Category: Bruce Gregory’s Resource List

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recent Blogs of interest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gem from the Past

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

“Amb. Ryan Crocker in Conversation with NPR’s Steve Inskeep,” 2012 Annual Banquet Keynote Address, Middle East Institute, November 13, 2012. Inskeep, the host of National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, interviews retired US Ambassador Ryan Crocker. In discussing a range of issues relating to Afghanistan and the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Crocker offers considered views on lessons from the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens. “One of the lessons I hope we don’t think we learned is let’s retrench, let’s have fewer engagements, let’s go out less, let’s do less, let’s know less. . . we have to be prepared to go to dangerous places, do difficult things. That’s what Chris Stevens was doing to understand and influence the new ascendancy in Libya. If you don’t deal with them, you’re not going to affect their behavior or even know what their agenda is.” Visit link for a six minute NPR audio feed on diplomacy risk issues.

American Academy of Diplomacy and The Stimson Center, Diplomacy in a Time of Scarcity, October 2012. This report, written from a Foreign Service perspective, evaluates “important, if uneven, progress” in staffing the US State Department (up 17 percent) and USAID (up 30 percent) since 2008. It makes resource and personnel recommendations for the 2014-2018 State and USAID budgets based on four assumptions: a “transition trap” driven by increased requirements and reduced resources, a US that should remain “fully engaged” worldwide, equal support for key elements of military and civilian power, and cuts in programs, not people, if choices are necessary. In a brief section that ambiguously treats public diplomacy separately from “core diplomacy,” but as “a core mission of the State Department,” public diplomacy is seen to have fallen short of its goals in personnel, academic exchanges, and creation of American cultural centers.

Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), “BBG Global Audience Estimate from the FY 2012 Performance and Results Report,”November 14, 2012. Weekly unduplicated worldwide audiences for US government-funded broadcasting services totaled 175 million in 2012 — down from 187 million in 2011 — according to the government agency responsible for both managing and evaluating US international broadcasting. Audiences increased substantially in Iran and declined in Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria, and Burma as their broadcasting markets became more open.

Manuel Castells, Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age, Polity, 2012. Networked society scholar Castells (University of Southern California) uses theories of power relationships developed in his book Communication Power (2009) to analyze new social movements characterized by their self-organization, distrust of political parties and traditional mass media, and reliance on the Internet and local assemblies. His research focuses on the Arab revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the Indignadasmovement in Spain, and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States.

Nicholas J. Cull, The Decline and Fall of the United States Information Agency: American Public Diplomacy, 1999-2001, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. In his comprehensive and deeply researched earlier book, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989, (2008), Cull (University of Southern California) took the story of USIA from its origins to the end of the Cold War. His new book, a much slimmer volume, continues the narrative characterized as a downhill trajectory to USIA’s consolidation in the Department of State in 1999 and a crisis in public diplomacy in the months leading up to 9/11. He divides his account into three chronological chapters linked to the administrations of Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Throughout, he examines four broad themes: (1) political and structural issues in the road to consolidation, (2) the extent to which USIA continued its core work, (3) the extent to which USIA adapted to new technologies and approaches to public diplomacy, and (4) indications of the neglect of public opinion prior to 9/11.

Fergus Hanson, “Baked In and Wired: eDiplomacy@State,” Policy Paper Number 30, Brookings, October 2012. Hanson (Brookings nonresident Fellow, formerly Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australia) builds on his earlier paper Revolution@State (March 2012). Using new anecdotes and recent data, Hanson focuses on three of eight categories in the US State Department’s uses of social media: public diplomacy, Internet freedom, and knowledge management. Although brimming with enthusiasm for State’s vanguard role, his paper includes views of critics and assessments of areas for improvement in what is now “a core tool of diplomacy.”

Brian Hocking, Jan Melissen, Shaun Riordan, and Paul Sharp, “Futures for Diplomacy: Integrative Diplomacy for the 21st Century,”Clingendael, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Report No. 1, October 2012. Four leading diplomacy scholars associated with Clingendael and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy take a fresh and comprehensive look at “the puzzles surrounding, and challenges confronting, contemporary diplomacy.” Their goal is to go beyond familiar arguments regarding the state of diplomacy — e.g., multiple stakeholders, managing networks, and the centrality of public diplomacy — “to consider what kind of overall image of diplomacy in the early 21st century they present and their implications for its future development.” The paper offers a framework of “integrative diplomacy” in which foreign ministries act in national diplomatic systems and diplomats “increasingly function as facilitators and social entrepreneurs.” Scholars and practitioners will find this a useful and provocative conceptual framework for ongoing conversations.

Ellen Huijgh, ed., “The Domestic Dimension of Public Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2012. The authors in this special edition of HJD provide significant reinforcement to the view that a blended domestic and international approach to diplomacy’s public dimension is an essential element in study and practice. Their articles, grounded in analysis of evolving concepts and case studies, look at domestic publics as targets of governments, partners with governments, and independent public diplomacy actors. They usefully frame current debates and provide a platform for further research. Includes:

— Ellen Huijgh (University of Antwerp, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael), “Public Diplomacy in Flux: Introducing the Domestic Dimension”

— Steven Curtis (London Metropolitan University) and Caroline Jaine (The CAST Institute, Cambridge), “Public Diplomacy at Home in the UK: Engaging Diasporas and Preventing Terrorism”

— Ellen Huijgh and Caitlin Byrne (Bond University), “Opening the Windows on Diplomacy: A Comparison of the Domestic Dimension of Public Diplomacy in Canada and Australia”

— Kathy R. Fitzpatrick (Quinnipiac University), “Defining Strategic Publics in a Networked World: Public Diplomacy’s Challenge at Home and Abroad”

— Teresa La Porte (University of Navarra), “The Impact of ‘Intermestic’ Non-State Actors on the Conceptual Framework of Public Diplomacy”

— Yiwei Wang (Tongji University), “Domestic Constraints on the Rise of Chinese Public Diplomacy”

— Shay Attias (Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, Jerusalem), “Israel’s New Peer-to-Peer Diplomacy”

— Mladen Andrlic (Diplomatic Academy, Croatia), Iva Tarle (Embassy of Croatia, Jakarta), and Suzana Simichen Sopta (Embassy of Croatia, Kuala Lumpur), “Public Diplomacy in Croatia: Sharing NATO and EU Values with the Domestic Public”

“Innovations in Public Diplomacy,” PD Magazine, USC Center for Public Diplomacy, Issue 8, Summer 2012. Essays in this collection focus on a range of cutting edge questions and issues. Who is a diplomatic actor? European Union public diplomacy. Sub-state public diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy. Sports diplomacy. Digital technologies. And more. Includes:

— Paul Levinson (Fordham University), “Everyone is a Diplomat in the Digital Age.”

— Mia’a K. Davis Cross (University of Southern California), “Europe as a Security Actor.”

— Ellen Huijgh (University of Antwerp and Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael), “The Future of Sub-state Public Diplomacy.”

— Steffan Bay Rasmussen (University of the Basque Country), “Current Challenges to European Union Public Diplomacy.”

— Ali Fisher (InterMedia), “Everybody’s Getting Hooked Up: Building Innovative Strategies in the Age of Big Data.”

— Martha Alhassen (University of Southern California), “Remarkable Current: Music as Public Diplomacy.”

— Geoffrey Pigman (University of Pretoria), “‘Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage,’ Moving Forward in the Scrum of International Sport and Public Diplomacy.”

Institute of International Education, Open Doors Report 2012, November 12, 2012. The lead finding in this year’s Open Doors Report is that international students in the US increased by six percent and US students studying abroad increased by one percent. This comprehensive report is published annually with funding from the US Department of State. In its press release, IIE emphasized that international exchanges contributed $22.7 billion to the US economy and that international education “creates a positive economic and social impact for communities in the United States and around the world.” Open Doors data and “fast facts” are available on IIE’s website.

Iskra Kirova, Public Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution: Russia, Georgia and the EU in Abkazia and South Ossetia, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paper No. 7, Fall 2012. Kirova (CPD Research Fellow) analyzes public diplomacy and soft power strategies used by key actors in Russia’s “near abroad.” Her study provides a descriptive overview of Russia’s hard and soft power influence in the region and offers a prescriptive analysis of the EU’s and Georgia’s public diplomacy strategies for conflict resolution. Kirova focuses on the relevance of social, cultural, linguistic affiliations and draws conclusions from her cases for a broader understanding of public diplomacy.

Frank Lavin, “Enemies at the Gates: Security Lessons from a Foiled Embassy Attack,” Foreign Affairs, November 29, 2012. In the context of the attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, former US Ambassador to Singapore Lavin draws lessons from a foiled terrorist attack on the US embassy in Singapore in 2001.

George E. Little, “Communication Synchronization — A Local Coordination Process,” Memorandum for Commanders of the Combatant Commands from the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, November 28, 2012. In this one-page memorandum, the Assistant Secretary explains his decision to replace the term “strategic communication” with “communication synchronization.” For comments on the memo see P.J. Crowley, “The Pentagon Drops Strategic Communication: Behind the Name Change,” Take Five, The IPDGC Blog on Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, December 4, 2012; Rosa Brooks, “Confessions of a Strategic Communicator,” Foreign Policy National Security Blog, December 6, 2012; and Tom Vanden Brook, “Pentagon Drops ‘Strategic Communication,'” USA Today, December 3, 2012.

Michael J. Mazarr, “The Risks of Ignoring Strategic Insolvency,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 4, Fall 2012, 7-17. Mazarr (US National War College) argues the US strategic posture is becoming unsustainable due to a fundamental disconnect between means and ends – and “because it presumes an American relationship with friends, allies, and rivals that is the hallmark of a bygone era.” Mazarr urges a dramatic strategic shift guided by three principles: (1) strengthened economic, educational, and energy sectors at home, (2) a substantially reduced military establishment with less forward deployment and a combination of cyber and other emerging capabilities, and (3) increased investment in knowledge of complex issues and trends coupled with diplomatic efforts to share leadership burdens with others.

