Author: GW

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Issue #81

Michael Barr and Valentina Feklyunia, eds., “The Soft Power of Hard States,” Politics,Special Issue, Vol. 35, Nos. 3-4, November 2015.  Barr and Feklyunia (Newcastle University) have compiled a strong collection of articles that examine the soft power of authoritarian states, focusing principally on China, Russia, and Iran.  Their goal is to provide a “needed corrective to soft power studies by de-Westernizing the concept” through studies of how “non-democratic regimes promote and manage their image.”  Full online access to the articles is available through August 31, 2016.
Michael Barr, Valentina Feklyunia, and Sarina Theys, “Introduction: The Soft Power of Hard States.”
William A. Callahan (London School of Economics and Politics), “Identity and Security in China: The Negative Soft Power of the China Dream.”
Alexander Sergunin (St. Petersburg State University) and Leonid Karabeshkin (Euroacademy, Estonia), “Understanding Russia’s Soft Power Strategy.”
Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger, “The Play of International Practice,”International Studies Quarterly, (2015), 59, 449-460.  Bueger (Cardiff University) and Gadinger (University of Duisburg-Essen) summarize current thinking on the “practice turn” in international relations – its core theoretical arguments and challenges for future research.  Theories that situate knowledge in “how groups perform their practical activities” rather than “mental frames” or “discourse,” they argue, offer useful alternatives to such traditional approaches as rational calculation of interests, mainstream constructivism, and the evaluation of norms.  The everyday practices of diplomats and other international actors become the primary objects of research.  Their pragmatism and emphasis on taking contingency and change into account hold considerable promise for diplomacy scholars looking for new ways to connect study and practice.
Department of State & USAID Joint Strategy on Countering Violent Extremism, May 2016.  This 12-page report describes elements in a State Department / USAID strategy to “counter efforts by violent extremists to radicalize, recruit, and mobilize followers” and “address specific factors that facilitate violent extremist recruitment and radicalization.”  The statement defines countering violent extremism (CVE), delineates strategic end states, summarizes five strategic goals, discusses a variety of ways and means to achieve these goals, identifies criteria for setting priorities, and briefly points to intent to measure “results and effects.”  It concludes with a short description of structural changes and creation of a “working group of core State, USAID, and interagency stakeholders” to “oversee and coordinate implementation” of the strategy.
Larry Diamond, “Democracy in Decline: How Washington Can Reverse the Decline,”Foreign Affairs, July/August, 2016, 151-159.  Diamond (Stanford University) laments the US loss of interest in promoting democracy and argues the 2016 national interest case for making commitment to democracy abroad, anticorruption, Internet freedom, digital rights, and remedies for political failings at home pillars of US foreign policy.  He notes Congressional increases in funding for the nonprofit National Endowment for Democracy (supported by Republican lawmakers since the Reagan Administration) from $115 million in 2009 to $170 million in 2016.  During the same period, US government support for democracy, human rights and governance, mainly through USAID, has fallen by nearly $400 million.
In the same issue of Foreign Affairs, John J. Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Stephen M. Walt (Harvard University) argue against the “democracy delusion” as problematic “large scale social engineering in foreign societies that Americans understand poorly.”  If Americans want to spread democracy, they should set a good example by doing more to improve political “conditions at home and less to manipulate politics abroad.”  See“The Case for Offshore Balancing: A Superior U.S. Grand Strategy,” 70-83.
Gregory Evans Dowd, Groundless: Rumors, Legends, and Hoaxes on the Early American Frontier, (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015).  The growing literature on American colonial history continues to provide insights into the study and practice of modern diplomacy.  Dowd (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) provides a well written, deeply researched account of ways in which plausible rumors shaped perceptions and influenced diplomacy, warfare, trade, and cross-cultural connections in colonial and early US national history.  His book examines a variety of unverified rumors and legends: dreams of gold, responsibility for small pox pandemics, exploitations of slaves, intentions to enslave indigenous Americans, British conspiracies to scalp Americans, and routine attribution of imminent frontier violence to manipulation by European rivals.  Dowd devotes a chapter to Benjamin Franklin’s use of deception as a legitimate instrument of diplomacy both during the Revolutionary war and in the Treaty of Paris negotiations that followed.  Dowd’s thinking is also valuable for his conceptual arguments on the meaning of rumor and social consciousness, motivated lies as truth claims, improvised news, and manipulation of information to advance political agendas and achieve personal gain.  An important sub-theme is the link Dowd draws to contemporary US statecraft.
Tom Fletcher, Naked Diplomacy: Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age, (William Collins, 2016).  Former British Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher has written an indispensable guide to diplomacy in the digital age in short, clearly written chapters filled with insights, wit, and telling examples.  He honors the past with a brief survey of diplomacy’s historical transformations and then devotes his attention to how “The role of diplomats is being transformed faster than at any point in human history.”  Fletcher is a passionate digital media pioneer, but he is no casual technology enthusiast.  Perhaps because he combines experiences as a diplomat in the field, an advisory role to three Prime Ministers, and the perspective of a scholar-practitioner, he brings unusual analytical depth to understanding diplomacy’s legitimate ongoing connections to power, governance, and non-state actors.  He challenges traditional diplomacy even as he defends the continuing importance of expertise, secret negotiations, and public interests.  It is no accident that he is also the author of the UK foreign ministry’s recent Future FCO report.  Fletcher’s book is a true “must read” for entry-level diplomats and every experienced diplomat before beginning his or her next assignment.
For comments on Fletcher’s views see “Review Roundtable: Naked Diplomacy: Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age by Tom Fletcher,” London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), July 18, 2016.  Includes an introduction by LSE’s Nick Kitchen and comments by Alexis Wichowski (Columbia University), Lina Khatib (Chatham House), Iver Neumann (LSE), Alaa Murabit (physician and UN Sustainable Development Goals Global advocate), and John Robert Kelley (American University). (LSE link, courtesy of Donna Oglesby)
Biancamaria Fontana, Germaine de Staël: A Political Portrait, (Princeton University Press, 2016).  In this biography, Fontana (University of Lausanne) provides new insights on the importance of public opinion in the thinking of Germaine de Staël (1766-1817), novelist, literary critic, and political activist during the French Revolution. De Staël’s views on public opinion as “a visceral, collective emotion that linked a people to its leaders” are profiled in historian Robert Darnton’s excellent review, “Mme de Staël and the Mystery of the Public Will,” in The New York Review of Books, June 23, 2016.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Volume XXX, Public Diplomacy,June 8, 2016.  Edited superbly by State Department historian Kristin L. Ahlberg, this volume documents the public diplomacy of the Jimmy Carter administration from 1977-1980.  Its 215 documents focus on the merger of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the US Information Agency, the establishment of the International Communication Agency in 1978, organizational and conceptual challenges created by the merger, and the variety of public diplomacy initiatives taken in support of the Carter administration’s foreign policy.  The volume’s online accessibility and editorial notes make this a remarkably useful resource for scholars and practitioners.
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917-1972, Public Diplomacy, World War I,Office of the Historian, US Department of State.  Edited by State Department historian Aaron W. Marrs, the compilation focuses on the creation and overseas work of the Committee on Public Information (CPI), also known as the “Creel Committee, from 1917-1919.  The online volume includes 44 documents, 8 helpful editorial notes on the CPI’s activities and personalities, and a collection of multimedia items showing CPI reading rooms, pamphlets, and other examples of its overseas work.  Researchers will find this an accessible and authoritative source of information on the CPI’s practitioners, the global scope of its activities, and its relations with the Department of State and the Military Intelligence Branch of the War Department.
Glenn J. Guimond, “Examining State’s Foreign Service Officer Hiring Today,” The Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2016.  Guimond, a State Department public diplomacy officer on assignment with the Board of Examiners (BEX), discusses the variety of written and oral tests, and other administrative requirements, in the entry process to becoming a Foreign Service officer.  The BEX evaluates candidates for five Foreign Service generalist career tracks and 16 career tracks for specialists and limited non-career candidates.  See also “State Department Opportunities for Students,” The Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2016,
Ellen Huijgh, The Public Diplomacy of Emerging Powers, Part 2: The Case of Indonesia, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.  Huijgh (Netherlands Institute of International Relations and University of Antwerp) continues her work on the public diplomacy of emerging powers with this informed and timely case study of Indonesia’s public diplomacy during the administration of President Joko Widodo.  Her paper begins with a brief survey of broad trends in diplomacy studies grounded in an integrative approach, national diplomatic systems, and her own work on blending diplomacy’s international and domestic dimensions.  She discusses characteristics and recent developments in what she calls Indonesia’s “niche narrative public diplomacy” (co-existence of Islam, democracy, and modern society) and concludes with concern that it “faces stagnation and isolation today.”  Her earlier study in USC’s series is Ellen Huijgh and Jordan Warlick, The Public Diplomacy of Emerging Powers, Part 1: The Case of Turkey, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, January 2016.
“Lateral Entry into the Senior Foreign Service,” Section 206, S. 2937, Department of State Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2017, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced May 17, 2016.  Although the Senate Committee remains committed to the practice of “grooming generalists for careers in the Foreign Service,” it also supports authorization of a pilot program to “permit mid-career entry into the Foreign Service for qualified individuals who are willing to bring their outstanding talents and experiences to the work of the Foreign Service.”  The goal is to leverage skills and creative imagination in civil society that diplomats need and do not have in abundance.  For a brief analysis, see Domani Spero, “New @StateDept Authorization Bill Includes 3-Year Pilot Program for Lateral Entry Into the Foreign Service,” Diplopundit, April 28, 2016.
