 Annual Report, available online in 2017.  As with previous reports, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) provides an abundance of descriptive information on the missions, challenges, activities, audience levels, and strategic priorities of its five networks: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Middle East Broadcasting.  The report provides teachers and others with an unparalleled overview of US broadcasting’s people, programs, reporting, content curation, accountability and research methods, transition to digital distribution platforms, efforts to improve inter-network cooperation, and relevance to foreign policy priorities.  The BBG’s annual reports frame organizational perspectives of broadcasting’s managers, a rhetorical approach that contrasts with the journalism norms of its broadcasters.  For arms length critiques of the BBG’s strengths and limitations, observers should look at Congressional hearings and committee reports; numerous reports by the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Congressional Reference Service, and General Accountability Office; and a host of wide-ranging views in blogs and opinion columns.
Costas M. Constantinou, Noe Cornago, and Fiona McConnell, Transprofessional Diplomacy, (Brill Research Perspectives, 2017).  In this clearly argued paper, Constantinou (University of Cyprus), Cornago (University of the Basque Country), and McConnell (University of Oxford) contribute to important trends in diplomacy studies – recognition that diplomatic “professionals” exist beyond the state; an expanding “diplomatic realm” that includes multiple actors with new skills and methods in spaces that are not state-based; and increased use of diplomatic practice to illuminate academic study.  They frame three areas of inquiry: (1) the genealogy of diplomacy as a profession from its origins as a civic duty to its status as a vocation that, although lacking a “strict professional canon,” requires training, specific knowledge, and skills; (2) diplomacy’s functional differences from other professional categories with global reach; and (3) the proliferation of “new” diplomatic actors “working in parallel to, in partnership with, or in competition with state diplomats.”  Building on Geoffrey Wiseman’s “polylateral diplomacy”and related concepts, they suggest “transprofessionalization” (not “deprofessionalization”) offers a promising approach to understanding “the expansion of diplomatic actors and spaces” and “new modes of being a diplomat.”  Their arguments are compelling, but they also raise questions.  How should we differentiate between diplomacy and other relationships between groups?  If we rightly broaden what we mean by diplomatic actors and diplomatic professionalism, how do we avoid excessively expansive claims for both?  This is an important paper that opens doors to needed further research.
Mai’a K. Davis Cross, The Politics of Crisis in Europe, (Cambridge University Press, 2017).  Cross (Northeastern University) brings her well-regarded scholarship and EU optimism to this study of why EU integration continues despite successive crises.  She analyzes the politics of the 2003 Iraq crisis, the 2005 constitutional crisis, and the 2010 eurozone crisis in the context of a deep dive into the media narratives they generated.  These crises “to some extent are socially constructed,” she argues. They brought underlying social tensions to the surface that might otherwise have weakened integration.  Cross’s innovative research and views on the effects of media, public opinion, and collective emotions on the European project have drawn positive comments and questions.  For a thoughtful review, see Asle Toje, “The Politics of Crisis in Europe,” International Affairs, July 1, 2017.  It will be interesting to see how her logic holds as Europeans continue to work out the consequences of Brexit and populist impulses in EU member states.
Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, “Public Diplomacy in the Public Interest,” Journal of Public Interest Communications, Vol. 1, 2017, 78-93, published online April 28, 2017.  Fitzpatrick (American University) examines public diplomacy’s expanding role in supporting common social interests (problem solving, shared goals, global issues) that transcend the interests of particular countries and other diplomatic actors.  Her article profiles how this evolution is reflected in study and practice.  She looks at ways traditional public diplomacy tools and methods contribute to supporting the public interest in global society, the advent of varieties of diplomatic actors, and how future research can contribute to traditional public diplomacy debates and to understanding conceptual challenges to its role in global society.  Her research agenda focuses on four domains: models, publics, ethics, and measurement.  Fitzpatrick assumes “more relational – and more collaborative – forms of public diplomacy will define the field in the 21st century,” but not diminish its “critical importance” in advancing the goals of states and non-state actors.  Her thoughtful paper is a helpful guide to future research.  It also provides useful references to recent literature on diplomacy’s public dimension.