National Intelligence Council (NIC), Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, December 2012. In its latest quadrennial report, the NIC uses a variety of analytical tools to identify “relative certainties” and “potential game changers” in its long-term projection of global trends. The report includes studies of potential scenarios. Its attractive design and online presentation make it an effective teaching tool. Public diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find useful its discussion of individual empowerment, increased power of non-state actors, new technologies, demographic trends, governance deficits, problems created by rapid urbanization and climate change, and nuanced discussion of the potential for US leadership. In addition to its full report, the NIC provides a useful online summary.

Lynne Olson, Citizens of London: The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour, Random House, 2010. In this well-researched book, historian Lynne Olson chronicles the World War II relationship between Britain and the US through the eyes of CBS News London Bureau Chief Edward R. Murrow and two American diplomats, US Ambassador to Britain John Gilbert Winant and Lend Lease Administrator Averell Harriman. Part personal relationships, part public diplomacy, part biography, Olson’s story is about a fractious and ultimately successful alliance with contrasting needs and perceptions on both sides. Particularly useful is her account of Americans assuming a larger role in the world but who, in the words of one British worker, “needed to know more about the world before they could lead it.” (Courtesy of Jim Whittemore)

James Pamment, New Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century: A Comparative Study of Policy and Practice, Routledge, 2012. Pamment (Karlstad University / Uppsala University) explores the meaning of “new public diplomacy” viewed as a paradigm shift in which globalization, new media, and multiple new international actors challenge traditional foreign ministry structures and diplomacy strategies. His book combines in-depth conceptual analysis with empirical data from three country case studies (United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden). Pamment draws extensively on interviews with practitioners in each country and a growing research consensus that distinguishes between old and new public diplomacy. His goals: (1) “to explore and challenge some of the accepted boundaries of PD theory as it has developed over the past decade,” and (2) “to introduce both the scholarly debate and foreign ministry practices surrounding the new public diplomacy.”

Inderjeet Parmar, Foundations of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie & Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power,Columbia University Press, 2012. Parmar (University of Manchester) provides a deeply researched account of ways in which philanthropic foundations created cultural and intellectual networks that supported the projection of American power from the 1920s to the 21st century. The principal achievement of American foundations, Parmar argues, has been the construction of global networks linking universities, think tanks, corporate actors and policymakers. His book contains a thorough discussion of its conceptual grounding in a Gramscian analysis of power and a number of detailed case studies. These include the Salzburg Seminar and the Cold War’s American studies network, Nigeria and the African studies network, Indonesia and the Asian studies network, and Chile and the Latin American studies network.

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, In Changing News Landscape, Even Television is Vulnerable: Trends in News Consumption: 1991-2012, September 27, 2012. Pew’s survey finds television may be losing its hold on a successor generation now getting more of its news on social networking sites, cell phones, tablets, and other mobile platforms. The report shows also digital news surpassing radio, newspapers, and magazines. Book readers show no decrease, but a growing number use electronic and audio devices.

“Soft Power, Smart Power and Public Diplomacy in Asia,” Global Asia, A Journal of the East Asia Foundation, Volume 7, Number 3, Fall 2012. Articles in this edition of Global Asia examine ways in which Asian countries and Asia as a region are “deeply engaged in the projection of soft power” — and how they are adopting and adapting soft power and public diplomacy concepts and terms. (Courtesy of Ellen Frost)

Includes:

— Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), “Listening for the Hoof Beats: Implications of the Rise of Soft Power and Public Diplomacy”

— Keith Dinnie (NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands), “More Than Tourism: The Challenges of Nation Branding in Asia”

— Zhou Qingan and Mo Jinwei (Tsinghua University), “How 21st Century China Sees Public Diplomacy as a Path to Soft Power”

— Kazuo Ogoura, (Head of Tokyo’s Olympic Bid Committee, former President of the Japan Foundation), “From Ikebana to Manga and Beyond: Japan’s Cultural and Public Diplomacy is Evolving”

— Yul Sohn (Yonsei University), “‘Middle Powers’ Like South Korea Can’t Do Without Soft Power and Network Power”

— Wu-suk Cho, “Riding the Korean Wave From ‘Gangnam Style’ to Global Recognition”

— Alison Broinowski (Australian National University), “Soft Power, Smart Power or Public Diplomacy? Australia Fumbles”

Tara Sonenshine, “Measuring the Public Diplomacy of the Future,” Remarks at the Heritage Foundation, December 3, 2012. The Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs talks about the underlying purposes of public diplomacy and the Department’s policy guidelines on planning, managing, and conducting evaluations.

US Department of Education, Succeeding Globally Through International Education and Engagement, US Department of Education International Strategy 2012-16, November 2012. In its “first-ever fully articulated international strategy,” the Department advances two strategic goals: strengthen US education and advance US international priorities. The strategy assumes traditional reading, writing, mathematics and science skills are no longer sufficient. Rather, “an effective domestic education agenda must address global needs and trends and aim to develop a globally competent citizenry.” The strategy discusses integrated and coordinated activities and programs intended to achieve three objectives: (1) increase global competencies, (2) learn from others, and (3) engage in education diplomacy.

Peter van Ham, “Two Cheers for Public Diplomacy and Place Branding,” e-International Relations, September 2, 2012. In this brief online article, posted by the e-International website for students of international politics, Peter van Ham (Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael) compares overlapping concepts, methods, and goals of public diplomacy and place branding. They “are putting traditional diplomacy to the test,” he argues. However, “these newer forms of diplomacy should not be considered harbingers of a mediatized global democracy.” Hence, only two cheers.

Stephen Walt, “Music hath charms . . . but we don’t use it (updated),” Foreign Policy Blog, December 6, 2012. FP blogger Walt laments the death of jazz legend Dave Brubeck, reflects on his impact as an American cultural ambassador, and observes the US is not using “A-list musicians” in today’s cultural diplomacy. His blog includes a response from Hishaam Aidi (Columbia University and the Open Society Institute), “Leveraging Hip Hop in US Foreign Policy,” critical of current State Department efforts to progam hip-hop and rap artists.

Matthew C. Weed, U.S. Public Diplomacy: Legislative Proposals to Amend Prohibitions on Disseminating Materials to Domestic Audiences, CRS Report for Congress R42754, Congressional Research Service, September 21, 2012. CRS analyst Weed succinctly and usefully analyzes legislation that prohibits the US government from influencing domestic public opinion through “unauthorized publicity or propaganda” and US public diplomacy. Weed’s report examines long-standing provisions of the “Smith-Mundt Act” and issues relating to pending bills that would remove the prohibition on domestic dissemination of “public diplomacy information” by the Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, “while maintaining the prohibition on using public diplomacy funds to influence U.S. public opinion.”

Robert F. Worth, “Can American Diplomacy Ever Come Out of Its Bunker,” New York Times Magazine, November 18, 2012. 32-35, 44. The magazine’s staff writer profiles the career and death in Benghazi, Libya of US diplomat Chris Steven and explores issues relating to fortress embassies and contrasting levels of tolerance for risk between Washington and diplomats. Includes views of former US ambassadors Ryan Crocker, Ronald Neumann, Prudence Bushnell, Richard Murphy, and Barbara Bodine. In Neumann’s view, “There’s less willingness among our political leaders to accept risks, and all that has driven us into the bunker.” For Bushnell, “The model has become, we will go to dangerous places and transform them, and we will do it from secure fortresses. And it doesn’t work.”

Gem from the Past

Mark Leonard, Catherine Stead, and Conrad Smewing, Public Diplomacy, London, The Foreign Policy Center, 2002. It has been a decade since the former director of “Tony Blair’s think tank” and his colleagues published this influential volume on the meaning and practice of public diplomacy. Drawing on research on public diplomacy practices in six countries, Leonard calls for “a new type of multilateral public diplomacy,” retooling embassy and foreign ministry structures, and infrastructures that link government and non-state actors across borders. Includes analysis of public diplomacy’s time dimensions, competitive and cooperative public diplomacy, “NGO diplomacy,” “diaspora diplomacy,” “political party diplomacy,” “brand diplomacy,” and “business diplomacy.”

Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Marc Lynch, John Sides, and Dean Freelon, New Media and Conflict After the Arab Spring: Blogs and Bullets II. United States Institute of Peace, Peaceworks No. 80, July 2012. Aday, Farrell, Lynch, Sides (George Washington University) and Freelon (American University) follow up their Blogs and Bullets in Contentious Politics(2010) study with an analysis of the role of social media in four Arab Spring protests (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain). Using the analytical framework from the earlier study, they empirically test claims of “cyberoptimists” and “cyberskeptics” through research on data from bit.ly linkages (a URL shortening technology associated with Twitter, Facebook, and other digital media). Two findings stand out. (1) New media that usebit.ly linkages “did not appear to play a significant role in either in-country collective action or regional diffusion.” (2) “It is increasingly difficult to separate new media from old media. In the Arab Spring, the two reinforced each other.”

Clifford Bob, The Global Right Wing and the Clash of World Politics, (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Bob (Duquesne University, author of The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism, 2006) examines clashes between transnational activists promoting human rights, environmental, and global justice issues and rival networks of conservative activists promoting alternative goals. Too much of the literature, he argues, has focused narrowly on global society as a more or less harmonious field of progressive NGOs. Rather, scholars need to analyze a “contentious arena riven by fundamental differences criss-crossing national and international boundaries” in which networked activists hold irreconcilable values and spurn deliberation and compromise. Includes Bob’s analytical framework, case studies, and assessments based on extensive documentation and interviews with key actors.