For a predictable negative response from the American Foreign Service Association and other retired diplomats, see Domani Spero, “12 Former AFSA Presidents Express ‘Deep Concern’ over proposed FS Lateral Entry program,” Diplopundit, June 27, 2016 and James Bruno, “Back Door Diplomats: Screw Merit,” Diplo Denizen, July 14, 2016.
For a discussion of comparable issues relating to US Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s interest in opening the door to lateral entry for talented civilians, particularly those with digital technology skills, in the military’s senior officer ranks, see Andrew Tilghman, “The Pentagon’s Controversial Plan to Hire Military Leaders Off the Street,” Military Times, June 19, 2016.
Marc Lynch, The New Arab Wars: Uprisings and Anarchy in the Middle East, (Public Affairs, 2016).  Lynch (George Washington University), a deeply knowledgeable scholar of Middle East politics and media, and of US policies in the region, provides a fundamental rethinking of assumptions and ideas that shaped his views on the broad Arab uprising of the past five years.  Drawing on his own research, local Arab voices, and analysis he credits to others, he offers numerous conclusions on the increase in violence and repression.  It is too soon to conclude the uprisings have failed.  Their causes have grown worse and the frustrations of empowered youth are greater.  There will be no return to stable and friendly authoritarian regimes.  Another wave of mass protests is “almost certainly coming.”  Partisan American policy disputes exaggerate US influence and role in the uprising.  And the nuclear agreement with Iran is “a historic opportunity to establish new foundations for regional order.”  Diplomacy scholars will find especially useful his insights on public opinion and the impact of a radically transformed information environment on Middle East politics and society.
Stephen G. McFarland, “A Roadmap for New Hires: 30 Rules to Survive and Thrive,”The Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2016.  McFarland (retired US diplomat and former Ambassador to Guatemala) offers his thinking on the desirable attributes of Foreign Service practitioners and advice on how to hone and master these attributes.  His 30 rules cover such issues as geography and language expertise, embassy operations, “corridor reputation” and personal skills, security awareness, crisis preparation, leadership, resilience, health, and passion for the vocation.  His roadmap is useful for those aspiring to a career in diplomacy as well as new hires.
Adam Nossiter, “‘That Ignoramus’: 2 French Scholars of Radical Islam Turn Bitter Rivals,” The New York Times, July 13, 2016.  NYT correspondent Nossiter profiles the intensely personal dispute between two leading French academics, Olivier Roy (European University Institute, Florence) and Gilles Kepel (Sciences Po, Paris), on the origins, development, and future of violent jihadism.  Once friends, Roy and Kepel now differ on France’s relations with Islam and the motives of terrorists who carried out recent attacks in Paris.  For Roy, they are “mostly marginalized young men and petty criminals” in a relatively well integrated Muslim population who use Islam as a cover for lethal violence.  The problem is the “Islamicization of radicalism.”  For Kepel, the violent jihadism is consequent to the evolution of “Islamist radicalicaliztion that took shape over decades because of a failure of integration.”
Christopher Paul and Miriam Matthews, The Russian ‘Firehose of Falsehood’ Propaganda Model, RAND, 2016.  Drawing on experimental research in psychology, RAND social scientists Paul and Matthews analyze characteristics of Russia’s “propaganda model”: effective use of multiple media channels and messages, rapid, continuous and repetitive communication, and lack of commitment to consistency and objective reality.  Although they suggest some effort to counter with facts and truth is worthwhile, the authors are not optimistic about traditional countermeasures such as refutations and fact checking.  Their suggested responses include seeking to create first impressions by forewarning and priming audiences with correct information, highlighting Russia’s methods of manipulation “rather than fighting the specific manipulations,” countering the effects of Russia’s propaganda rather than the propaganda, focusing on Russia’s audiences rather than Russia as the source, and using a range of information warfare capabilities.
J. Simon Rofe and Heather L. Dichter, “Sport and Diplomacy: A Global Diplomacy Framework,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, 2016, VOL. 27, No. 2, 212–230, published online May 16, 2016.  Rofe (University of London) and Dichter (Western Michigan University) have two goals in this thoughtful article.  First, they examine a variety of approaches to conceptual boundaries in sport and diplomacy, discourse between the two, and terminology in each domain.  Second, they develop a framework, grounded in an understanding of “global diplomacy,” for exploring “concepts of communication, representation, and negotiation.”  Their article raises useful questions and ideas for continuing research, and provides an extensive review of recent literature and work by other scholars.
Mary Thompson-Jones, To the Secretary: Leaked Embassy Cables and America’s Foreign Policy Disconnect, (W. W. Norton and Company, 2016).  Thompson-Jones (Northeastern University) draws on State Department cables released by Wikileaks and her experiences as a career US diplomat to examine “the practice and conduct of American diplomacy through the eyes of those posted overseas.”  Chapters explore negative and positive consequences of the leaks, anti-Americanism and challenges to US public diplomacy, diplomacy during and after crisis events, diplomacy with “frenemies,” diplomacy in war zone Iraq, and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
Gregory M. Tomlin, Murrow’s Cold War: Public Diplomacy for the Kennedy Administration, (Potomac Books, 2016).  Tomlin (a career US Army officer and former history professor at the US Military Academy) has written a carefully researched and much needed history of Edward R. Murrow’s years as director of the US Information Agency (USIA) during the administration of John F. Kennedy.  His book draws extensively on USIA’s archival records, Murrow’s personal papers, oral histories, secondary sources, and interviews, including importantly with his son Charles Casey Murrow and former Voice of America Deputy Director Alan Heil.  Tomlin provides insights and new information about Murrow’s views on public diplomacy, his leadership, and his relationships with Congress, the National Security Council, President Kennedy and other senior officials.  Chapters focus on USIA’s role during a presidency that included the Alliance for Progress, tensions over the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, tense race relations in the United States, the nuclear test ban treaty, and involvement in Southeast Asia.  USIA in the Kennedy administration was rethinking its mission, functions and structure a decade after its founding.  Its officers were developing a sense of their work as a profession.  Tomlin sheds light on a pivotal era in the institutionalization of US public diplomacy practice.
Twiplomacy Study 2016, Burson-Marsteller, May 31, 2016.  The global communications firm Burson-Marstellar surveyed 793 Twitter accounts of heads of government and state and foreign ministers in 173 countries.  Its largely quantitative study analyses their Twitter profiles, tweet history, uses of video and text, and inter-connections.  Included are Burson-Marsteller’s ten tips for building engagement on social media, views on social media platforms other than Twitter, and assessments of the relative strengths of digital diplomacy actors.
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
Matt Armstrong, “There’s a New #1,” July 1, 2016, MountainRunner.us Blog.
Corneliu Bjola, “Practicing Digital Diaspora Diplomacy,” June 3, 2016, USC, Center on Public Diplomacy, CPD Blog.
Robin Brown, “The CNN Effect circa 1910,” July 14, 2016; “The Chilcot Report and the Problem of Strategy,” July 6, 2016; “Brexit: Three Thoughts,” July 4, 2016, Public Diplomacy, Network and Influence Blog.
Helene Cooper, “U.S. Drops Snark in Favor of Emotions to Undercut Extremists,” July 28, 2016, The New York Times.
Daryl Copeland, “Opinion: Science Diplomacy for the Age of Globalization,” June 6, 2016, IIASA, Options Magazine.
Simon Denyer, “China’s Lesson to the World: Censoring the Internet Works,” May 23, 2016,The Washington Post.
Alan Heil, “Revival of ‘The Last Three Feet’ in Media Training Abroad,” June 11, 2016, Public Diplomacy Council Blog.
David Ignatius, “The Islamic State Feeds Off Western Islamophobia,” June 2, 2016, The Washington Post.
David S. Jackson, “The VOA is Not a Wire Service,” July 13, 2016; “International Broadcasting: The Nuclear Option,” June 1, 2016, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
John Kerry, “Remarks on People-to-People Exchange Plenary Session,” June 7, 2016, National Museum, Beijing.
Nicholas Kralev, “The State Department Has a Diversity Problem,” May 22, 2016, Foreign Policy Blog.
Ilan Manor, “Turkey Launches Belated #DigitalDiplomacy Blitz,” July 28, 2016; “Selfie Diplomacy: An Analysis of MFA Profile Pictures on Twitter,” July 7, 2015, USC, Center on Public Diplomacy, CPD Blog.
Jan Melissen, “Diplomacy in the Digital Age: More Than Twiplomacy,” May 31, 2016, Clingendael.
Burcu Gultekin Punsmann and Senem Cevik, “Pathways to a Common Future: Youth Perspectives on Turkey-Israel,” 2015, APM Ankara Politikalar Merkezi.
Dan Robinson, “The Great Clean-up Act at the BBG,” June 7, 2016, USC, Center on Public Diplomacy, CPD Blog.
Shaun Riordan, “Diaspora Diplomacy: A Double Edged Sword,” June 6, 2016, BideDao Blog.
Kathy Schalow, “Celebrating One Year of Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review Implementation,” May 5, 2016, US State Department, Dipnote Blog.
Philip Seib, “An Important CVE Step From the State Department,” May 26, 2016, The Huffington Post.
Tara Sonenshine, “DNC Hack Shows Its Time to Rein in the Russians,” July 25, 2016, The Hill.
Gem From The Past
James Robert Mock and Cedric Larson, Words That Won the War: The Story of the Committee on Public Information, 1917-1919, (Princeton University Press, 1939).  Next year marks the centenary of the Committee on Public Information (CPI) headed by George Creel and the beginning of institutionalized public diplomacy in the United States.  With a few notable exceptions, most studies make only brief references to the CPI – and to Creel’s zeal, methods and disputes with colleagues and Congress – before moving quickly to more recent history.  Publication of the Department of State’s Foreign Relations of the United States, 1917-1972, Public Diplomacy, World War I, annotated above, draws attention to the need for deeper inquiry.  A reductionism that equates CPI with Creel misses a rich tapestry of people, methods, and ideas in Washington and especially in CPI’s field offices and US missions abroad.  The origins of most professional practice issues in America’s institutionalized public diplomacy can be found in Mock and Larson’s informed and analytically perceptive mid-20th century account and in the Department of State’s online documentation.
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2016: John Melville