Suzy Hansen, Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017).  Hansen, an American journalist based in Istanbul (attracted first by knowing her favorite writer James Baldwin lived there in the 1960s) is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.  She has given us a compelling, intelligent, and stunningly well-written book.  Part memoir of a post-9/11 Ivy League educated writer from a small New Jersey town on a voyage of discovery.  Part long form reporting based on years living in Turkey and traveling in the Middle East.  Part meditation on foreign perceptions of America’s place in the world and their meaning for her own identity and self-understanding.  Hansen’s reflections are thoughtful and critical.  On American hubris.  On pretensions of virtue and power.  On “American exceptionalism.”  On differences between how Americans think of themselves and the United States, and the America that projects itself abroad.  In trying to understand “the strange weight we [Americans] carry with us” in the world, Hansen relies mostly on foreign voices.  Many provided insights into a shared history of which she was unaware.  We are living in a time when “Americans abroad now do not have the same swagger, the easy, enormous smiles,” she writes. “You no longer want to speak so loud. There is always the vague risk of breaking something.”  See also Hansen’s adaptation, “Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence,” The Guardian, August 8, 2017.  Ali Wyne’s review, “An Eye-Opening Exploration of How Other Countries Perceive America,” The Washington Post, August 18, 2017.  And Hisham Matar’s review, “The Empire in the Mirror,” New York Times Book Review, September 3, 2017.
Ilan Manor, “The Digitalization of Diplomacy: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Terminology,” Working Paper #1, Exploring Digital Diplomacy, August, 2017.  Manor (University of Oxford), seeks clarity in the variety of terms and concepts scholars and diplomats use to find meaning in the ways digital technologies influence diplomacy.  His candidate term going forward is “the digitalization of diplomacy” – a phrase he uses to focus on normative and temporal influences of digital technologies and to construct a taxonomy with four dimensions and four fields.  His dimensions are diplomacy’s audiences, institutions, practitioners, and practices.  His fields are (1) norms, values, and beliefs; (2) behavioral changes consequent to adoption of norms and beliefs; (3) patterns of use and standard operating procedures; and (4) concepts, metaphors, and mental schemata used to imagine the world.  His paper explores characteristics of his dimensions and how they influence each other.  Particularly helpful are his links to the research of leading diplomacy and communications scholars.  Reactions and discourse on his definition and taxonomy will be of interest – as will case studies that illuminate and give meaning to his concepts.
William Marcellino, Meagan Smith, Christopher Paul, and Lauren Skrabala, “Monitoring Social Media: Lessons for Future Department of Defense Social Media Analysis in Support of Information Operations,”RAND Corporation, 2017.  In this 92-page study, RAND’s policy analysts take a deep dive into legal, technology, and national security issues in building social media analysis capabilities while navigating US laws and norms under conditions of uncertainty.  Although they focus on requirements of the Department of Defense, they provide an informed assessment of the literature on social media technologies, concepts and methods in social media analysis, best practices, legal and ethical constraints, and the accelerating pace and reach of communication networks.  Diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find their insights and recommendations useful.
Caitlin E. Schindler, The Origins of Public Diplomacy in US Statecraft: Uncovering a Forgotten Tradition,(Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).  Missing in the abundant literature on US public diplomacy are careful studies of its pre-institutional origins in the nation’s history and culture.  Schindler (Institute of World Politics) has made a significant contribution to filling this void.  Her deeply researched book, filled with insights and rich detail, illuminates ways the US engaged and sought to influence foreign publics from the American Revolution through the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.  She reveals patterns in the nation’s diplomatic and civil society traditions and provides informed assessments of how the nation’s past enables and constrains US diplomacy today.