Cormac Callanan and Hein Dries-Ziekenheiner, Safety on the Line: Exposing the Myth of Mobile Communications Security, Report supported by the Broadcasting Board of Governors and Freedom House, July 2012. In this report, commissioned by the US government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors in association with the US-based NGO Freedom House, consultants Callanan (Aconite Internet Solutions, Ireland) and Dries-Ziekenheiner (VIGLO, The Netherlands) assess market data, mobile use habits, mobile technologies, and security risks in using mobile devices. They studied mobile phone uses in 12 countries: Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. The authors call for greater cooperation among mobile phone and operating system industries, funders of anti-censorship technologies, and mobile security app developers.

Manuel Castells, Communication Power, (Oxford University Press, 2009, paperback edition 2011). In this deeply researched update to his Information Age trilogy on the network society, Castells (University of Southern California) puts his central theme as a question: “Where does power lie in the global network society?” His “working hypothesis is that the most fundamental form of power lies in the ability to shape the human mind,” because the “way we feel and think determines the way we act.” Castells’ study is a theoretical inquiry into “the connection between communication and political power at the frontier between cognitive science, communication research, political psychology, and political communication.” He develops his concepts through empirical analysis of global networks (markets, culture, media, education, religion, crime, entertainment, and social movements) and case studies of the state and media framing, global warming, anti-corporate globalization movements, the Iraq war, and the 2008 Obama presidential primary campaign.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012). Drawing on numerous interviews with diplomats, soldiers, aid workers, and policymakers, Washington Post reporter Chandrasekaran portrays a “good war” that “turned bad.” Vignettes of a few exceptionally capable soldiers and civilians stand out. But overall, widespread incompetence, infighting, and dysfunction dominate. “Our government was incapable of meeting the challenge,” he argues. “Our generals and diplomats were too ambitious and arrogant. Our uniformed and civilian bureaucracies were rife with internal rivalries and go-it-alone agendas. Our development experts were inept. Our leaders were distracted.” His account also is sharply critical of Afghan deficiencies, and unsparing in its assessment of operational shortcomings of British, Canadian, German, and other allies. The book will be useful to analysts of “guerrilla diplomacy” and an “expeditionary foreign service.”

On July 5, 2012, soon after Little America’s publication, former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker signed an op-ed in The Washington Post praising the work of US civilian and military forces.

Karin Fisher, “On International Education, the Obama Administration’s Rhetoric Doesn’t Always Match Reality,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 4, 2012. The Chronicle’s international education reporter discusses gaps between the Obama administration’s strong rhetorical commitment to academic and cultural exchanges and actions perceived as superficial and falling short of raised expectations. Fisher looks at funding cuts in student aid, university partnerships, and foreign language programs; regulatory issues relating to visa policies, academic travel to Cuba, and Confucius Institutes; and new reporting and oversight rules adopted by the Departments of Education and Homeland Security.

Global Opinion of Obama Slips, International Policies Faulted, Pew Research Center, Global Attitudes Project, June 13, 2012. In a survey of 21 countries, Pew finds that “Global approval of President Barack Obama’s international policies has declined significantly since he first took office, but overall confidence in him and attitudes toward the U.S. have slipped only modestly as a consequence.” Key findings: Drone strikes are widely opposed. Many, especially in Europe, view China as the world’s economic leader. Europeans and Japanese remain largely confident in Obama; Muslim publics remain largely critical. Just 7% of Pakistanis view Obama positively. Well-regarded aspects of American soft power include its way of doing business; US science and technology; American music, movies, and television; US popular culture; and American ideas about democracy.

InterMedia, Building Support for International Development: Government Decision-makers’ Perceptions of Celebrities as Champions for International Development, Topic Report 1/4, 2012. This report — part of a larger study based on surveys and interviews with citizens and government officials in France, Germany, the UK and the US — examines government perceptions of benefits and drawbacks in engaging celebrities to advance development goals. InterMedia’s Building Support for International Development project, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, includes an overall report, five country reports, and four topic reports. Other topic reports focus on public opinion, research organizations, and the role of non-profit organizatons in international development. InterMedia is a global research and evaluation consulting firm.

John Robert Kelley, “The Agenda-Setting Power of Epistemic Communities in Public Diplomacy,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Diego, April 2012. Kelley (American University) builds on his earlier arguments about the public diplomacy roles of nonstate actors through idea entrepreneurship, agenda setting, mobilizing, and gatekeeping. In this paper, he looks at the question of which ideas matter through an examination of links between idea generation and the power of agenda setting. He gives particular attention to the thinking of Antonio Gramsci and neo-Gramscian critical theory. Kelley discusses relevant literature, profiles patterns of idea entrepreneurship by epistemic communities, argues the case for their role as public diplomats acting in a nonstate capacity, and offers ideas for research.

Pauline Kerr and Geoffrey Wiseman, eds., Diplomacy in a Globalizing World: Theories and Practices, (Oxford University Press, 2012). The twenty-three chapters compiled by Kerr (Australian National University) and Wiseman (University of Southern California) in this textbook are a significant contribution to the study and practice of 21st century diplomacy. The authors examine “diplomacy’s historical and contemporary developments; Western and non-Western diplomatic theories and practices; sociological and political theories of diplomacy; and various diplomatic structures, processes, and instruments.” The chapters, written by senior scholars, are intended to engage students, teachers, and practitioners. Pedagogical tools include general and special glossaries; reader’s guides, key points, and discussion questions in each chapter; and separate online companion websites for students and instructors.

Public diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find particularly useful overviews on contemporary diplomacy in the editors’ introduction and conclusion and the following chapters:

Brian Hocking (Loughborough University), “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Diplomatic System,” Chapter 7.

Jovan Kurbalija (DiploFoundation), “The Impact of the Internet and ICT on Contemporary Diplomacy,” Chapter 8.

Jan Melissen, (Netherlands Institute of International Affairs Clingendael and University of Antwerp), “Public Diplomacy,” Chapter 9.

Pauline Kerr and Brendan Taylor (Australian National University), “Track Two Diplomacy in East Asia,” Chapter 13.

Ye Zicheng and Zhang Qingmin (Peking University), “China’s Contemporary Diplomacy,” Chapter 16.

Lina Khatib, William Dutton, and Michael Thelwall, “Public Diplomacy 2.0: A Case Study of the US Digital Outreach Team,”The Middle East Journal, Volume 66, Number 3, Summer 2012, 453-472. Khatib (Stanford University), Dutton (Oxford University) and Thelwall (University of Wolverhampton) analyze the potential and challenges that faced a ten person Department of State Digital Outreach Team (DOT) seeking to participate in Internet discussions of President Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009. The authors provide an overview of literature relevant to uses of social media in diplomacy and trends in US strategy from a “war of ideas” to “global engagement.” The case study is based on content analysis of themes and rhetorical style, on interpretations of attitudes toward the DOT and US policies, and on interviews with members of the DOT regarding its methods and intended audience. A thoughtful discussion of the findings, strengths, and limitations of the case, as well as reflections on whether Public Diplomacy 2.0 is worth it, make this a key read on a cutting edge issue. An earlier pdf version of the article is posted online at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Working Paper 120, January 2011.

William P. Kiehl, ed., The Last Three Feet: Case Studies in Public Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy Council, 2012. A collection of cases on public diplomacy in overseas contexts written by current and former US Department of State practitioners. Includes chapters on China (Beatrice Camp), Bahrain (Rachel Graaf Leslie), Turkey (Elizabeth McKay), Indonesia (Michael H. Anderson), Brazil (Jean Manes), Iraq (Aaron Snipe), Pakistan (Walter Douglas), and “Successful Public Diplomacy Officers in the Future” (Bruce Wharton). The book is based on a conference held in November 2011 at George Washington University co-sponsored by the Public Diplomacy Council, GW’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, and the Walter Roberts Endowment. The book also includes conference keynote remarks by US Ambassador to Brazil Thomas Shannon, an interview with US Public Diplomacy Envoy Michelle Kwan, and interviews with public diplomacy practitioners at overseas missions.

Thomas Lum, Patricia Moloney Figliola, and Matthew C. Weed, China, Internet Freedom, and U.S. Policy, CRS Report R42601, Congressional Research Service, July 13, 2012. In this report for Congress, three Congressional Research Service analysts discuss China’s Internet environment; the Chinese government’s Internet censorship systems; and links between the Internet, human rights, and US foreign policy towards China. Major themes: the Internet as a US policy tool for promoting freedom of expression in China, uses of the Internet by political dissidents, the roles of US Internet companies in China, development of US Internet freedom policies globally, and promotion of Internet freedom by the Bush Administration’s Global Internet Freedom Task Force, the Obama Administration’s NetFreedom Task Force, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the US Department of State.

Andrew MacKay and Steve Tatham, Behavioural Conflict: Why Understanding People and Their Motivations Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflicts, (Military Studies Press, 2011). Mackay (Major General, ret., British Army) and Tatham (Commander, British Royal Navy) bring years of experience in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan to this study of psychological understanding and influence in contemporary armed conflict. Their central argument is that people’s behavior and an ability to understand and alter that behavior is becoming “the defining characteristic” of modern warfare. Their books includes case studies, conceptual and practical issues in strategic communication, and suggestions of what influence and perception might entail in future conflicts. Includes a foreword by US General (ret.) Stanley McChrystal, an introduction by economist and journalist Tim Harford, and a concluding chapter on “The Science of Influence” by Lee Rowland (Behavioural Dynamics Institute).