John Melville, 2016.

John Melville is the 2016 recipient of the Walter Roberts Award for Public Diplomacy Studies. A second year Master’s student in the Global Communications program, he also works as the speechwriter to the Ambassador at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea where he helps communicate, advocate, and explain South Korean policies to American audiences.                                                   

John’s interest in public diplomacy stems from his background in both strategic communications and working with international audiences. Before his job at the Embassy, John worked at a speechwriting firm and as an English teacher in South Korea, where he quickly learned the importance of understanding foreign perspectives when communicating cross-culturally. His coursework at GW has strengthened both his theoretical understanding of issues in Public Diplomacy and his practical skills in cross-cultural persuasion.

After graduation, he hopes to either become a Public Diplomacy Officer in the US Department of State or continue his career in international speechwriting and strategic communications.

The other recipients of this award are:

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Issue #80

John Brown, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Cultural Diplomacy: A Non-Desultory Non-Philippic,” American Diplomacy, March 2016.  Brown (compiler of the Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review) examines a variety of “cultural diplomacy” definitions on offer from scholars and practitioners for more than half a century.  His knowledgeable essay discusses tensions that derive from lack of consensus on the meaning of cultural diplomacy and differences in the priorities and methods of practitioners.  He examines distinctions between cultural diplomacy and cultural relations and attempts by some to differentiate between cultural relations and cultural exchange.  Brown presents a lively discourse at the intersection of government, diplomacy, politics and culture.  Detailed footnotes and numerous web links add to the mix.
Louis Clerc, Nikolas Glover, and Paul Jordan, History of Public Diplomacy and Nation Branding in the Nordic and Baltic Countries, (Brill / Nihoff, 2015).  Clerc (University of Turku), Glover (Stockholm University), and Jordan (University of Glasgow) achieve two goals in this excellent collection of essays.  First, they provide an innovative conceptual framework.  The title’s conventional categories, public diplomacy and nation branding, are a point of departure.  Their primary intent, however, is to develop an innovative conceptual distinction between domestic “imaginings” and external “images” of nations – and the complex ways in which they interact – as a heuristic tool to explore patterns of national representation.  Second, the case studies contribute much needed analysis of the representation practices of small states and fresh insights into the historically contingent tools of branding and public diplomacy.  Brill continues its steep pricing of high quality academic books in diplomacy studies.  However, good used copies at reduced cost may be available at online booksellers.
— Louis Clerc and Nikolas Glover, “Introduction: Representing the Small States of Northern Europe: Between Imagined and Imaged Communities”
— Andreas Akerlund (Uppsala University), “The Nationalization of Swedish Enlightenment Activities Abroad: Civil Society Actors and Their Impact on State Politics”
— Chiara Tessaris (Columbia University), “Open Diplomacy and Minority Rights: The League of Nations and Lithuania’s International Image in the Early 1920s”
— Kaarel Purimae (Tartu University), “Countering ‘The Obtuse Arguments of the Bolsheviks’: Estonian Information Work in Sweden, the United States and Britain, 1940-1944”
— Svein Ivar Angell (University of Bergen), “The Office for Cultural Relations: Representing Norway in the Post-War Period”
— Kristine Kjaersgaard (University of Southern Denmark), “A Public Diplomacy Entrepreneur: Danish Ambassador Bodil Begtrup in Iceland, Switzerland and Portugal, 1949-1973”
— Nikolas Glover, “A Total Image Deconstructed: The Corporate Analogy and the Legitimacy of Promoting Sweden Abroad in the 1960s”
— Louis Clerc, “‘Gaining Recognition and Understanding on Her Own Terms’: The Bureaucracy of Finland’s Image Policy, 1948-66”
— Carl Marklund (Sodertorn University), “American Mirrors and Swedish Self-Portraits: US Images of Sweden and Swedish Public Diplomacy in the USA in the 1970s and 80s”
— Una Bergmane (Sciences Po, Paris), “Diplomacy and Diasporas, Self-Perceptions and Representations: Baltic Attempts to Promote Independence, 1989-1991”
— Paul Jordan (University of Glasgow), “Walking in Singing: Brand Estonia, the Eurovision Song Contest and Estonia’s Self-Proclaimed Return to Europe, 2001-2002”
— Mads Mordhorst (Copenhagen Business School), “Public Diplomacy vs. Nation Branding: The Case of Denmark after the Cartoon Crisis”
— Kazimierz Musial (University of Gdansk), “Benevolent Assistance and Cognitive Colonization: Nordic Involvement with the Baltic States since the 1950s”
— Christopher Browning (University of Warwick), “Concluding Reflections, Small-State Identities: Promotions Past and Present”
Future FCO, Report Commissioned by the Permanent Under Secretary, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, May 9, 2016.  This report recommends ways to make Britain’s diplomacy more efficient and flexible in an era when state hierarchies and authority are weaker, global challenges are greater, and digital technologies empower rival sources of influence.  Written by an FCO team led by former British Ambassador Tom Fletcher, its key judgments focus on clarity of purpose, flexible structures, empowered heads of mission “who own cross government strategy,” new professional skills, imported expertise, calculated risk, and priorities that favor networks and supporting other government actors.  Recommendations include:  Abolish the home/diplomatic service divide.  Develop cross-government country or regional strategies.  Accelerate digital diplomacy.  Establish a data director with a small team to drive innovation. Decide where the FCO can best add value to the rest of government, where it should lead, and where it should advise.  Move to two security tiers with 95% unclassified information accessible on personal devices.  Require all embassies to implement soft power strategies embedded in country plans.  Assign 25% of directorate staffs to project-oriented, time-limited “campaign teams” run from London with posts as virtual participants.  Reboot “desk officers” as “policy officers” who, “far less deskbound,” form relations with academics, think tanks, and others in expertise networks.
For British scholar Robin Brown’s informed take, see “The Future FCO Report,” May 11, 2016, Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence Blog.
Kailey Hansson, Canadian Public Diplomacy and Nation-Building: Expo 67 and the World Festival of Arts and Entertainment, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paper 3, 2016.  Hansson (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario) explores the variety of ways communist and non-communist nations used Canada’s 1967 Montreal Expo to showcase their architectural creativity and talent in the performing arts and to channel their conflicting Cold War ideologies.  For Canada, Expo 67 was an opportunity to demonstrate the nation’s performing arts and an attractive cultural identity that differed from the mass entertainment culture many perceived to be dominant in the United States.  It was also viewed as a way to build national unity between Anglophone and Francophone Canada.  In discussing these issues, Hansson contributes to an understanding of world fairs as venues for public diplomacy and cross-cultural communication.  Her paper is a well-researched and evenhanded critique of strengths and limitations in Canada’s attempt to construct a link between public diplomacy and internal nation building.
IREX 2020 Strategic Plan, International Research and Exchanges Board, April 2016.  IREX’s new strategic plan focuses on four goals: empowering youth populations, cultivating leaders, strengthening institutions dedicated to prosperity and social justice, and broadening access to quality education and information.  IREX was established in 1968 to consolidate exchanges with the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  Today, this non-profit organization has very different goals and a worldwide commitment to the exchange of scholars, students, and ideas through partnerships with government and private organizations in the US and abroad.
Michael Mandelbaum, Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era, (Oxford University Press, 2016).  Mandelbaum (Johns Hopkins, SAIS) provides a full-throated critique of US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.  His central argument is that the US has used its military power and diplomacy in attempts to instill American values and transform internal political and economic systems in too many places (e.g., Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, NATO expansion, Iraq, Afghanistan) where US interests were not at stake.  Of particular interest to diplomacy scholars are his arguments on American exceptionalism, soft power and hard power, democratic transformation initiatives, counter-insurgency strategies, human rights policies, and counterterrorism strategies.
Ilan Manor, Are We There Yet: Have MFAs Realized the Potential of Digital Diplomacy?  Results from a Cross-National Comparison, (Brill, 2016).  In this cutting edge monograph, Ilan Manor (Oxford University) addresses gaps in the growing literature on diplomacy and digital technologies and offers a series of claims relating to digital diplomacy models of foreign ministries (MFAs).  (1) MFAs have institutionalized uses of social media through best practices and training for diplomats.  (2) MFAs tend to use social media to influence elites rather than foster dialogue with broader publics.  (3) Both MFAs and social media audiences are “negotiating their respective roles in the online communication process.”  (4) MFAs remain state-centric and “fail to collaborate with non-state actors or use social media as a source of information for policymakers.”  (5) Ambassadors “now serve as digital gatekeepers.”  Manor provides empirical evidence for his claims through a comparison of foreign ministries in four countries: Poland, Finland, Norway, and Israel.  Particularly useful are his literature review and thoughtful conclusions regarding his own and further research.
The Office of American Spaces 2015 Annual Report, Bureau of International Information Programs, US Department of State, March 2016.  The report profiles the mission, characteristics, activities, funding, management, and challenges facing libraries and information resource centers, binational centers, American Centers, and American Corners.
Alex Oliver, “Do We Need Embassies Anymore?” Foreign Affairs, March 14, 2016. “The embassy,” Australia’s Lowy Institute Director for Polling observes, “at least in its traditional form, is facing an existential crisis.”  Her reasons include 21st century transformations in diplomatic practice, shrinking budgets, reluctance to embrace innovation, lack of diversity, insufficient priority for social media and other digital technologies, competition from media reporting and exhaustive country analyses by NGOS and risk consultancies, increasing national preferences for trade offices and innovation hubs, and threats to embassy security.  Nevertheless, Oliver cites reasons why embassies still have many significant roles in diplomacy and foreign relations.  Whether they continue to have value, she concludes, will depend on whether they “can become more nimble and adapt to an increasingly fluid global environment.”
Office of the Inspector General (OIG), US Department of State and Broadcasting Board of Governors,“Evaluation of Embassy Baghdad’s Implementation of Line of Effort 6 in the President’s Strategy to Counter ISIL: Exposing ISIL’s True Nature,” March 2016.  The OIG’s key findings:  (1) Embassy Baghdad operates public diplomacy activities “without formal strategic planning and goals;” (2) None of the embassy’s Integrated Country Strategy Goals contain language relating to public diplomacy or to countering the Islamic State’s messaging; (3) The Embassy is focusing more resources on social media; (4) About half of Iraqi Sunnis and Shia say they “completely oppose the global coalition to counter the Islamic State.”  The OIG recommends that the Embassy include public diplomacy in its Integrated Country Strategy action plan and complete a public diplomacy implementation plan for fiscal year 2016.