Giles Scott-Smith, guest editor, “The Evolving Embassy: Changes and Challenges to Diplomatic Representation and Practice in the Global Era,” New Global Studies, Volume 11, Issue 2, July 2017. Are embassies still necessary?  How should they adapt to changes in global and domestic contexts?  New governance structures.  City diplomacy.  New non-state actors.  Changing norms and practices.  In his balanced and well-reasoned introduction, Scott-Smith (University of Leiden) discusses contrasting views of those who argue embassies remain essential and critics who see them as increasingly irrelevant.  Case studies examine these issues from historical and social science perspectives.  Small-state diplomacy.  Diplomatic practice in extreme situations.  Insights from specific diplomatic practices, i.e., labor attaches, honorary consuls.  Scott-Smith finds consensus on the growing importance of city diplomacy.  Going forward, he argues, “embassies will survive,” debate will continue, and their numbers will decline reflecting a “shift to more flexible forms of ‘presence.’”  Contains a useful list of resources.
Giles Scott-Smith, “Introduction.”
Pascal Lottaz (Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo), “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan.”
Louis Clerc (University of Turku), “Global Trends in Local Contexts: The Finnish Embassy in Paris, 1956-1990.”
Geert Van Goethem (Ghent University), “Bevin’s Boys Abroad: British Labor Diplomacy in the Cold War Era.”
Giles Scott-Smith, “Edges of Diplomacy: Literary Representations of the (Honorary) Consul and the Public-Private Divide in Diplomatic Studies.”
Kenneth Weisbrode (Bilkent University, Ankara), “Coda: Ten Questions for a Diplomat.”
The Soft Power 30: A Global Ranking of Soft Power 2017, Portland and USC Center on Public Diplomacy, July 18, 2017.  Of particular interest in this 152-page third annual report on the soft power of 30 countries (a collaboration between Portland, a strategic communication consulting company, and USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy) are its essays by prominent scholars and practitioners.  Topics include selected national perspectives on soft power, practical advice from USC’s CPD, and insights on varieties of tools, methods, and actors (public diplomacy, city diplomacy, digital technologies, cultural relations, and activities of non-state actors).  Contributors:  Moira Whelan (formerly State Department and USAID), Martin Davidson (Great Britain-China Center), Yoichi Funabashi (Asia Pacific Initiative), Tomas Kroyer (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Argentina), Victoria Dean (Portland), Laura Kyrke-Smith (International Rescue Committee), Philip Hall (Portland), Jordan Bach-Lombardo (Portland), Erin Helland (Youth for Understanding), Gail Lord (Lord Cultural Resources), Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), Joel Day (Human Resources Commission, San Diego), Katherine Brown (Council on Foreign Relations), Tom Fletcher (British Diplomat, author of Naked Diplomacy: Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age), Jay Wang (University of Southern California), and Corneliu Bjola (University of Oxford).  The report’s rankings, analyzed by Portland’s Jonathan McClory, compare six categories of soft power resources.  Key 2017 findings:  France ranks first, an advance of three places from 2016.  The UK remains in second place.  The US ranks third, a drop from first place in 2016 attributed to the Trump Administration’s “zero sum nationalist rhetoric” and “mercurial approach to foreign policy.”
Ioannis D. Stefanidis, “American Projection and Promotion of Democracy: The Voice of America, The Greek Dictatorship, and Ceausescu’s Romania,” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, University of Minnesota, Volume 32/33, 2016/2017, pp. 166-238 (publication online forthcoming).  In this study, deeply researched in US archives and literature on the Voice of America (VOA) and US Information Agency (USIA), Stefanidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) examines VOA’s broadcasts to Greece during its seven-year military dictatorship (1967-1974) and to Romania under the Ceauşescu government.  His concerns are to assess VOA’s role in promoting democratic change, illuminate the interplay between principle and expediency in US policies toward different types of authoritarian regimes, and test the extent to which US broadcasts may have contributed to the demise of these regimes.  He provides insights into VOA’s broadcasting priorities and programs of its Greek and Romanian services.  He explores listening habits of their audiences and the policies of their governments.  Tensions arising from VOA’s commitment to journalism norms and US foreign policy guidance from USIA and the State Department are an underlying theme.  