Carter Malkasian and J. Kael Weston, “War Downsized: How to Accomplish More With Less,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2012, 111-121. Former State Department Political Officers Malkasian (now at the Center for Naval Analysis) and Weston discuss the limitations of a full “counterinsurgency strategy” in Afghanistan (no longer sustainable) and a pure “counterterrorism strategy” (scarcely more attractive). Their alternative: relying more on “small, elite advisory teams, living out in the field and working side by side with their Afghan counterparts,” as well as on special operations forces and airpower, in a gradual withdrawal that leaves thousands of US military and civilian advisors in the country after 2014. For this to work, civilian and military advisors would forego “the giant bases and quick-reaction forces that now epitomize the Western way of war.” For a profile of Malkasian’s work as a State Department Officer in Afghanistan, see Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “In Afghanistan’s Garmser District, Praise for a U.S. Official’s Tireless Work,” The Washington Post, August 13, 2011.

James Mann, The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power, (Viking, 2012). Mann (a former journalist now in residence at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and author of Rise of the Vulcans, 2004) assesses the Obama administration’s foreign policy and its new generation of “largely unknown young advisors.” Includes in-depth profiles of Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes, Special Assistant to the President and the National Security Council’s Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs Samantha Power, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Fluornoy, US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, and former Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.

Mapping Internationalization on U.S. Campuses: 2012 Edition, American Council on Education, June 27, 2012. Based on survey data from 3,357 US accredited, degree granting institutions, this is the Council’s third report in ten years (earlier reports in 2001 and 2006). Key findings: internationalization has accelerated in recent years and has senior-level support, assessment of internationalization efforts and development of student learning outcomes have risen substantially, hiring faculty with international experience is more common, faculty tenure and promotion policies are often overlooked, and international collaboration takes many forms but involves a minority of US campuses.

Evgeny Morozov, “The Folly of Kindle Diplomacy” Slate.com, June 21, 2012. Morozov (Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, and author of The Net Delusion, 2011) assesses the US Department of State’s announced intent to partner with Amazon in a $16.5 million purchase of up to 35,000 Kindles to include approximately $10 million in Kindle books for libraries, reading rooms, and cultural centers. He finds the rationale “solid — at least in theory.” Saves money. Problematic and censored books can be read without attracting government censors. Promotes the US image as a technology leader. Morozov challenges the plan, however, as likely to be counterproductive, “in an era of Flame and Stuxnet,” when the US government engineers spyware that exploits software vulnerabilities. He also questions the selection of Amazon “with no competitive tender.” US diplomats should experiment with new media technologies, he argues, but do so “in full awareness that their benign intentions might be misinterpreted and occasionally backfire.

Coincidentally or not, on August 15, 2012 the State Department announced cancellation of a $16.5 million order for Amazon’s Kindle touch pads, stating it intends additional market research and a review of requirements for the program.

Steven Lee Myers, “Hillary Clinton’s Last Tour as a Rock-Star Diplomat,” The New York Times Magazine, June 27, 2012. Journalist Myers profiles Secretary of State Clinton’s place in the Obama administration, her pragmatic approach to diplomacy, implications of her celebrity and experience as a politician, her policy priorities, and her views on “smart power.”

Martha C. Nussbaum, The New Religious Intolerance: Overcoming the Politics of Fear in an Anxious Age, (Belknap Press, 2012). Nussbaum (University of Chicago) looks at ways in which narcissistic fear of religious and cultural differences have influenced politics and ideas about national identity in the US and Europe since 9/11. With arguments grounded in literature, history, law, and philosophy, Nussbaum examines cases that include laws banning burqas and headscarfs in Europe, Switzerland’s campaign against minarets on mosques, and the proposed Muslim cultural center in lower Manhatten. She urges an approach that combines political principles that reflect ample and equal respect for conscience, rigorous and impartial critical thinking, and systematic cultivation of imaginative capacities that seek to transcend self-privilege and the narcissism of anxiety.

James Pamment, “What Became of the New Public Diplomacy: Recent Developments in British, US and Swedish Public Diplomacy Policy and Evaluation Methods,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Volume 7, No. 3, 2012, 337-349. Pamment (Karlstad University) explores relationships between “new public diplomacy” concepts and recent attempts by governments in the UK, the US, and Sweden to develop public diplomacy strategies. He summarizes policy debates and assesses evaluation methods in each country. His case studies lead him to two conclusions. First, although improved evaluation methods are important in the new public diplomacy in each country, their role in the practice and culture of public diplomacy institutions is “unresolved and ongoing.” Second, any paradigm shift from old to new public diplomacy in practice is grounded in “domestic and organizational concerns rather than the achievement of normative goals such as increased dialogue with foreign citizens.”

Christopher Paul, “Challenges Facing U.S. Government and Department of Defense Efforts in Strategic Communication,” Public Relations Review, Volume 38, Issue 2, June 2012, 188-194. Paul, (RAND, author of Strategic Communication: Origins, Concepts, and Current Debates, 2011), examines challenges to US government strategic communication and suggestions for meeting them. Challenges include: (1) popular resentment and distrust abroad, (2) difficulties in measuring effectiveness, (3) less constrained adversaries competing in the same information environment, (4) low priority, and (5) negative consequences of expedient choices. His suggestions include “requiring desired information endstates as part of commander’s intent and separating efforts to manipulate and deceive from truthful efforts to inform, influence, and persuade.”

PBS Newshour, “With High Youth Unemployment, Making Sense of Summer Work Visas for Foreigners,” August 17, 2012. The Newshour reports (video & text) on economic, employment, cultural exchange, and oversight issues associated with the US Department of State’s J-1 visa program. Correspondent Paul Solmon interviews US employers, international students holding J-1 visas, US summer work employees, and representatives of the Department of State and the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange (the flagship lobby for US exchange organizations).

Pew Research Center, Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms and Islam in Political Life, Global Attitudes Project, July 10, 2012. Pew finds a continuing strong desire for democracy, including competitive elections and free speech, as “the best form of government” in six predominantly Muslim countries. Key findings: (1) Substantial support for “a large role for Islam in political life” with “significant differences over the degree to which the legal system should be based on Islam.” (2) Few believe the US backs democracy in the Middle East. (3) The economy is a top concern and trumps a good democracy in Jordan, Tunisia, and Pakistan. (4) Majorities believe women an men should have equal rights. The survey was conducted in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Turkey from March 19 to April 20, 2012.

David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, (Crown Publishers, 2012). The New York Times’ chief Washington correspondent’s latest book focuses on the Obama administration’s strategies in dealing with Iran, Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Arab Spring, China, and North Korea — and its aggressive use of drones and development of cyberwar capabilities. There is much in his book for public diplomacy scholars and practitioners. Analysis of “engagement” as “just a tactic, not a real strategy.” Frustrations, voiced on background by US diplomats in Pakistan, on their difficulties in responding to critics of US drone attacks on Pakistani TV due to Obama’s relative silence in justifying their use. A post-Arab Spring assessment of Obama’s Cairo speech. Lots of both on the record and background framing by Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes and other senior officials. Seven pages contrasting the Voice of America’s shortcomings with its successful Parazit Persian language and Iran targeted comedy program modeled on The Daily Show. Sanger’s assessment: “It would be wonderful to imagine that this stroke of brilliance arose from some ingenious thinking in the White House Situation Room or a conference over at the State Department. No such luck. It was entirely the brainchild of Hosseini and Arbabi (the show’s Iranian born stars) who do not exactly fit the VOA mold.” And much more.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A Grand Strategy of Network Centrality,” Chapter 3, 45-55, in America’s Path: Grand Strategy for the Next Administration, Center for a New American Security (CNAS), May 2012. Slaughter (Princeton University) calls for a US grand strategy that understands “the ubiquity and density of global networks” and policies “that operate simultaneously in the world of states and the world of society.” States, she argues, should seek positions close to the center of critical networks so as “to mobilize, orchestrate and create networks.” The biggest challenges are choosing which networks to be part of, knowing how to advance US interests within them, and fostering networked solutions to global problems without direct US participation. Slaughter takes care to recognize a role for states as sovereign units in some “high-stakes negotiations,” but increasingly 21st century strategies will privilege effective participation in “ever-changing and ever-denser” interdependent relations among states and mixed networks of public, private, and civic actors. Her essay is one of four chapters in this publication edited by CNAS President Richard Fontaine and Executive Vice President Kristin M. Lord.

U.S. Government Accountability Office, DOD Strategic Communication: Integrating Foreign Audience Perceptions into Policy Making, Plans, and Operations, GAO-12-612R, May 2012. GAO’s largely descriptive report, consisting of a cover letter to the US Senate Armed Services Committee and images of powerpoint slides, summarizes long-standing and what it describes as unsuccessful efforts by the Defense Department and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to clarify the meaning of strategic communication and provide operational guidance on its use. The report describes “(1) DOD’s approach to strategic communication, (2) the initial actions that DOD has taken to implement this approach, and (3) DOD’s plans to reflect the roles of its interagency partners in strategic communication.”

Matthew Wallin, The New Public Diplomacy Imperative: America’s Vital Need to Communicate Strategically, White Paper, American Security Project, August 2012. In this 40-page paper, Wallin (Policy Analyst, American Security Project, Public Diplomacy MA graduate, University of Southern California) offers a definition of public diplomacy, discusses its meaning and importance in national security, and examines structural problems and challenges in US public diplomacy. His paper analyzes 8 case studies: The Cairo Promises, Branding the Global War on Terror, The Shared Values Initiative, Al Hurra TV, The Karen Hughes Listening Tour, Disaster Relief in Indonesia and Pakistan, The Obama Presidency, and The Tor (internet anonymity software) Project. He assesses 10 best practices: understand the policy objective, establish a communications goal, identify the target audience, listen, establish a narrative, be truthful, follow through on policy commitments, use force multipliers, don’t reinvent the wheel, and select appropriate medium(s). He also discusses the importance of metrics and evaluation.