James Pamment, “Rethinking Diplomatic and Development Outcomes Through Sport: Toward a Participatory Paradigm of Multi-stakeholder Diplomacy,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Volume 27, Issue 2, 2016, 231-250, published online May 10, 2016.  Pamment (Lund University) analyzes how “sites and practices of sport diplomacy and sports development” can contribute to theorization of participatory models of multi-stakeholder diplomacy and ways stakeholders act as both “partners in, and objects of, diplomacy.”  His article makes three arguments.  First, sport diplomacy and sports development demonstrate the relationship between diplomacy, public diplomacy, and development and the possibilities for overcoming “knowledge silos” in diplomatic studies.  Second, his article illuminates tensions between “instrumentalist and participatory paradigms of diplomatic influence” – and shows how sport diplomacy challenges instrumental approaches with participatory qualities that make diplomacy more diffuse and inclusive.  Third, Pamment analyzes how evaluation techniques of diplomatic organizations buttress his case that changes in practice support “the participatory potential of multi-stakeholder diplomacy.”
Bryan Price, “A View From the CT Foxhole: The Honorable Juan C. Zarate, Former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism,” CTC Sentinel, April 22, 2016.  In this interview with CTC Sentinel, Zarate (a private consultant and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes), summarizes an array of counterterrorism challenges facing Europe and the United States.  To deal with them, Zarate calls for strategies on two fronts:  first, continued use of financial intelligence and tools, strengthened by increased “financial diplomacy;” second, a more robust “battle of ideas” against violent extremist ideologies.  Because the US government “is neither expert nor credible in confronting an ideology grounded in interpretations of Islam,” the US must “empower a new type of coalition” – a “network of networks” that connects governments, civil society NGOs, philanthropists and others willing to engage not just in “counter-messaging but confronting directly the outbreaks and manifestations of this ideology, as with a pandemic.”
“Public Diplomacy.”  Wikipedia.  Wikipedia’s article on “public diplomacy” is remarkably thin for a concept that figures so prominently in diplomacy studies and practice.  Wikipedia states “the article has multiple issues” and cites two in particular:  (1) Its examples and perspective deal primarily with the United States and do not reflect a global view of the subject.  (2) The article may contain published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources.  Readers of this list may wish to contribute to much-needed improvement of the article.
“Public Diplomacy in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Public Diplomacy Magazine, Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars, University of Southern California Issue 15, Winter 2016.  This edition of PD Magazine, edited by graduate students in USC’s Public Diplomacy MA program, includes interviews, case studies, and brief articles intended to start a dialogue about the “practice and possibilities” of public diplomacy in Africa.  Topics include Ethiopian millennial diasporas, basketball diplomacy, film and cultural diplomacy, and China’s public diplomacy in Africa.
Jedediah Purdy, After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene, (Harvard University Press, 2015).  US military and civilian leaders repeatedly identify global climate change as a severe and imminent threat greater than terrorism, WMD, and the current menu of regional conflicts.  Yet leaders, as well as diplomacy scholars and practitioners, have paid relatively little attention to what Purdy (Duke University) calls “planetary engineering without design.”  The facts of what geologists call the anthropocene (an epoch in which nature no longer exists apart from humanity) are scientific, he argues.  But their meaning for how groups behave and connect in a global landscape of inequality creates questions for a politics that does not yet exist.  Purdy’s book explores ways to think about one of the “wicked problems” in diplomacy’s context.  He first discusses traditional ways of imagining the world and the place of humanity in it.  He then argues the anthropocene requires new ways of imagining and discourse that adds emotional and bodily experiences to linguistics of political reasoning.  We must “learn from, live with, and improve upon our panoply of failures,” he contends, in dealing with a global threat that confounds traditional ethical and political responses that have succeeded elsewhere.
Alec Ross, The Industries of the Future: How the Next 10 Years of Innovation Will Transform Our Lives at Work and Home, (Simon & Schuster, 2016).  Ross (Visiting Fellow, Johns Hopkins University, and former Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) examines six transformational global trends: robotics, genomics, coded money, weaponization of code, big data analytics, and the geographic spread of domain expertise and urban innovation hubs.  Ross uses stories, many drawn from his work at the Department of State, and evenhanded analysis of promises and challenges to convey his ideas about coming changes in markets, governance, diplomacy, war, and “what it takes for societies, families, and individuals to thrive.”
David Samuels, “The Storyteller and the President,” The New York Times Magazine, May 8, 2016, 44-54.  Samuels (a freelance writer for Harpers, The New Yorker, and other publications) profiles the rise and work of Ben Rhodes, Obama administration speechwriter and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication.  His controversial account portrays Rhodes as “the single most influential voice shaping American foreign policy aside from Potus himself” – influence Samuels’ sources attribute to his “mind meld” with the President.  Samuels quotes Rhodes’ dismissal of the average press corps reporter as 27-year olds who “literally know nothing” about foreign affairs, cites his denigration of the American foreign policy establishment (he refers to it as the “Blob”), and provides a lengthy account of White House digital strategies on the Iran nuclear deal and other issues using non-traditional sources and an understanding of where constituencies are on each issue.  “Now the most effectively weaponized 140-character idea or quote will almost always carry the day.”  The article generated widespread critical comment on both Rhodes and Samuels.
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Reimagining Public Diplomacy’s Organizational Structure at the U.S. Department of State, May 12, 2016.  Presented as a “white paper” intended to contribute to “the conversation on structural reform on public diplomacy in the State Department,” the Commission makes five core recommendations for how it believes “the PD enterprise can become more strategically oriented and efficient in advancing global, regional, and bilateral policies and better support PD professionals in Washington and on the frontlines.”  (1) Create a Global Strategic Priorities Unit and emphasize the need for regional planning.  (2) Strengthen the PD administrative back office.  (3) Coordinate PD financial resources with global, regional, and bilateral strategies.  (4) Consider embedding regional representatives from the Bureaus of International Information Programs and Educational and Cultural Affairs inside the State Department’s regional bureaus.  (5) Create a task force to review PD services that can be co-located or consolidated.
The Commission’s “white paper” treats public diplomacy as an enterprise in diplomacy with distinct structures and processes, and a separate career path within the Department of State.  Its US model and approach to recommendations for change contrast sharply with the British model described in the Future FCO report listed above.  British practitioners no longer use the term public diplomacy, although they give high priority to soft power, civil society actors, networks, and the way digital technologies are changing diplomatic practice.  These reports, released almost simultaneously, were written largely by insiders who focused on how their foreign ministries are dealing with forces driving change in diplomacy.  Although the focus of the British report is broader, comparative assessments of the two reports would benefit scholars and practitioners.
USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Social Media Analytics for Digital Advocacy Campaigns: Five Common Challenges, Discussion Paper, April 2016.  The authors of this 13-page paper examine challenges in “bridging the measurement gap between advocacy operations (outputs) and ultimate outcomes” in digital advocacy campaigns.  They discuss five areas in social media analytics that hold promise: search parameters, social media share of voice, the qualitative “who,” sentiment analysis, and demographics.  The paper focuses on policy advocacy by governments using Twitter to target foreign publics on specific policy issues.
Manuela Zechner and Bue Rubner Hanson, “More Than a Welcome: The Power of Cities,”OpenDemocracy, April 7, 2016.  Zechner (Berlin Institute for Migration Research) and Hanson (University of Aarhus) explore how city governments are collaborating and reaching agreements in welcoming refugees, while challenging state governments that are inactive or deadlocked in creating imaginative migration policies.  Networks of cities, they argue, are transforming governance and diplomacy.  Cities are becoming essential actors in achieving security and social solidarity and dealing with the politics of fear “beyond the abstract notions of nation.”  Their article suggests numerous ideas for case studies in city diplomacy.  (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
Corneliu Bjola, “Does Diplomacy Still Matter,” April 8, 2016, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Robin Brown, “Plans! We Don’t Need No Stinking Plans!” April 5, 2016; “Hard and Soft Power as Metaphor,”March 30, 2016, Public Diplomacy Networks and Influence Blog.
Daryl Copeland, “Restoring Canadian Diplomatic Leadership in Five Uneasy Pieces,” March 31, 2016, Guerrilla Diplomacy.
Rebecca Connolly, “Acknowledging Devotion; Disrupting Recruitment,” May 16, 2016, GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, Take Five Blog.
Kim Andrew Elliott, “Avoiding Misinformation About Disinformation,” March 24, 2016. CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
James Glassman, “Bring Back the USIA and Defeat ISIS,” April 18, 2016, American Enterprise Institute, InsideSources.
Emma Grundhauser, “Women in Film: The Effects Abroad of Hollywood Stereotypes,” May 10, 2016, GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, Take Five Blog.
Katherine Hess, “Digital Diplomacy: Social Media and Data Collection as a Bridge to Cultural Differences,”May 16, 2016, GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, Take Five Blog.
Katie Kamins, “Best ‘American’ Film: How America Lacks International Perspective with Its Movies and Awards Shows,” May 9, 2016, GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, Take Five Blog.
Ilan Manor, “Have MFAs Realized Digital Diplomacy Potential?” April 21, 2016, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Emily T. Metzgar, “The Plus ça Change,” April 7, 2016, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Adam Clayton Powell, III, “New VOA Director, ‘Great Journalism is Great Public Diplomacy,’” May 10, 2016, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Shaun Riordan, “Cyber Diplomacy vs. Digital Diplomacy: A Terminological Distinction,” May 12, 2016; “Digital Diplomacy 2.0: Beyond the Social Media Obsession,” April 25, 2016, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
GWMSantiago, “Before Speaking, Make Sure They’ll Listen,” May 17, 2016, GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, Take Five Blog.
Pascal Siegel, “The Next Step in Countering ISIS Messaging,” March 21, 2016, American Security Project.
Ruth Stenhardt, “How to Create ‘Wikiplomacy,’” March 28, 2016, GWToday.
Mathew Wallin, “Analyzing the 2016 Arab Youth Survey,” April 13, 2016; “Rebuilding the American Message,”March 31, 2016, American Security Project.
Gem From The Past
Walter R. Roberts, “The Evolution of Diplomacy,” Mediterranean Quarterly, 17.3 (Summer 2006), 55-64.  Summer 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of US diplomat and scholar Walter Roberts.  His family and friends, colleagues, and former students remember a distinguished career that began in the Voice of America in 1942 and thereafter included diplomatic assignments in the former Yugoslavia, service as an associate director of the US Information Agency, and a presidential appointment to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.  Following his retirement, Dr. Roberts pioneered the teaching of public diplomacy at George Washington University in the 1980s.
The occasion prompts this re-listing of his seminal article on the transformation of diplomacy during the second half of the 20th century.  Listed by Mediterranean Quarterly as one of the most frequently cited articles in its 27-year history, Roberts’ article provides a succinct overview of how government-to government diplomacy evolved to include widespread government-to-people diplomacy – a transformation that led to a global conversation on the meaning and methods of “public diplomacy.”  It is a useful foundational reading as scholars and practitioners in the 21st century ask whether another transformation is occurring.  Has public diplomacy become so central to diplomacy that it is no longer helpful to treat it as a siloed concept and subset of diplomatic practice?  “The Evolution of Diplomacy” is available online courtesy of the Public Diplomacy Alumni Association.
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Issue #79