Stefanidis shows how democracy promotion was subordinated to other policies (encouraging Greece’s cooperation in NATO and Romania’s association with the West) and how this played out in VOA’s broadcasts.  He concludes that VOA, despite its strong commitment to the norms of its Charter, “was widely regarded as the mouthpiece of the US government,” unlike the BBC, Radio Free Europe, and Deutsche Welle.  VOA’s influence was limited because it could not “offset the damage of what was perceived as a policy of double standards: tolerating dictatorship in some cases, castigating it in others.”  An offprint can be purchased for $5.00 from the Modern Greek Studies Program, 325 Social Sciences Building, University of Minnesota 267–19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455.  Also available at www.academia.edu.
Catherine Tsalikis, “A Foreign Service Worth Fighting For,” OpenCanada.org. July 26, 2017.  Tsalikis (Senior Editor, OpenCanada.org, Centre for International Governance Innovation) interviewed current and former Canadian foreign service officers to explore “a battle for the soul” of a diplomatic corps seized with “fundamental questions about the role of a diplomat and the future of the service.”  Issues include: the benefits of personal diplomacy and nurturing relationships, flawed public perceptions of glamour and the gritty reality of 24/7 diplomatic practice, damage to the foreign service under the former government of Stephen Harper, and gaps between promise and delivery under the current government of Justin Trudeau.  She also explores downsides of “golden ageism” and a “culture of complaint” when career diplomats reflect on the past.  Among these are different comparative advantages of a career officer corps and non-career diplomats with different skills and experiences in a world where distinctions between foreign service officers and others doing foreign work are blurring.  The knowledge and methods of Canada’s diplomats continue to give scholars and reform-minded practitioners much to work with.
Vivian Walker, “From Pylos to Pyongyang: What Thucydides Can Teach Us About Contemporary Diplomacy,” Small Wars Journal, August 28, 2017.  Walker (USC Center for Public Diplomacy Faculty Fellow) continues to provide illuminating and teachable case studies (e.g., Benghazi: Managing the Message).  This time she draws on Thucydides account of Sparta’s negotiations with Athens following Sparta’s defeat at Pylos.  Walker sets the scene and discusses implications for understanding others, diplomatic persuasion and compromise, credible communication with publics and negotiators, and the importance of public opinion at home and abroad.  She concludes with brief comments on the case’s relevance to challenges of diplomacy with North Korea.
Richard Wilke, Bruce Stokes, Jacob Poushter, and Janell Getterolf, “U.S. Image Suffers as Publics Around the World Question Trump’s Leadership,” Pew Research Center, June 2017.  In a study of 37 countries, Pew’s researchers find a steep and rapid decline in US favorability ratings and trust in the US president and his policies.  A “median of just 22% has trust in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to international affairs” in contrast to a median of 64% in the final years of the Obama presidency.  In other findings, Trump gets higher ratings than Obama in Russia and Israel.  Germany’s Angela Merkel gets higher ratings globally than Trump, China’s Xi Jinping, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.  Overall, Americans are viewed more positively than the US as a country, with a median of 58% holding positive views of Americans.  Although a median of 64% like American popular culture, lower marks are given to the US government’s respect for personal freedoms, American ideas about democracy, and American ideas and customs spreading in their country.
U.S. Department of State, “Official Communication Using Social Media,” 10 FAM 180, August 24, 2017.  State’s Office of Policy Planning and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R/RPPR) has updated regulations in the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) on official use of social media for public diplomacy purposes.  Covered issues include required approvals for creating and using social media accounts for official purposes, social media advertising, content restrictions on personal social media accounts, social media site management, impersonations on social media, terms of use and terms of service, and protecting government social media accounts.  The new regulations link to earlier FAM requirements that still apply.  (Courtesy of Greta Morris)