Erika A. Yepsen, Practicing Successful Twitter Diplomacy: A Model and Case Study of U.S. Efforts in Venezuela, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paper 6, 2012. Yepsen (an active duty US Air Force Public Affairs Officer and George Mason University MA graduate) combines an overview of recent public diplomacy scholarship with research on the use of Twitter by the US Embassy in Venezuela. Her paper examines Twitter policy limitations for US diplomats that “can steer them away from the very conversations that hold the most potential value.” Yepsen also identifies limitations in current Twitter research and proposes an “opinion leader network model” as a means to successful engagement. She tests the model in her case study of Twitter networks in Venezuela and the US Embassy’s Twitter engagement.

In a review of Yepsen’s paper, CPD Research Fellow Anoush Rima Tatevossian calls her opinion leader research method “both robust and replicable.” It “would be useful in the toolkit of any public diplomat developing, or refining, his or her Twitter strategy: whether it be for tactical listening, strategic listening, or to actually venture into the terrain of two-way engagement.”

Recent Blogs of Interest

Robert Albro, “International Applied Humanities Networks and Global Cultural Engagement,” July 4, 2012. Posted on CPD Blog andPublic Policy Anthropologist Blog.

Ali Fisher, “Smarter Networks and Collaborative Approaches Underpin the Response to 21st Century Diplomacy,” July 20, 2012. CPD Blog.

Craig Hayden, “Much Ado About Soft Power,” July 31, 2012. Posted on Intermap Blog.

Donna Oglesby, “More Than You Know,” August 3, 2012. Posted on CPD Blog. “Dogma,” August 19, 2012; “Rainmakers,” July 28, 2012; and “Coneflower,” July 17, 2012. Posted on Winnowing Fan Blog.

Adam Clayton Powell III, “Gallup/BBG Survey: ‘Massive’ Increase in Mobile Phone, Internet Use in Nigeria,” August 16, 2012. Posted on CPD Blog.

Gem from the Past

Ruth McMurry and Muna Lee, The Cultural Approach: Another Way in International Relations, (University of North Carolina Press, 1947). Another look at this excellent book, long out of print and gathering dust on the shelf, was prompted by Robin Brown’s (University of Leeds) reference to it in his recent ISA San Diego paper, “The Four Paradigms of Public Diplomacy: Building a Framework for Comparative Government External Communication Research,” April 2012. McMurry (a professor at Columbia University) and Lee (a journalist, translator, and researcher for Archibald MacLeish) joined the staff of the Department of State’s Bureau of Cultural Relations during World War II. The book is a comparative study of government-sponsored cultural relations programs in ten countries: France, Germany, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, “Arab Youth Survey 2012,” May 2, 2012. In this fourth annual survey of young Arabs in 12 countries, 82 percent say economic concerns, “fair pay and home ownership,” are their top priority, displacing “living in a democracy” as their greatest concern. Other findings:optimism about the future and trust in government have increased; lack of democracy and civil unrest are viewed as obstacles to progress; the UAE is seen as a model country; views of France, China, and India are more favorable; and “news consumption skyrockets” with TV viewership declining and online activity up dramatically. A 24-page White Paper, “After the Spring,” discusses the survey’s findings and methodology.

Robin Brown, “The Four Paradigms of Public Diplomacy: Building a Framework for Comparative Government External Communications Research,”Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Conference, San Diego, April 2012. Brown (University of Leeds) urges a comparative research agenda that looks at why public diplomacy is the way it is — an approach he distinguishes from an agenda grounded in how to make it better. He discuses four ideal types that give rise to fruitful propositions about the purposes and nature of public diplomacy and how it should be conceptualized: (1) public diplomacy as an extension of diplomacy; (2) public diplomacy as national projection, now viewed as nation-branding; (3) external communication for cultural relations; and (4) external communication as political warfare. Brown discusses the utility of these paradigms for understanding organizational differences and mapping changes across time and countries.

Caitlin Byrne, “Public Diplomacy and Constructivism: A Synergistic and Enabling Relationship,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Annual Conference, San Diego, April 2012. Byrne (Bond University) looks at ways in which constructivist theories of international relations can inform public diplomacy practice. She draws on Australia’s approach to diplomacy and explores what diplomatic practice offers as “a vehicle for operationalizing constructivist approaches.” A diplomacy practitioner turned scholar, Bryne approaches the connection between theory and practice “with an element of caution” and keen awareness of its possibilities.

Derek Chollet and Samantha Power, eds., The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, (Public Affairs, 2011). Chollet (author of The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft) and Power (founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University) compile essays by Holbrooke’s colleagues, journalists, and others who had a special relationship with him. Includes contributions by Kati Marton, Strobe Talbott, E. Benjamin Skinner, Jonathan Alter, Gordon M. Goldstein, Roger Cohen, Derek Chollet, James Traub, John Tedstrom, David Rhode, and Samantha Power. The essays provide insights into Holbrooke’s personality, opinions, diplomatic skills and style, and events in his life and career. For an essay-length critique of the book and an argument that “Holbrooke’s actions and philosophy were problematic,” see Ted Galen Carpenter,“The Hagiography of Mr. Holbrooke,” The National Interest, Number 119, May/June 2012, 71-80.

Eliot A. Cohen, Conquered Into Liberty, (Free Press, 2011). Cohen (Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies) looks at how two centuries of conflict among British, French, Canadians, Americans, and Indians in the corridor between Albany and Montreal shaped a “distinctive American way of war.” Because Americans episodically “discover” public diplomacy in wartime, there is much of interest to diplomacy scholars and practitioners. An early French advantage over the English in woodland diplomacy and propaganda. Lessons learned by the American colonies from British mistakes. Canada’s “practical anthropology” skills in engaging Indian cultures. Mastery of Indian languages by French Jesuits. America’s use of armed conflict as an instrument of democratization. In a public letter distributed widely to the citizens of Quebec, Congress wrote: “You have been conquered into liberty, if you act as you ought.” Instructions to Benjamin Franklin for his diplomatic mission to Canada in 1776 contain this early “say-do” gap in American diplomacy: “You are to establish a free press . . . and give directions for the frequent publication of such pieces as may be of service to the cause of the United Colonies.”

Edward Comor and Hamilton Bean, “America’s ‘Engagement’ Delusion: Critiquing a Public Diplomacy Consensus,” International Communication Gazette, March 28, 2012. Comor (University of Western Ontario) and Bean (University of Colorado, Denver) challenge the central concept of engagement in the Obama administration’s diplomacy. Their claim: engagement’s conceptual emphasis on dialogue and interaction masks intent in practice to use social media and other tools of engagement to persuade audiences to support US policies. An “ethical public diplomacy,” they contend, should embrace genuine rather than contrived dialogue.

Creating an Independent International Strategic Communication Organization for America: Business Plan, SAGE: Strengthening America’s Global Engagement, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, March 2012. The SAGE business plan offers a roadmap for creating a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation — a “flexible, entrepreneurial, and tech-savvy partner” that will complement government public diplomacy. The plan draws on recommendations in reports by the Brookings Institution, the Defense Science Board, the Council on Foreign Relations and others. It was developed by five nonpartisan working groups consisting of some 80 former government practitioners and experts from the private sector and civil society. It was launched in Washington on March 26, 2012, at meeting hosted by Woodrow Wilson Center President Jane Harmon with a panel that included former US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, former State Department Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Goli Ameri, and SAGE Project Director Brad Minnick. For a brief summary and comment, see Matt Armstrong’s Mountain Runner blog of March 27, 2012.

“InterMedia’s Ali Fisher Discusses the Changing Digital Landscape,” Intermedia, December 21, 2011. In this brief video interview with Wilton Park Chief Executive Richard Burge, Fisher (InterMedia’s Associate Director of Digital Media) discusses advances in social media, tools that enable digital programming by non-specialists, and anticipated changes over the horizon.

John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life, (The Penguin Press, 2011). George Kennan, widely acclaimed as one of America’s most accomplished diplomats, is not usually thought to have contributed to the rise of public diplomacy in the second half of the 20th century. In this masterful biography, however, Gaddis (Yale University) shows there is much that public diplomacy scholars and practitioners can learn from Kennan’s career, organizational changes in the Department of State, and events with which Kennan was associated. Examples include:
— Kennan’s views on the psychological effects of actions, particularly his view that racism at home undercut diplomacy and America’s standing abroad.
— His entrepreneurial diplomatic style and willingness to take personal and professional risks in the field and Department of State.
— His public speaking in the United States at the request of Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs William Benton.
— A strong belief in professional education as a necessary complement to training.
— His storied role in creating a grand strategy studies curriculum for soldiers and diplomats at the National War College.
— His contributions to the creation of the National Committee for Free Europe and Radio Free Europe.
— His founding role and effective use of the State Department’s policy planning office as an instrument of strategic planning.
— State’s one time insistence on education as well as training. Kennan as a junior officer was sent to Tallinn and Berlin not only to learn Russian but for post-graduate studies — with instructions to gain “an education similar to that which an educated Russian of the pre-revolutionary era would have received.”
And much more.

Fergus Hanson, Revolution @State: The Spread of EDiplomacy, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Sydney, Australia, March 2012. Written while on a four-month professional Fulbright research project in Washington, Hanson (Research Fellow and Director of Polling, Lowy Institute) enthusiastically contends the “US State Department has become the world’s leading user of ediplomacy.” His study examines State’s use of Ediplomacy in eight program areas, with knowledge management, public diplomacy, and Internet freedom taking the largest share of resources and staff. Hanson’s sweeping and problematic conclusion: “State now operates what is effectively a global media empire, reaching a larger direct audience than the paid circulation of the ten largest US dailies and employing an army of diplomat-journalists to feed its 600-plus platforms.” He argues that Australia’s foreign ministry has “some catching up to do.”