Drew Gilpin Faust, “John Hope Franklin: Race and the Meaning of America,” The New York Review of Books,December 17, 2015.  Harvard University President Faust pays tribute to the life of the late historian John Hope Franklin on the 100th anniversary of his birth.  She explores the unflinching excellence of his scholarship, tensions between his activism and scholarly ideals, and his influence on a younger generation of advocates such as Bryan Stevenson and Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Franklin served on the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter) during an era when its members included such other prominent Americans as CBS President Frank Stanton, opinion pollster George Gallup, journalist John Seigenthaler, novelist James Michener, conservative activist William F. Buckley, Jr., and media market researcher Arthur Nielson.
Alberto M. Fernandez, “Countering the Islamic State’s Message,” The Journal of International Security Affairs,Number 30, Winter, 2016.  The former State Department Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communication argues the Islamic State’s rise is the product of the historical circumstances — “events on the ground and the changing political-reality in the region.”  He argues the response to ISIS has been especially deficient in countering its ideology.  He offers a two-fold approach: (1) Deep comprehension of the main elements of the “ISIS package” – its Salafist worldview, its “grievance collecting,” and its utopianism.  (2) Building a counter-narrative grounded in increasing the number of “anti-ISIS messengers,” content appropriate to a utopian, grievance-laden version of jihadist Salafism, amplifying disaffected voices, citizen empowerment, and personal outreach.
Eytan Gilboa, Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert, Jason Miklian and Piers Robinson, “Moving Media and Conflict Studies Beyond the CNN Effect,” Review of International Studies, published online March 3, 2016.  Gilboa (Bar-Ilan University), Jumbert (The Peace Research Institute Oslo), Miklian (The Peace Research Institute Oslo), and Robinson (University of Manchester) argue transformative changes in media and conflict environments require new conceptual and theoretical approaches to media-conflict interactions.  New research must account for (1) the impact of multiplication and fragmentation of media outlets on news gathering and (2) the roles of local media in conflict zones and national media that cover conflicts in their periphery.  Drawing in part on Roger Mac Ginty’s concept of hybridity and Gilboa’s analysis of multilevel interactions, their article proposes five streams of “research on glocalised conflict:  from the national level to the global; from the local to the global; from the glocal to the local; from the global to the global; and from the near local to the far local.”
Eytan Gilboa, “Public Diplomacy,” in G. Mazzoleni, ed., The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), pp. 1-9.  In this concise, informed, and tightly written overview, Gilboa (Bar-Ilan University) discusses traditional definitions of public diplomacy, its uses in the Cold War, and theoretical distinctions between public diplomacy and soft power.  His essay provides useful summaries of differences between public diplomacy and “new public diplomacy,” digital public diplomacy’s uses of digital technologies, and nation branding.  Gilboa has written extensively on the strengths and limitations of public diplomacy as a multidisciplinary field of study.  He concludes with brief reflections on challenges facing scholars and practitioners.
David Greenberg, Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2016).  Greenberg (Rutgers University) has written a readable and well-researched account of the ideas and personalities that shaped presidential level efforts to influence public opinion at home and abroad from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama.  Although much of his focus is on domestic politics, Greenberg has a lot to say about the evolution of US diplomacy’s public dimension.  Specialists will find new insights on George Creel, Walter Lippmann, Woodrow Wilson, Harold Lasswell, Edward Bernays, Archibald MacLeish, George Gallup, Robert Sherwood, Elmer Davis, William Benton, C. D. Jackson, Ted Sorenson, Michael Deaver, and Karen Hughes.  Greenberg’s themes include the impact of new technologies, debates on rational arguments and emotional appeals, contrasting views on leadership and public opinion, media strategies, organizational issues in White House and executive branch agency approaches to managing “psychological warfare” and “information,” and multiple conceptual issues (e.g., deeds vs. words, attribution of information, messaging, news management, framing terms, selective perceptions, and image making).
Alison Holmes with J. Simon Rofe, eds., Global Diplomacy: Theories, Types, and Models, (Westview Press, 2016).  Holmes (Humboldt State University) and Rofe (University of London) have written and compiled chapters that portray global diplomacy as a historically durable institution that is separate from and parallel to governance and “constantly evolving to reflect shifts in structure and power.”  They argue the essence of diplomacy has not changed and mainstream analytical narratives have value.  However, a new theoretical framework is needed that focuses on understanding the purposes of diplomacy through practice, the relevance of “diplomacy-as-dialogue” throughout history, and a perspective that goes beyond Western states to include diplomatic practices of non-Western states in all stages of development.  Scholars and practitioners concerned with diplomacy’s public dimension will find Giles Scott-Smith’s (Leiden University) chapter on “Cultural Diplomacy” particularly useful.  He bridges theory and practice with informed assessment of the difficulties in defining cultural diplomacy, “signposts” in its development, and how it differs from nation branding and propaganda.
Ellen Huijgh and Jordan Warlick, The Public Diplomacy of Emerging Powers, Part 1: The Case of Turkey, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, January 2016.  Huijgh (Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’) and Warlick (Center for Public Diplomacy) explore the history of Turkey’s domestic politics and socio-cultural developments as factors in the country’s public diplomacy and role as an emerging power.  The authors argue Turkey is a strong example of ways in which “intermestic” narratives (where a bright line no longer exists between foreign and domestic) shape public diplomacy and empower civil society actors equipped with digital technologies.  Their paper makes considerable use of the US Open Source Center’s “Master Narratives Report: Turkey” (2014).
James Pamment, ed., Intersections Between Public Diplomacy and International Development: Case Studies in Converging Fields, CPD Perspectives, USC Center for Public Diplomacy, February 2016.  Pamment (Lund University) usefully conceptualizes three levels of analysis for understanding “the sites and contexts” in which public diplomacy and development “appear to converge”: (1) aid itself as a form of public diplomacy, (2) communication of aid activities as public diplomacy, and (3) discourses within institutions and in practitioner and stakeholder communities about public diplomacy.  The case studies in this accessible collection offer a variety of perspectives on the intersection of two fields that have often been viewed separately by scholars and practitioners.  The volume – a result of collaboration between USC’s CPD and the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy – is a significant analytical contribution and an inviting foundation for further research.
— James Pamment, “Introduction”
— Hyunjin Seo (University of Kansas) and Stuart Thorson (Syracuse University), “Empathy in Public Diplomacy: Strategic Academic Engagement with North Korea”
— B. Senem Çevik, (University of California, Irvine), “Turkey’s Development Aid: An Ecosystem of Conservative Grassroots and Progressive Foreign Policy”
— Larisa Smirnova (Xiamen University), “Eurasian Students in China: A New Angle in Understanding China’s Public Diplomacy”
— Valerie Cooper (Hong Kong Baptist University), “Soft Power Development: The Values and Priorities of Foreign Media Interventions in South Sudan”
— Mohammad Ibahrine (University of Sharjah, UAE), “Nation Branding in the Gulf Countries”
— Kazumi Noguchi (Kobe Women’s University), “Impact of Government-Philanthropy Collaboration on Global Health Diplomacy: A Case Study of Public-Private Partnerships in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)”
— James Pamment, “The International Aid Transparency Initiative: Communication for Development or Public Diplomacy?”
Hallvard Notaker, Giles Scott-Smith, and David J. Snyder, eds., Reasserting America in the 1970s: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Rebuilding of America’s Image Abroad, (Manchester University Press, 2016).  In their fine introduction to this excellent collection of 17 essays on US public diplomacy in the 1970s (framed as 1965-1980), Notaker (University of Oslo), Scott-Smith (University of Leiden), and Snyder (University of South Carolina) identify six broad themes: (1) the influence of civil rights and the Vietnam War on public diplomacy efforts, (2) the importance of public-private cooperation, (3) the unexpected results abroad of America’s increasingly raucous social diversity, (4) the new resonance for America’s “universalist ethos” in a changing global context, (5) the crucial importance of both ends of the “transmission and reception” axis to understanding public diplomacy practice, and (6) the close connection between hard and soft power.  Half the chapters focus on problems and methods in public diplomacy projection.  The others examine how US public diplomacy efforts were received.