US Government Accountability Office (GAO), “Department of State: Foreign Language Proficiency Has Improved, But Efforts to Reduce Gaps Need Evaluation,” GAO 17-318, March 2017.  GAO, which periodically examines the State Department’s “persistent foreign language shortfalls,” finds that Foreign Service officers who did not meet language proficiency requirements fill 23 percent of overseas language-designated positions.  Although this is an 8 percent improvement from 2008, significant gaps remain that affect “State’s ability to properly adjudicate visa applications, effectively communicate with foreign audiences, address security concerns, and perform other critical diplomatic functions.”  GAO’s report provides a detailed critique and examples showing how language proficiency strengthened and constrained effective public diplomacy.
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
Anne Applebaum, “If This Were the Cold War, America Would Be Poised to Lose,” August 4, 2017, The Washington Post.
Martha Bayles, “A Teachable Moment,” August 7, 2017, The American Interest.
Roger Cohen, “The Desperation of Our Diplomats,” July 28, 2017, The New York Times.
Noah Daponte-Smith, “The State Department in Crisis,” July 6, 2017, National Review.
Max Fisher, “Canada’s Trump Strategy: Go Around Him,” June 22, 2017, The New York Times.
Tom Fletcher, “If Diplomacy Did Not Exist, We Would Need To Invent It,” June 26, 2017, Oxford University Press Blog.
Chris Hensmen and Shawn Powers, “Can Public Diplomacy Survive the Internet?” July 19, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Katherine E. Hone, “Would the Real Diplomacy Please Stand Up?” July 5, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Mariami Khatiashvili, “George Balanchine: The Public Diplomat Beyond the Ballet Master,” August 30, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer, “State Department Reorganization Eliminates Climate, Muslim and Syria Special Envoys,” August 29, 2017, Foreign Policy Blog.
Tom Malinowski, “Did the United States Interfere in Russian Elections?” July 21, 2017, The Washington Post.
Ilan Manor, “Can National Leaders Influence National Brands?” August 1, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Andrew Natsios, “Tillerson Wants to Merge the State Dept. and USAID. That’s a Bad Idea,” June 28, 2017, The Washington Post.
Dana Priest and Michael Birnbaum, “Europe Has Been Working to Expose Russian Meddling for Years,” June 25, 2017, The Washington Post.
David Rank, “Why I Resigned From the Foreign Service After 27 Years,” June 23, 2017, The Washington Post.
Shaun Riordan, “Stop Inventing ‘New Diplomacies,’” June 21, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Jeffrey Robertson, “Embassy Websites: First Impressions Count,” August 11, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Jennifer Rubin, “What is Going On at the State Department,” August 16, 2017; “State Department Dysfunction Reaches New Highs,” August 2, 2017, The Washington Post.
Cindy Saine and Marissa Melton, “Changes at State Department Lead to Questions About Its Mission,” August 6, 2017, US Politics News, Voice of America.
Nick Wadhams, “Tillerson Tightens Limits on Filling State Department Jobs,” June 28, 2017, Bloomberg Politics.
Ilir Zherka, “International Exchange Programs Receive Unprecedented Support,” July 20, 2017, Huffington Post.
Gem From The Past
Richard T. Arndt and David Lee Rubin, eds., The Fulbright Difference, 1948-1992, (Transaction Publishers, 1993).  As diplomacy scholars and historians turn increasingly to “practice theory” and insights of field practitioners to supplement top down perspectives in foreign ministry archives, presidential papers, and blue ribbon commission reports, two resources in US diplomacy are making a significant difference: the extensive oral interviews compiled by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (searchable by last name, countries, and subjects) and the recently published online archive of all past issues of The Foreign Service Journal (1919-present).  In this context, forty-one essays compiled by retired diplomat and former Fulbrighter Richard Arndt (author, The First Resort of Kings) and professor David Lee Rubin (University of Virginia) in The Fulbright Difference deserve a fresh look.  These essays, written by former Fulbright scholars and former diplomats, some also former Fulbright grantees, are arranged by decade.  They include stories and reflections on personal and national identity, ethnicity, political implications of academic exchanges, the goals and character of the Fulbright program, and perennial issues of administration and structure.  These are primary source insights of passionate participants – a rich collection that deserves interrogation by scholars and others interested in dispassionate assessment of academic exchanges and cultural diplomacy.  Includes a foreword by Stanley Katz (Princeton University) and an afterword by Robin W. Winks (Yale University).
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2017: Alison Bartel