Craig Hayden, “Audience, Mechanism, and Objective: A Comparative Framework for Soft Power Analysis,” Paper presented to the International Studies Association conference in San Diego, April 2, 2012. Hayden (American University and Intermap Blog) offers an alternative to categories of resources and behaviors in Joseph Nye’s analytical concept of soft power. Hayden’s constructivist methodology seeks an understanding of soft power through a pragmatic and contingent perspective grounded in three categories: (1) audience and scope, or the subjects and objects of soft power; (2)mechanism, the ways actors connect resources to behaviors; and (3) objectives, or the range of outcomes anticipated from effective uses of soft power. His article explores his reasoning in brief case studies of uses of soft power by the US and China. He examines what he calls “the facilitative turn” in 21st century networked diplomacy and provides helpful references to current literature in public diplomacy scholarship.

Nat Kretchun and Jane Kim, A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment, InterMedia, Washington, DC, May 2012. In this report, Kretchun (Intermedia) and Kim (East-West Coalition) show “how North Koreans’ growing access to a range of media and communication technologies is undermining the state’s monopoly on what its citizens see, hear, know, and think.” Drawing on research among refugees, travelers and defectors from North Korea, the authors conclude that despite lack of evidence that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to loosen state control of media and information, the reach of uncensored media is expanding and giving many North Koreans alternative news and views.

Teresa La Porte, “The Legitimacy and Effectiveness of Non-State Actors and the Public Diplomacy Concept,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Conference, San Diego, April 2012. La Porte (University of Navarra) examines the rise of civil society organizations as public diplomacy actors. She proposes an approach to public diplomacy that goes beyond dialogue and networking in state-centric terms to include actions by non-state actors. Her paper explores what this might mean in terms of analytical concepts and boundaries. She calls for taking analysis beyond a focus on actors as “subjects” to a focus on the “objects” of their actions. Two such objects, the “legitimacy” of actions and “perceptions of effectiveness,” she argues, are important pre-conditions to recognizing civil society organizations as diplomatic actors. She discusses these pre-conditions in the context of two practice scenarios and the European Union’s public diplomacy.

Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East, (Public Affairs, 2012). Lynch (George Washington University) brings scholarship, Arabic proficiency, his standing as a leading voice in online discourse, policy advisory connections, and a deep understanding of the Arab public sphere to this account of the origins and implications of changes in the Middle East. Hard power and wealth will continue to matter, he argues, but loosened state control, independent mobilization of activists, and unification of Arab political space are generating three challenges that will matter more: (1) the ability to credibly align with the Arab public on its core issues will become a greater source of influence; (2) unified political space will increase linkages between issues in the region; and (3) the ability to intervene in the domestic politics of others, while resisting penetration of one’s own politics, will determine whether a state is a player or an arena for the proxy wars of others. Lynch’s pragmatism and historical insights form the basis for an assessment of America’s grand strategy and public diplomacy in the region.

Meridian International Center and Gallup, “US Global Leadership Track,” The U.S.-Global Leadership Project, April 20, 2012. Findings in Gallup’s third annual survey of international perceptions in 130 countries show median global approval of US leadership at 46%. Three countries “experienced double digit gains. Many more showed double digit losses. Africa gave US leadership the highest median approval rating, while the Americas gave it the lowest. In Europe and Asia, approval ratings held relatively steady.”

Metzgar, Emily T., “Public Diplomacy, Smith-Mundt and the American Public,” Communication Law and Policy, 17:1, 67-101. Available online: January 9, 2012. Metzgar (Indiana University) explores political, legal, policy, conceptual, and practitioner issues relating to the US statutory ban on domestic dissemination in the Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 as amended (aka, the Smith-Mundt Act). Her article, framed in the context of US international broadcasting, looks at consequences of continuing or ending the ban and potential policy advantages that might result from its repeal. Includes numerous references to current and historical literature.

Joseph S. Nye, “Soft Power — Culture and Society,” Keynote address at the launch of Macquarie University’s Soft Power and Advocacy Research Center (SPARC), Sydney, Australia, April 17, 2012. Nye (Harvard University) discusses concepts of soft power in the context of the “rise of China,” US relations with China, and evolving relations between China, India, and Australia. His address (with Q&A) is available as a 90-minute ABC “Big Ideas” video and audio webcast. Macquarie’s SPARC Center seeks to advance the study and practice of soft power and public diplomacy through research, education and training, post-graduate courses in public diplomacy, and other initiatives.

Office of Inspector General, US Department of State, “Inspection of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs,” Report No. ISP-I-12-15, February 2012. In a 68-page report (some sections redacted), State’s Inspector General concludes that the Department’s exchange programs “enhance mutual understanding” and “are increasingly aligned with foreign policy priorities.” Their effectiveness is undermined, however, by “long-standing institutional weaknesses.” Key judgments include employee resistance to changes “fundamental to operating efficiently,” needed senior management restructuring, “unfettered growth and weak regulation” of the Summer Work Travel program, inadequate strategic planning, and deficiencies in program monitoring and evaluation.

PBS NewsHour, “China’s Programming for U.S. Audiences: Is it News or Propaganda?” March 23, 2012. The NewsHour’s Ray Suarez reports on CCTV’s news programs for American audiences recently launched from a state-of-the-art broadcast studio in Washington, DC. Includes views of CCTV America’s director Ma Jing and news anchor Philip Yin and analysts Susan Shirk (University of California) and Philip Cunningham (Cornell University).

Shawn M. Powers and William Youmans, “A New Purpose for International Broadcasting: Subsidizing Deliberative Technologies in Non-transitioning States,” Journal of Public Deliberation, Vol. 8, Issue 1, 2012, 1-14. Powers (Georgia State University) and Youmans (George Washington University) argue “a scaled down standard of deliberation is appropriate” in failed or failing states that lack advanced communication infrastructures, high literacy rates, and other elements of highly developed public spheres. Their paper examines the potential for international broadcasting strategies that seek to complement traditional roles by finding new purpose in “the development and promotion of deliberation technologies.”

Gary Rawnsley, “Approaches to Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in China and Taiwan,” Paper delivered at the International Studies Association Conference, San Diego, April 2012. Rawnsley (University of Leeds and Public Diplomacy and International Communications Blog) analyzes Taiwanese and Chinese views of soft power, their adaptation of the Anglo-American model of soft power, and their contrasting public diplomacy strategies and practices. He argues each faces different challenges that undermine their soft power capacity: Taiwan’s need to acknowledge limitations of its cultural approach to soft power and China’s struggle to bridge gaps between its outputs and how audiences perceive their credibility.

Philip Seib, Real-Time Diplomacy: Politics and Power in The Social Media Era, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Seib (University of California) uses the Arab Awakening of 2011 as context for analyzing two questions. How have the speed and reach of information flows changed theories and practices of diplomacy? And how are social media affecting political structures and activism? His book provides an overview of political and media revolutions in the Middle East, comparisons of traditional and “rapid-reaction” diplomacy, a discussion of expeditionary diplomacy and public diplomacy, and analysis of debates on how social media tools are changing networks and creating ripple effects beyond the Arab world and beyond politics.

Science & Diplomacy, Center for Science Diplomacy, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In this new online quarterly journal, the AAAS provides “a forum for rigorous thought, analysis, and insight to serve stakeholders who develop, implement, and teach all aspects of science and diplomacy.” Articles in the first edition include: “Science and Diplomacy: The Past is Prologue,” “Science Diplomacy and 21st Century Statecraft,” “Nunn-Lugar: Science Cooperation Essential for Non-proliferation,” “South African Science Diplomacy,” and “Rediscovering Eastern Europe for Science Diplomacy.” The editors (Vaughan Turekian, Tom C. Wang, and Caitlin Jennings) welcome submissions from scholars and practitioners. (Courtesy of Alan Kotok)

James Stavridis and Evelyn N. Farkas, “The 21st Century Force Multiplier: Public-Private Collaboration,” The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2012, 7-20. Admiral Stavridis (Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO, and Commander, US European Command, EUCOM) and Farkas (Senior Advisor for Public-Private Partnership) discuss growing US collaboration with private sector and civil society organizations to leverage their expertise and skills to mutual advantage in defense, diplomacy, and development. The authors view this “whole of society” approach as a step beyond an interagency “whole of government” approach. The biggest obstacle to such collaboration: “the mindset, mainly on the government side.” The biggest gain: enhancing US innovation, efficiencies, and effectiveness.

Strategic Public Diplomacy, Proceedings of the CEI Dubrovnik Diplomatic Forum, May 20-22, 2010, sponsored by the Diplomatic Academy, Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, Republic of Croatia, in cooperation with the US Embassy in Zagreb. In these conference proceedings, recently published online, diplomats from US and European countries explore issues and challenges in the study and practice of public diplomacy. Topics include public diplomacy in support of EU membership, nation branding, the role of cultural diplomacy, the Internet and social networks, and international foundations. The purpose of the Dubrovnik Diplomatic Forum is to encourage international debate from practical and academic points of view and to promote understanding of concepts, methods, skills and techniques of diplomacy and diplomatic training. (Courtesy of Mladen Andrlic and Tihana Bohac)

Gaye Tuchman, “Measured and Pressured: Professors at Wannabe U,” The Hedgehog Review, Spring 2012, 17-29. In one of several essays on “the corporate professor” in this edition of the Review, Tuchman (University of Connecticut) explores ways in which professors “have bought into or been shaped by the corporate culture of the university and seem strangely inarticulate about the purposes and worth of higher education.” She finds professors anxiously pursuing the metrics of productivity and impact often with more enthusiasm than administrators. Frank Donoghue (Ohio State University) in “Do College Teachers have to be Scholars?” (pp. 29-41) focuses on the motives of adjunct and tenured faculty and the consequences of the surge in adjunct hires for learning, scholarship, and society. Ethan Schrum (Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture) provides “A Bibliographic Essay on the University, the Market, and Professors” (pp. 43-51).