— Thomas W. Zeller (University of Colorado Boulder), “Historical Setting: The Age of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”
— Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), “The Devil at the Crossroads: USIA and American Public Diplomacy”
— Brian C. Etheridge (Georgia Gwinnett College), “The Sister-City Network in the 1970s: American Municipal Internationalism and Public Diplomacy in a Decade of Change”
— Kenneth Osgood (Colorado School of Mines), “The Exposure of CIA Sponsorship of Radio Free Europe: The ‘Crusade for Freedom,’ American Exceptionalism, and the Foreign-Domestic Nexus of Public Diplomacy”
— Laura A. Belmonte (Oklahoma State University), “USIA Responds to the Women’s Movement, 1960-1975”
— Michael L. Krenn (Appalachian State University), “‘The Low Key Mulatto Coverage’: Race, Civil Rights, and American Public Diplomacy: 1965-1976”
— Claire Bower (University of South Carolina), “Paintbrush Politics: The Collapse of American Arts Diplomacy, 1968-1972”
— Teasel Muir-Harmony (American Institute of Physics), “Selling Space Capsules, Moon Rocks, and America: Spaceflight in U.S. Public Diplomacy, 1961-1979”
— Alessandro Brogi (University of Arkansas), “America’s Public Diplomacy in France and Italy During the Years of Eurocommunism”
— John C. Stoner (University of Pittsburgh), “Selling American Between Sharpeville and Soweto: The USIA in South Africa, 1960-1976”
— Benjamin P. Green (Bowling Green State University), “Selling the American West on the Frontier of the Cold War: The U.S. Army’s German-American Volkfest in West Berlin, 1965-1981”
— Paul M. McGarr (University of Nottingham), “Unquiet Americans: The Church Committee, the CIA, and the Intelligence Dimension of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the 1970s”
— M. Todd Bennett (East Carolina University), “Time to Heal the Wounds: America’s Bicentennial and U.S.-Sweden Normalization in 1976”
— Barbara Keys (University of Melbourne), “‘Something to Boast About’: Western Enthusiasm for Carter’s Human Rights Diplomacy”
— John M. Rosenberg (Brown University), “To Arms for the Western Alliance: The Committee on the Present Danger, Defense Spending and the Perception of American Power Abroad, 1973-1980”
— Robert J. McMahon (Ohio State University), “Afterword: Selling America in the Shadow of Vietnam”
Mark Seip, “Harnessing Communications and Public Diplomacy: Four Rules for Success in Strategy Development,” Atlantic Council, Issue Brief, January 2016.  Seip (Atlantic Council Nonresident Military Fellow) argues the US “appears out of touch” in the “use of information and public diplomacy” and is losing ground to ISIS, Russia, and China.  He calls for national policymakers to emphasize four “core communication elements” in developing strategies and policies: (1) understanding how today’s audiences use technologies and receive information, (2) find mutuality and common ground, (3) create space for conversations that are sustainable over the long term (a goal undercut by the risk aversion of lawmakers and Washington officials), and (4) engage in conversations, not monologue.
Steve Tatham, ed., Defence Strategic Communications, Volume 1, Number 1, Winter 2015.  This new peer-reviewed journal is published by the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Latvia, a collaborative project of seven European NATO partner nations.  Its goal is “to bring academic rigor to the study of defence strategic communications,” assist NATO in its various missions, and “bring together military, academic, business, and governmental knowledge” in the field.  The journal’s editor in chief Steve Tatham is author of the highly regardedBehavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People’s Motivations Will Prove Decisive In Future Conflict.  Articles are the views of the authors and do not reflect NATO policies.  (Courtesy of Stephanie Helm)
— Timothy Thomas (US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth), “Russia’s 21st Century Information War: Working to Undermine and Destabilize Populations”
— Christopher Paul (RAND) and Elizabeth L. Petrun Sayers (RAND), “Assessing and Moving Past the ‘Funnel’ Model of Counterterrorism Communication”
— Lee Richards (PsyWar.org), “The Rainbow in the Dark: Assessing a Century of British Military Operations”
— Jeff Giesea, “It’s Time to Embrace Memetic Warfare”
— Theron Verdon (State University of New York College at Oneonta), “The Return of Khilafah: The Constitutional Narratives of Daesh”
— Christine A. Ralph MacNulty (Applied Futures, Inc.), “Method for Minimizing the Negative Consequences of Nth Order Effects in Strategic Communication Actions and Inactions”
— Miranda Holsom (US Army), “The Narrative and Social Media”
— Caitlin Schindler (Institute of World Politics), “Proactively Preserving the Inward Quiet: Public Diplomacy and NATO”
Sanford J. Ungar, “The Study-Abroad Solution: How to Open the American Mind,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2016.  Ungar (President Emeritus, Goucher College) takes issue with “the almost universal failure of the broader U.S. public to know and understand others, except through the military lens.”  His approach to this dangerous problem is to “massively increase the number of U.S. college and university students who go abroad for some part of their education and bring home essential knowledge and new perspectives.”  His article discusses challenges to expanding learning abroad and provides evidence of its educational, economic, and public policy benefits.
Antoaneta M. Vanc and Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, “Scope and Status of Public Diplomacy Research by Public Relations Scholars, 1990–2014,” Public Relations Review, January 2016.  Vanc (Quinnipiac University) and Fitzpatrick (American University) assess a significant increase in public diplomacy research by public relations scholars during the past quarter century.  Their article looks at leading public relations scholars working on public diplomacy, their research topics and methodological approaches, and their contributions to theory building and diplomatic practice.  Findings include the promise of a relational approach to public diplomacy research, the need for empirical studies, and development of comparative studies to identify public diplomacy best practices.
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
Robin Brown, “More on the Closing Space Problem,” February 16, 2016; “The Secret of Public Diplomacy,” February 22, 2016; “French and German Cultural Action in Brazil in the 1960s and 1970s,” February 25, 2016, Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence Blog.
Daryl Copeland, “Seven Steps to a Higher Functioning Foreign Ministry,” March 1, 2016, Embassy.
Ryan Crocker, “Divided We’ll Fall,” February 12, 2106, The Hill.
“Fact Sheet: Maintaining Momentum in the Fight Against ISIL,” January 15, 2016, The White House, Office of the Press Secretary.
Paul Farhi, “Low Ratings Finally Sink Al Jazeera America,” January 13, 2016, The Washington Post.
Thomas L. Friedman, “Social Media: Destroyer or Creator,” February 3, 2016, The New York Times.
Gardiner Harris and Cecilia Kang, “Obama Shifts Online Strategy on ISIS,” January 8, 2016, The New York Times.
Alan Heil, “A New Era in U.S. International Broadcasting,” March 4, 2016, The Public Diplomacy Council.
John Hudson, “Growth of Islamic State Forces State Department Overhaul,” February 1, 2016, Foreign Policy Blog.
Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung, “Obama Administration Plans Shake-up in Propaganda War Against ISIS,” January 8, 2016, The Washington Post.
Thomas Miller, “Prerequisites for Using Social Media to Oppose the State,” March 1, 2016; “Return of the First Quadrant of Public Diplomacy,” February 10, 2016, GW’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, Take Five Blog.
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Five Truths About Terrorism,” February 4, 2016, Project Syndicate.
Cynthia P. Schneider, “The Problem With John Kerry’s Trip to Hollywood,” February 19, 2016, Foreign Policy Blog.
Richard Stengel, “Remarks on Waging a Digital Counterinsurgency,” January 18, 2016, U.S. Department of State.
Patrick Tucker, “America’s New Plan to Fight ISIS Online,” January 11, 2016, DefenseOne.
Matthew Wallin, “Ch-Ch-Changes in the US Anti-Extremist Messaging Strategy,” January 14, 2014, American Security Project.
“West Point Students Plan to Counter ISIS Online,” February 14, 2016, National Public Radio.
R. S. Zaharna, “The Parallels and Paradoxes of Ant-Terrorism Communication,” March 1, 2016; “Culture Posts: Between Image and Reality,” January 28, 2016, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Gem From The Past
Robert Entman, “Theorizing Mediated Public Diplomacy: The U.S. Case,” The International Journal of Press/Politics, 13(2) April 2008, 87-102.  Entman (George Washington University, author of Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy, 2004) is widely recognized for his path breaking scholarship in media and communication studies.  Eight years ago, he used his cascading network activation model of media framing to create a theoretical model of “mediated public diplomacy.”  His model focused on the importance of political and cultural congruency as a factor in US efforts to promote favorable framing of its policies in foreign media.  It is a model he hoped would be generalizable to the mediated public diplomacy of other countries.  Digital technologies have changed the global media environment significantly in the intervening years.  Nevertheless, his article remains a fruitful source of ideas for research and a significant contribution in efforts to create theoretical frameworks relevant to study and practice in the public dimension of diplomacy.
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2016 WR Annual Lecture: David Ensor