 

Alison Bartel, 2017.

Each year, the Walter Roberts Endowment grants one student in the Global Communication M.A. program $1,500 for accomplishments in public diplomacy-related work and future career aspirations in the field of public diplomacy. This year, the Endowment is pleased to award Alison Bartel, a second-year student, as the recipient of the Walter Roberts Award for Public Diplomacy Studies! A second prize of $500 was awarded to Twila Tschan.

Twila Tschan, 2017.

Alison and Twila join a distinguished cadre of Global Communication alumnae who emulate the teachings they received in public diplomacy while at GW and in their careers as public diplomacy professionals. A Masters graduate in the Global Communications program, Alison is also a Program Associate and Digital Media Team Leader at Meridian International Center, where she plans and implements U.S. State Department professional exchange programs. Career highlights for her include groups in the United States focused on issues of refugee resettlement, ending gender-based violence, and media freedom. In the future, she plans to continue her efforts to build bridges between the US and Asia in both the private and public sectors. In addition to her Masters in Global Communication, Twila serves full-time as the Communications Coordinator at PeaceTech Lab, a nonpro t that works for individuals and communities affected by conflict, using technology, media, and data to accelerate local peacebuilding efforts.

 

The other recipients of this award are:

 

 

 

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Robert Ogburn

Public Diplomacy Fellow, 2017-2018

Robert Ogburn has held the title of Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul since September 2014.  He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1987 and has served in Iraq, Korea, Vietnam, Washington and Egypt.

Prior to Seoul, Robert was Deputy Consul General at the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City from 2011-2014.  In 2009-2010, Robert was the State Department’s senior advisor for rule of law at the US Embassy in Baghdad, where he focused on inter-agency and provincial coordination of the Mission’s rule of law efforts.  Robert has held five previous jobs in Korea, including Spokesman and Counselor for Public Affairs.

Robert was also press and cultural attaché in Ho Chi Minh City (2001-2005); briefing coordinator and Middle East/South Asia program officer for the Foreign Press Center in Washington, D.C.; and Deputy Embassy Spokesman in Cairo.  In addition to serving in Iraq, he considers his career highlights to be re-opening the USG’s diplomatic post in Busan, Korea in 2007; running White House Press Filing Centers during Presidential visits to various countries; and, from 2001-5 bringing some of the first cultural and performing arts programs to southern Vietnam since the end of the War.  In Seoul he has been the chairman of one of the world’s largest binational Fulbright Commissions, and he also introduced the State Department’s first-ever FabLab Fellow and other innovative sports and cultural diplomacy programs.

Robert has an MA in East Asian Studies from the George Washington University (’85) and an MBA from Johns Hopkins University (’04).  Raised in Anne Arundel and Prince George’s Counties MD, he graduated with honors from the University of Maryland Baltimore County’s Interdisciplinary Studies Program (’82).  Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Robert worked in broadcasting, investment banking, and law enforcement.  Robert was adopted from Korea to American parents and is married to Thu-hang Ogburn (CCAS ’83); they have two children, Calvin (CCAS ’12) and Calista (high school senior).

Other PD Fellows have been:

2018-2019 Karl Stoltz

2015-2015 Thomas Miller

2014-2015 Patricia Kabra

2013-2014 Jonathan Henick

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