“U.S. International Broadcasting: Impact Through Innovation and Integration,” Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), 2011 Annual Report, Released April 16, 2012. The BBG’s report summarizes activities of US funded broadcasting services: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio and TV Marti, Radio Free Asia, the Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa, and the International Broadcasting Bureau.

Guido Westerwelle, “Explaining Europe – Discussing Europe,” Federal Foreign Office, Federal Republic of Germany, February 29, 2012. Germany’s Foreign Minister outlines “a new concept on communicating Europe” in a paper presented to the Federal Cabinet. He argues it is time to look beyond Europe’s debt crisis to the future of “Europe as a political project,” because “there can be no bright future for Germany without a united Europe. The paper discusses three communication themes: building confidence among European neighbors, promoting Europe in the world, and campaigning for Europe in Germany. (Courtesy of Anna Tepper)

R. S. Zaharna, The Cultural Awakening in Public Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 4, 2012, April 2012. Zaharna (American University) looks at culture as an under-examined force relevant to every aspect of communication between nations and publics — and to every aspect of public diplomacy “from policy, to practice, to scholarship.” In part one of her paper, she discusses the importance of culture as a fundamental dimension of public diplomacy that nevertheless “gets lost in political, economic, and bureaucratic factors.” In part two, she explores ways to “develop cultural awareness and knowledge [of others and self] and learning how to recognize culture’s eloquent signs in communication, perception, cognition, values, identity and power.” Her study does not focus on culture as a tool of public diplomacy. It is about awareness of the intersection of culture and public diplomacy and implications for study and practice.

Ethan Zuckerman, “A Small World After All?” The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2012, 44-47. Zuckerman (Center for Civic Media, MIT) sees a central paradox in an age of connection: “while it’s easier than ever to share information and perspectives from different parts of the world, we may be encountering a narrower picture of the world than we did in less connected days.” Studies of social media find a locality effect in which users are more likely to connect with those in close physical proximity. “The Internet has changed many things,” he argues, “but not the insular habits of mind that keep the world from becoming truly connected.”

Blogs of Interest

Robert Albro, “Aspiring to an Interest-free Cultural Diplomacy?” April 26, 2012. “Cultural Engagement as Glocal Diplomacy,” May 12, 2012. Posted on the CPD Blog and Public Policy Anthropologist Blog.

Craig Hayden, “Terministic Compulsion” [on definitions and terms in public diplomacy], April 13, 2012. “Some Lessons from ISA 2012,” April 10, 2012. Intermap Blog.

Matt Armstrong, “Public Diplomacy Achievement Awards 2012,” May 8, 2012. See also Public Diplomacy Alumni Association website. “Science and Technology for Communication and Persuasion Abroad: Gap Analysis and Survey,” May 1, 2012. MountainRunner Blog

P.J. Crowley, “Actions in Beijing Speak Volumes,” May 7, 2012. Mary Jeffers, “Everybody’s Talking About World Press Freedom Day,” May 3, 2012. William Lafi Youmans, “The Transitive Problem,” April 25, 2012. Take Five, The IPDGC Blog on Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.

Gem From the Past

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” (December 11, 1945) pp. 954-967 in John Carey, ed., George Orwell: Essays, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002). Orwell’s classic essay continues to serve as a superb guide to good writing for students and scholars. His insights on problematic political uses of “meaningless words” such as “freedom” and “democracy” — words for which there is “no agreed definition” and each user “has his own private definition” — also continue to prompt reflection. What is the point of using such words, he asks, other than as perhaps some kind of general praise or framing of a positive good? Such words whose multiple meanings cannot be reconciled, Orwell argues, allow countries and individuals to use them for purposes that lack meaning and mask differences in application and intent. Orwell’s views come to mind at a time when US broadcasters (and other public diplomacy practitioners) proclaim the following mission statement: “To inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

Morton Abramowitz and Mark Lowenthal, “Restocking the Toollkit,” The American Interest, Winter, January/February, 2012, 57-64. Abramowitz (Century Foundation) and Lowenthal (Intelligence and Security Academy) lament two decades of US overreliance on military force and call for a stronger “array of diverse tools to influence events abroad.” Critical weaknesses include lack of well informed political intelligence; failure “to mobilize a genuine vision of an active and efficacious diplomacy;” too many closed-off embassies and passive diplomats; government wide public information programs that are “stale, balkanized, and underfunded;” insufficient diplomatic focus on political opposition groups and a broad range of civil society institutions; and an American Foreign Service Association with too little enthusiasm for transformational change. The authors frame their case for the 2012 political campaigns and the next cycle of foreign affairs reform.

Matt Armstrong, www,MountainRunner.us. Guest posts on the future of US international broadcasting, February 2012. Armstrong’s website provides a convenient platform to view a lively debate among current and former US broadcasters on the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ 2013 budget request and Strategic Plan, 2012-2016. Includes:

Alex Belida, “Reforming U.S. International Broadcasting: A New Mission Statement,” (2/13/2012), “Reforming U.S. International Broadcasting (Part Two): What to do About the BBG?” (2/15/2012), “Reforming U.S. International Broadcasting (Part Three): A New Structure” (2/16/2012), and “Blind Ambition,” (2/16/2012).

Kim Andrew Elliott, “US International Broadcasting: Success Requires Independence and Consolidation,” (2/14/2012)

Alan Heil, “Whisper of America?” (2/14/2012)

David Jackson, “The Future of International Broadcasting,” (2/15/2012)

Caitlin Byrne, Campaigning for a Seat on the United Nations Security Council: A Middle Power Reflection on the Role of Public Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 10, 2011, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Drawing on her academic research and prior experience as a practitioner in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Byrne (Bond University) argues that Security Council candidate nations must combine their intense lobbying in the UN with a broader range of efforts focused on reputation, image, and significant engagement and persuasion of international audiences. Using Australia’s Security Council aspirations as a case study, Byrne looks at how and when middle powers might use public diplomacy strategies to supplement traditional diplomacy and achieve broader soft power outcomes.

Alan L. Heil, Jr., “All Quiet on the Western Front: 2012 Challenges and Opportunities in the Five-Year Strategic Plan for U.S. International Broadcasting,” American Diplomacy, December 2011. Heil (a former VOA deputy director and author of Voice of America) examines challenges facing US and European international broadcasters and the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ 2012-2016 strategic plan. His assessment provides a detailed summary of recent organizational and functional changes in US broadcasting. Can the new plan “meet and master the challenges?” Heil’s answer is “Hopefully, yes.”

Michael Ignatieff, “The Return of Sovereignty,” The New Republic, February 16, 2012, 25-28. The former leader of Canada’s Liberal Party returns to academe and uses his review of Brad R. Roth, Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement, (Oxford University Press, 2011) to argue that “Sovereignty is back.” Ignatieff’s essay is a thoughtful reflection on the relationship between sovereignty and law, emotional identification of people with the sovereign, appropriate limits to lawful coercion to prevent chaos, and sovereignty’s continued relevance in the deep waters of global commerce. “Sovereignty has returned,” Ignatieff argues, because citizens need a principle of authority more stable than price signals and government alone. His essay offers a paradoxical conclusion: if we want justice in our political and diplomatic decisions to intervene in revolutions, and global markets that deliver jobs and take responsibility for their risks, then we need stronger, more capable, and more legitimate sovereign authority.

Charles Kupchin, Rosa Brooks, Rachel Kleinfeld, Tom Perriello, and Bruce Jentleson, “First Principles: America and the World,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, No. 23, Winter 2012, 8-45. The contributors to this collection of essays offer principles for a progressive foreign policy.

Charles Kupchin (Georgetown University) in “Grand Strategy: The Four Pillars of the Future” outlines key elements of a strategic alternative to isolationism and neoconservative adventurism.

Rosa Brooks (Georgetown University Law Center) calls for a humbler, more patient approach to democratization in “Democracy Promotion: Done Right, A Progressive Cause.”

Rachel Kleinfeld (Truman National Security Project) argues the US must facilitate connections with and among civil societies in“Global Outreach: Speaking to the Awakening World.”

Tom Perriello (a former member of Congress) in “Humanitarian Intervention: Recognizing When, and Why, It Can Succeed”examines issues and criteria relevant to the legitimate use of force.

Bruce Jentleson (Duke University) discusses foreign policy for a world where the US is “not at the center” in “Accepting Limits: How to Adapt to a Copernican World.”

Rebecca MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, (Basic Books, 2012). Drawing on her experiences as CNN’s Beijing and Tokyo bureau chief and work at Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, the co-founder of Global Voicies explores central issues in cyber power and Internet governance. MacKinnon gives life to her analysis with stories of protest movements, policy debates, and uses and abuses of government and corporate power. Public diplomacy enthusiasts will find particularly useful her accounts of digital empowerment in the Arab Spring, China’s Internet dilemmas, Wikileaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Internet freedom policy, and the contrasting views of Internet experts Clay Shirky, Evgeny Morozov, and Ethan Zuckerman.

Petar Petrov, Karolina Pomorska, and Sophie Vanhoonacker, Guest Editors, “The Emerging EU Diplomatic System,” Special Issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 7, Nos. 1 2012. In this issue of HJD, the editors (Maastricht University) compile articles by scholars and practitioners that examine political, policy, organizational, legal, and contextual issues in the post-Lisbon EU diplomatic system. Includes:

Petar Petrov, Karolina Pomorska, and Sophie Vanhoonacker, “Introduction: The Emerging EU Diplomatic System: Opportunities and Challenges After ‘Lisbon.'”