The Role of Voice of America & Values Journalism in Combating Propaganda and Violent Extremism

This year’s Walter Roberts Annual lecture featured David Ensor, former Voice of America Director, in a conversation with Frank Sesno, Director of the GW School of Media and Public Affairs.

He spoke on American public diplomacy, and how Voice of America and the Radio Free programs help contribute to the successful communication with foreign publics.

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Issue #78

Eric Bennett, Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War, (University of Iowa Press, 2015).  Bennett (Providence College) looks at how contested Cold War ideologies and foundations funded by the CIA shaped the activities of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and creative writing programs in American universities.  Focusing on the careers of Workshop administrators Paul Engle (University of Iowa) and Wallace Stegner (Stanford University), Bennett argues that, although they wanted to spread American values, they also did not want to be seen as imposing a particular ideology fearing invidious comparisons with communism.  Accordingly, they encouraged aspiring writers to adopt aesthetic principles, a vision for literature, and techniques of writing and criticism that might “help to save the free world.”  “Novels, stories, plays, poems, and more generally the artistic and critical excellence of creative minds in a liberal democracy could, they believed, inoculate the citizenry against fearsome ideologies.”
Corneliu Bjola and Marcus Holmes, eds., Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, (Routlege, 2015).  Bjola (Oxford University) and Holmes (College of William & Mary) have compiled a timely and useful compendium of essays by scholars and practitioners on a cutting edge topic, which they broadly define as “the use of social media for diplomatic purposes.”  Their goal is “to theorize what digital diplomacy is, assess its relationship to traditional forms of diplomacy, examine the latent power dynamics inherent to digital diplomacy, and uncover the conditions under which digital diplomacy informs, regulates, or constrains foreign policy.”  The book has an excellent bibliography and the unusual virtue of being affordably priced for teachers, students, and practitioners.  Includes:
— Corneliu Bjola, “Introduction: Making Sense of Digital Diplomacy”
— Marcus Holmes, “Digital Diplomacy and International Change Management”
— Sabrina Sotiriu (University of Ottawa), “Digital Diplomacy: Between Promises and Reality”
— Alexis Wichowski (US Department of State), “‘Secrecy is for Losers’: Why Diplomats Should Embrace Openness to Protect National Security”
— Corneliu Bjola and Lu Jiang (Oxford University), “Social Media and Public Diplomacy: A Comparative Analysis of Digital Diplomatic Strategies of the EU, US and Japan in China”
— Ilan Manor (Tel Aviv University) and Elad Segev (Tel Aviv University), “America’s Selfie: How the US Portrays Itself on Its Social Media Accounts”
— Amanda Clarke (Carleton University), “Business as Usual? An Evaluation of British and Canadian Diplomacy as Policy Change”
— Stuart Murray (Bond University), “Evolution, Not Revolution: The Digital Divide in American and Australian Contexts”
— Karen L. Corrie (Fordham University), “The International Criminal Court: Using Technology in Network Diplomacy”
— Jon Pelling (Swedish Embassy in London), “When Doing Becomes the Message: The Case of the Swedish Digital Diplomacy”
— J. P.  Singh (George Mason University), “The Power of Diplomacy: New Meanings, and the Methods for Understanding Digital Diplomacy”
— Marcus Holmes, “Conclusion: The Future of Digital Diplomacy”
Broadcasting Board of Governors, “BBG Leaders Urge Senate Committee to Target Smart Reform of U.S. International Media,” November 19, 2015.  In hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on November 17, 2015, two panels presented views on issues in US international broadcasting, pending legislation, and options for reform.  In the first panel, the BBG’s views were presented in statements by BBG Chairman Jeff Schell, BBG CEO John Lansing, and BBG GovernorKenneth Weinstein.  In the second panel, the contrasting views of surrogate broadcasters were presented in statements by former Radio Liberty Director Enders Wimbush and former President/CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Kevin Klose.
David Bromwich, Moral Imagination, (Princeton University Press, 2014).  Diplomacy scholars and practitioners concerned with questions of cultural identity and varieties of relationships between groups will find much of value in this collection of twelve essays by Yale University’s David Bromwich.  “How Publicity Makes People Real” examines how media have become naturalized in the lives of many and conspire to persuade us we hardly exist outside the social world.  “The Self Deceptions of Empire” places Reinhold Niebuhr’s critique of US arrogance and belief in its uniqueness in the context of current arguments on American exceptionalism.  “Holy Terror and Civilized Terror” analyzes the motives of terrorists and an “emergency state of mind” used to justify excess in counterterrorism.  Teachers who have used Amartya Sen’s argument that people have multiple professional, regional, and political identities to make a case against rigid classifications by culture, religion, and ethnicity will find supporting views in Bromwich’s “Dissent on Cultural Identity.”
Costas M. Constantinou and Sam Okoth Opondo, “Engaging the ‘Ungoverned’: The Merging of Diplomacy, Defence, and Development,” Conflict and Cooperation, published online November 11, 2015.  Constantinou (University of Cypres) and Opondo (Vassar College) stretch traditional boundaries in this paper.  They examine “global practices of bio politics” that embrace the whole of humanity beyond national borders.  They look at the merging of diplomacy, defense, and development as a means to achieve human flourishing in spaces that “cannot be fully governed or resist domestication.”  And, using the US military’s combatant command for Africa (AFRICOM) as a case study, they analyze the “pluralization of diplomatic theory and practice” through “the militarization of diplomacy and development, the diplomatization of the military, and new forms of diplomatic outreach.”  Do these trends, they ask, create new forms of diplomatic agency and/or new diplomatic subjects?  Their paper does not escape the analytical need for boundaries in study and practice.  Their provocative argument will be contested, but their paper contributes to useful thought and debate.
Daryl Copeland, Science and Diplomacy After Canada’s Lost Decade: Counting the Costs, Looking Beyond, Policy Paper, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, November 2015.  In this report, Copeland (former Canadian diplomat and author of Guerilla Diplomacy) reflects on the importance of science and diplomacy in seeking solutions to climate change and other global challenges.  He examines policy and governance deficiencies that have damaged Canada’s influence and international reputation and concludes with recommendations for Canada’s new government and diplomacy practitioners.
David Ensor, Exporting the First Amendment: Strengthening U.S. Soft Power Through Journalism, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, December 2015.  Writing as a fall 2015 Shorenstein Fellow, former Voice of America (VOA) Director Ensor takes issue with US lawmakers and others seeking to “make VOA a full-throated advocate for American policy” and to report exclusively on US-related news.  A supporter of VOA’s traditional mission, he argues “for protecting and strengthening VOA as an independent journalistic voice, in order to increase American soft power.”  Ensor frames his argument in the context of Joseph Nye’s concepts of soft power, the successful role of the BBC World Service, Russia’s problematic efforts to “weaponize information” through RT, China Central Television’s (CCTV) $7 billion dollar network,” the strengths and limitations of digital technologies, and contrasting characteristics of media markets.  He concludes with a series of recommendations to expand and improve VOA.  Ensor’s views are those of an advocate who argues the best journalism should not be value neutral.  His values are to strengthen a US government broadcasting organization, advance American interests through “fair news reporting in key languages,” and promote democracy and freedom of speech.
Investing for Influence, Report of the LSE Diplomacy Commission, LSE Ideas, 2015.  LSE Ideas, a research center at the London School of Economics, convened seventeen Commissioners from top levels of government, civil service, intelligence services, journalism, civil society, and academe to look at the future of British diplomacy and foreign policy.  The Commission’s report for the most part seeks to promote debate about Britain’s role in a changing international context rather than advance specific recommendations.  Key judgments consist mostly of broad generalizations.  The Commission sees “a role for the UK as an agenda setter and coalition builder across a broad range of global challenges” if it is willing to “contribute to the commons, rather than thinking in terms of narrow British interests.”  To achieve this “the UK will need to invest in the tools of diplomacy that have been eroded” and strengthen diplomatic capacity in “two key areas: knowledge and people.”  For a brief analysis of this report andStrengthening Britain’s Voice in the World (annotated below) see Robin Brown, “Foreign Policy Elite Defends the Foreign Office,” November 24, 2015, Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence Blog.
Yulia Kiseleva, “Russia’s Soft Power Discourse: Identity, Status, and the Attraction of Power,”Politics, Volume 35, Issue 3-4, November 2015, 316-329.  Kiseleva (King’s College London) adopts a constructivist approach to soft power to address two key questions.  What are some difficulties and internal tensions in Joseph Nye’s soft power concepts that nevertheless have been embraced by elites in Russia and elsewhere?  How is Russia’s soft power discourse shaped by its historic “love-hate” relationship with the West, and how has it evolved from cooperative emulation to increasingly assertive opposition?  Kiseleva’s brief well-written article is useful for course topics on conceptual issues in soft power theory and Russian public diplomacy. (Courtesy of Yelena Osipova)
William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State, (St. Martin’s Press, 2015).  McCants (Brookings Institution, former State Department advisor on countering violent extremism) provides an informed account of the Islamic State’s rise.  In the growing literature on ISIS, his book has attracted wide praise for its clarity and nuanced analysis of ISIS’s strategy and the religious ideas of its leaders.  Drawing extensively on captured emails and leaked documents, McCants provides the non-specialist with an understanding of how the Islamic State thinks of itself and how it differs from Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.  He concludes with a discussion of difficulties in developing a counter-strategy.  McCants is confident ISIS’s government in Syria and Iraq eventually “will crumble.”  He is also confident, however, that political conditions in the Arab world will lead to “Islamic State copycats” with apocalyptic narratives.
Emily Metzgar, “Institutions of Higher Education as Public Diplomacy Tools: China-Based University Programs for the 21st Century,” Journal of Studies in International Education,published online September 9, 2015.  Metzgar (Indiana University, Bloomington) examines English language teaching programs at two leading Chinese universities, Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University and Yenching Academy at Peking University, as part of China’s efforts to project soft power.  Although Confucius Institutes have dominated the literature on international educational exchanges in China’s public diplomacy, Metzgar argues the emergence of these university programs within China provide opportunities for further research on their roles and evaluation of China’s soft power.  Her article contains a brief review of literature on international educational exchanges as public diplomacy.
David Milne, Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015).  Milne (University of East Anglia) problematically conflates diplomacy and foreign policy.  Once passed this threshold issue, however, there is much on offer for diplomacy scholars in his rich portraits of nine individuals who bridged the worlds of ideas and practice in modern American foreign relations.  Milne avoids standard categories of realism / idealism and the geostrategic compartments of wars and Presidencies.  Rather his essays bring fresh insights to their ideas, the contexts in which they were formed, and their consequences.  Art and science, engagement and withdrawal are key binaries.  Especially useful are chapters on Woodrow Wilson’s idealism, Walter Lippmann’s powerful books and print journalism, and Barak Obama’s “pragmatic renewal.”
Tara Ornstein, Public Diplomacy in Global Health: An Annotated Bibliography, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, December 2015.  In a brief introductory essay, Ornstein (University of Southern California) discusses the role of public diplomacy in global health, the work of key actors in the field, and a brief case study on successful public diplomacy initiatives in TB control.  Her bibliography contains annotations on nearly forty resources on diplomacy in global health and public diplomacy as a field of study and practice.
James Pamment, “Media Influence, Ontological Transformation, and Social Change Conceptual Overlaps Between Development Communication and Public Diplomacy,” Communication Theory,Volume 25, Issue 2, 2015, 188-207.  Pamment (University of Texas at Austin) explores ways of interpreting relationships between development communication and public diplomacy – “estranged siblings,” he argues, “twin products of U.S. political science and Cold War foreign policy” that are now converging.  His article discusses their early history, their “formal establishment” in the 1960s, key concepts in the two fields, similarities and differences, a cultural imperialism critique, and prospects for further research.  Pamment argues the two fields share the concept that “information propagated through media channels alters how foreign citizens know the world around them,” and this can lead to positive social transformation.  He concludes that both fields require further interpretation and “we need new theories and new empirical studies capable of interpreting their convergence.”
Geoffrey Allen Pigman, Trade Diplomacy Transformed: Why Trade Matters for Global Prosperity,(Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).  Pigman (University of Pretoria) has two broad objectives.  His book is first a sweeping historical meditation on broad transformations in the actors, institutions, and goals of international trade.  Here a central argument is that trade diplomacy is much more than a technical subset of diplomacy.  Trade for Pigman is more than a primary object of diplomacy.  Rather, “In an important sense, trade itself is a key form of diplomacy.”  Second, his study can be read as an investigation into the changing nature of diplomatic representation and communication.  Drawing on theories in diplomatic studies, it is a contribution to contested views on who is a diplomatic actor, the role and impact of public diplomacy, and the meaning of diplomacy in the relationships of “sovereign and estranged powers.”
James Rider, “Proving Public Diplomacy Programs Work,” Foreign Service Journal, December 2015.  Rider, a diplomat in the US Department of State, calls for more “evidence-based” public diplomacy.  Building on the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy’s 2014 report, Data Driven Diplomacy, Rider examines organizational deficiencies (PD’s institutions traditionally “do not value evaluation”) and analytical challenges (measuring impact and cost-effectiveness is “extremely difficult”).  His recommendations for a shift away “from our current ‘faith-based’ public diplomacy model include: “Increase evaluations,” “Reduce the number of PD programs,” “Focus mainly on mid-level elites,” and “Stop ‘fill-in-the-blank’ diplomacy.”
Clay Shirky, Little Rice: Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream, (Columbia Global Report, 2015).  In this slim book, Shirky (NYU Shanghai, author of Cognitive Surplus, 2010, and Here Comes Everybody, 2008) combines his current thinking on digital technologies and insights on China’s political and economic trajectory in this story of the rise of the booming software firm Xiaomi Tech (“little rice” in Mandarin).  According to Shirky, the impact of Xiaomi’s popular Mi smartphones have made it the third largest ecommerce firm in China (following Alibaba and JD.com).  For China, he argues, Xiaomi is proof that the Chinese entrepreneurial class can now compete on “design, service, and customer satisfaction” on the world stage.  However, as a firm that is forced to make different versions of its software for domestic and foreign markets, Xiamoi faces “the forces of conservatism and corruption [that] always threaten to freeze progress.”  (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)
Strengthening Britain’s Voice in The World, Report of the UK Foreign and Security Policy Working Group, November 2015.  This report by a group of leading foreign affairs experts meeting at Chatham House and Ditchley Park addresses risks if Britain disengages from external threats and challenges and withdraws from membership in the EU.  It profiles desirable characteristics of the country’s foreign policy.  Its priorities include redressing a continuing deficit in the UK’s diplomatic capabilities, greater effectiveness in development spending, and setting a Foreign and Commonwealth Office “target of being a world leader in digital diplomacy.”  The report was timed to coincide with Britain’s 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review.
Vivian S. Walker, “Case 331 – State Narratives in Complex Media Environments: The Case of Ukraine,” Case Study Program, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD), Georgetown University, 2015.  Walker’s (National War College) case study, written for ISD’s recently updated case study program, examines “the origins of the strategic narrative Russia has developed about its new, post-Cold War identity and how that narrative has shaped its propaganda offensive in Ukraine.”  Her 17-page case looks at Russia’s “hybrid warfare” strategy and matrix of tools and methods; Ukraine’s identity and strategic counter-narrative; Ukraine’s matrix of tools and methods; conclusions and recommendations for action.  Review copies with teaching notes and discussion questions are available at no cost for faculty who sign in to the ISD program.  The cost per student is $3.50.  Walker’s earlier case study, “Benghazi: Managing the Message” was published in April 2015 by USC’s Center for Public Diplomacy.
Ilya Yablokov, “Conspiracy Theories as a Russian Public Diplomacy Tool: The Case of Russia Today (RT),” Politics, Volume 35, Issue 3-4, November 2015, 301-315. Yablokov (University of Leeds) looks at RT through an academic framework, drawing on Mark Fenster’s concept of conspiracy theories as a device for reallocating power through populist rhetoric that seeks to unite “the people” against imagined secretive and powerful “Others.”  The article looks briefly at international broadcasting as a tool of public diplomacy, the history of RT and its approach to reporting and interpreting news, political ideas advanced by pro-Putin intellectuals, and ways in which conspiracy theories influence RT’s efforts to legitimize Russian domestic and foreign policies and delegitimize those of the United States.  Anti-elitist conspiracy theories can attract popular attention, Yablokov concludes, but research is needed on their target audiences and power as instruments of public diplomacy.  (Courtesy of Yelena Osipova)
R. S. Zaharna and Nur Uysal, “Going for the Jugular in Public Diplomacy: How Adversarial Publics Using Social Media are Challenging State Legitimacy,” Public Relations Review, (2015).  Zaharna (American University) and Uysal (Marquette University) contribute to the relational approach in public diplomacy scholarship with this analysis of relational dynamics between states and publics.  Their article develops a 4-quadrant typology that begins with a state-based model and evolves to include a state-oriented relational model, a publics-oriented relational model, and fourth model that emphasizes negative/hostile relations in which publics empowered by social media and personalized communication channels take control initiatives.  Zaharna and Uysal analyze implications of their argument in a case study of the 2013 Gezi Park protests in Turkey.  Although their title focuses on adversarial publics using social media, the article takes a broader perspective in discussing varieties of relationships in its typology of activities and goals of state-centric and public-centric actors.
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
Steven Aftergood, “DoD Gets Go-Ahead to Counter Islamic Messaging,” November 30, 2015, Federation of American Scientists, Secrecy News Blog.
Matt Armstrong, “No, We Do Not Need to Revive the U.S. Information Agency,” November 12, 2015, War on the Rocks; “Endnote edition,” MountainRunner.us
Martha Bayles and Jeffrey Gedman, “America’s Voice Must Be Heard,” November 16, 2015, Politico Magazine.
Robin Brown, “90 Years of Russian Public Diplomacy,” December 2, 2015; “Foreign Policy Elite Defends the Foreign Office,” November 24, 2015; “Documents on British Scholarships and Visits,” Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence Blog.
Connie Chan, “When One App Rules Them All: The Case of WeChat and Mobile in China,” August 6, 2015, Andreeson Horowitz.
Jennifer Clinton and Jelena Putre, “Focus on the International Visitor Program: Looking to the Future,”December 2015, The Foreign Service Journal.
Tara Conlan, “BBG World Service to Receive £289m from Government,” November 23, 2015, The Guardian.
Marissa Cruz, “How the US Military Engages in Public Diplomacy,” November 11, 2015, USC Center for Public Diplomacy, CPD Blog.
David Ensor, “How Washington Can Win the Information War,” December 14, 2015, FP Blog.
Steven Erlanger, “American Ambassador Builds Diplomatic Bridges with British Teenagers,” The New York Times, November 10, 2015.
Ali Fisher, “No Respite on Social Media After ISIS Attacks in Paris,” December 9, 2015. USC Center for Public Diplomacy, CPD Blog.
Thomas Hegghammer, “The Soft Power of Militant Jihad,” December 18, 2015, The New York Times.
Lisa Liebman, “Meet the Ambassador Who’s a Reality TV Star in Denmark,” November 16, 2015, Vanity Fair.
Jan Melissen and Emillie de Keulenaar, “Foreign Ministries to Get Serious About ‘Digital Making,’”November 30, 2015, Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations.
Greg Miller, “Panel Casts Doubt on U.S. Propaganda Efforts Against ISIS,” December 2, 2015, The Washington Post.
David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth, “Iranian Hackers Attack State Dept. via Social Media Accounts,”November 24, 2015, The New York Times.
Matt Schudel, “Olympic Gold-medalist Served in U.S. Foreign Service,” November 22, 2015, The Washington Post.
Tara Sonenshine, “The Speech Obama Should Have Given,” December 8, 2015, The Hill blog.
Matthew Wallin, “What Constitutes Credibility in U.S. Public Diplomacy?” November 9, 2015, American Security Project.
Lynn Weil, “CRs and Shutdown Threats: The Harm They Cause,” November 12, 2015, The Hill.
Alexis Wichowski, “Social Diplomacy, Or How Diplomats Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tweet,”Foreign Affairs, April 5, 2013, posted online by the author on November 22, 2015.
Robert Zimmerman, et. al., “Focus on the International Visitor Leadership Program: Soft Power, High Impact,” December 2015, The Foreign Service Journal.
Gem From The Past (and present)
The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (HJD).  It was ten years ago that co-editors Jan Melissen (Netherlands Institute of International Affairs, ‘Clingendael,’ University of Antwerp) and Paul Sharp (University of Minnesota, Duluth) launched HJD, a quarterly academic journal devoted to the “theory, practice and techniques of diplomacy.”  HJD treats diplomatic studies as an “inter-disciplinary and inclusive field” with a wide variety of methodologies.  During its first decade, HJD has published dozens of cutting edge articles on traditional state-based and multilateral diplomacy as well as diplomacy’s evolving forms and methods.  Its pages give acceptance to a wide range of articles on public diplomacy, track two diplomacy, diplomatic practice by non-state entities, and digital diplomacy.  Each issue contains one or more articles on diplomatic practice.  Its editorial policies, backed by a distinguished international advisory board, ensure a broad global perspective.  As it enters its second decade, HJD promises to remain a leading research journal for the study of diplomacy.
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