Daniel C. Thomas and Ben Tonra, “To What Ends EU Foreign Policy? Contending Approaches to the Union’s Diplomatic Objectives and Representation.”

Jan Wouters and Sanderijn Duquet, “The EU and International Diplomatic Law: New Horizons?”

Edith Drieskens, “What’s in a Name? Challenges to the Creation of EU Delegations.”

Kolja Raube, “The European External Action Service and the European Parliament.”

Federica Bicchi, “The European External Action Service: A Pivotal Actor in EU Foreign Policy Communications?”

Simon Duke, “Diplomatic Training and the Challenges Facing the EEAS.”

David Spence, “The Early Days of the European External Action Service: A Practitioner’s View.”

“Public Diplomacy in the Age of Social Media,” New America Foundation, Washington, DC, February 16, 2012. In this 90-minute YouTube video, Alexander Howard (Government 2.0) moderates a panel of mid-career US Department of State officers on social media trends and practices. Panelists: Suzanne Hall (Senior Advisor, Innovation in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs), Nick Namba (Acting Deputy Coordinator for Content Development and Partnerships, Bureau of International Information Programs), and Ed Dunn (Acting Director, Digital Communications Center, Bureau of Public Affairs).

Olivier Roy, “Breakthroughs in Faith,” World Policy Journal, Winter 2011/ 2012, 8-13. Roy (European University Institute, Florence, and author of Holy Ignorance) challenges dominant “clash or dialogue of civilizations” theories of the “return of the sacred” in diplomacy and global politics. Both “clash” and “dialogue” analysts err, Roy argues, in framing religion as transmitted identity rather than chosen faith. Rather, the fundamentalist impulse in many religions is driven by rising secularization, not by resistance to modernization. This gap between faith and identity has strategic consequences in the context of the Arab Spring, the role of Al Qaida, and rise of new religious movements as international actors disassociated from a given culture.

Barry Sanders, American Avatar: The United States in the Global Imagination, (Potomac Books, 2011). Sanders (UCLA) looks at historical origins and recent manifestations of a broad array of complex and contradictory images of the United States. His self-referential assessment (“The United States bears the world’s hopes and dreams as no other nation in history.”) examines a variety of psychological and cultural explanations for these images and the “slender connection between America and views about America.” Sanders emphasizes Western perspectives and frames his interpretation of American exceptionalism as the “expectations and longings among foreigners in their expectations of the ‘American Dream.'” He urges caution in using opinion polls, which are volatile and superficial, in analyzing attitudes and instead focuses on more deeply rooted predispositions and stored images. His concluding chapter offers five positive images that matter in foreign policy and in “messages” that “can be sent by the practice of public diplomacy.”

Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, eds., American Diplomacy, (Brill, Martinus Nijhoff, 2012). Sharp (University of Minnesota, Duluth) and Wiseman (University of Southern California) compile essays by scholars and practitioners that “examine questions arising from the Obama administration’s efforts to revive American diplomacy and its response to the ways in which diplomacy itself is being transformed.” Originally published as a special issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (Vol. 6, No. 3-4, 2011), the book includes a new conclusion and index. For an annotation of the content, visit “Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites #59.”

Jonathan Spalter, “Open-Source Diplomacy,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, No. 23, Winter 2012, 59-70. Spalter (Chairman, Mobile Future) uses Eric Raymond’s essay, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” to frame an approach to US diplomacy that embraces open source technologies. Spalter, a former USIA and National Security Council official in the Clinton administration, calls for “a more adaptive, technologically engaged, and diversely skilled professional foreign policy corps.”

Tara Sonenshine, “Engaging a World in Transition,” US Institute of Peace, January 23, 2012. The nominee for US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs discusses her views on public diplomacy, foreign and domestic challenges to US foreign policy, funding for diplomacy and development, leveraging the power of technology, and the need for increased “understanding of American values.”

Janice Gross Stein, ed. Digital Diplomacy in the Digital Age: Essays in Honour of Ambassador Allan Gotlieb, (Signal, 2011). Essays by scholars, diplomats, and journalists look at diplomacy’s future and pay tribute to one of Canada’s leading diplomats. Stein (University of Toronto) organizes their contributions in four sections: “Diplomacy with the United States in the Age of Wikileaks,” “The Professional Diplomat on Facebook,” “Diplomacy in the Age of Twitter,” and “Where is Headquarters?” Allan Gotlieb’s career and book, ‘I’ll Be With You in a Minute, Mr. Ambassador’ (see “Gem from the Past” below), are pioneering contributions to the study and practice of diplomacy.

“Sun Tzu and the Art of Soft Power,” The Economist, December 17, 2011, 71-74. Drawing on the views of scholars and Chinese political leaders,The Economist looks at strengths and limitations in China’s increasing use of Sun Tzu as a tool in its soft power strategy.

US Department of Defense, Sustaining Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, January 2012. With cover letters from President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, this 8-page “defense strategy” seeks to frame US national security interests, advance the Defense Department’s efforts to “rebalance and reform,” support deficit reduction through less defense spending, and profile the primary missions of US armed forces. Although President Obama’s letter makes passing reference to strengthening all the tools of American power, “including diplomacy and development, intelligence, and homeland security,” the report makes no reference to strategic communication and information operations capabilities.

US Government Accountability Office, Broadcasting Board of Governors Should Provide Additional Information to Congress Regarding Broadcasting to Cuba, GAO-12-243R, December 13, 2011. GAO finds that a strategic plan for US broadcasting to Cuba — submitted by the BBG in response to a Congressional directive in August 2011 — lacked key information necessary for Congress to exercise it oversight responsibilities. GAO recommends that the BBG provide an analysis of estimated costs and cost savings of sharing resources between the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Voice of America’s Latin American Division. ReportSummary.

Richard Virden, “Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy in One Country: Poland During the Cold War,” AmericanDiplomacy.org, December 21, 2011. Retired diplomat Dick Virden provides insights into US public diplomacy in Poland during and after the Cold War. His narrative looks at contrasting social and political environments in Poland during the 1980s and 1990s and implications for US public diplomacy tools and methods.

Vivek Wadhwa, “The First Brain Drain in the United States,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2012, 89-96. Using data gathered by a research team at Duke, Harvard, and UC Berkeley, Wadhwa argues that very few international students plan to stay in the US after completing their degrees due to flawed US immigration policies and better opportunities in their home countries. “The world’s best and brightest now view the United States as a decreasingly attractive place to live and work.”

Jian Wang and Shaojing Sun, Experiencing Nation Brands: A Comparative Analysis of Eight National Pavilions at Expo Shanghai 2010, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 2, 2012, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Jay Wang (University of Southern California) and Shaojing Sun (Fudan University) explore how Chinese visitors “experienced the branded space of national pavilions” at the Shanghai Expo and how this “brand experience” might have shaped or re-shaped their perceptions of the sponsor countries. Drawing on surveys of visitors to the pavilions of Brazil, India, Israel, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, the authors provide a wide ranging discussion of nation-branding as a concept, its use as an instrument of public diplomacy, China’s role as sponsor and target of public diplomacy, and the institutional value of World Expos. Their comparative study finds value in the “brand experience” framework, assesses the impact of the national pavilions, offers insights to Expo practitioners, and identifies areas for future research.

Wilton Park, “Putting the Power in Soft Power,” Conference Report, WP1117, October 12-14, 2011. In this online report, conference rapporteur Jayne Luscombe summarizes key points and views expressed by practitioners, scholars, and policymakers attending a three-day conference on soft power. Wilton Park is associated with the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Jillian York, “The Arab Digital Vanguard: How a Decade of Blogging Contributed to a Year of Revolution,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2012, 33-42. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Jillian York looks at the evolution of the Arab blogosphere, the unique impact of its common language in creating “a transnational community of sorts,” and the variety of digital tools used for citizen activism. Her optimistic account shows that what seemed sudden “was in fact the culmination of nearly a decade of efforts.”

Blogs of Interest

Robert Albro, “Models as Mirrors or Cultural Diplomacy?” Public Policy Anthropologist, February 15, 2012. Albro (American University) offers comments on findings from a cultural diplomacy survey of scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and cultural producers who attended conferences on cultural diplomacy at AU. Posted also on the USC Center for Public Diplomacy’s CPD Blog.

Daryl Copeland, “Canadian Public Diplomacy, Then and Now,” The Mark, January 3, 2012, and “A Future for Public Diplomacy”The Mark January 12, 2012. Copeland (Ottawa University and the author of Guerrilla Diplomacy) writes that Canada “once a pioneer in public diplomacy” now faces an “uphill battle” and is “trailing most of its diplomatic competition.”

Helle Dale, “Fill the Public Diplomacy Leadership Vacuum,” WebMemo, February 3, 2012 and “Quieting the Voice of America,”February 23, 2012. Dale (The Heritage Foundation) questions leadership, organizational, and budget deficiencies in the Department of State and US international broadcasting.

Gem From the Past

Allan Gottlieb, ‘I’ll be with You In Just a Minute, Mr. Ambassador,’ The Education of a Canadian Diplomat in Washington, (University of Toronto Press, 1991). When Canada’s Allan Gottlieb arrived in Washington in 1981 to begin a seven-year tour as Ambassador to the United States, he anticipated most of his time would be spent in diplomatic formalities and meetings in the Department of State. He quickly discovered that diplomacy’s radical transformation required the talents of an effective lobbyist and, in the words of former US Secretary of State James Baker, an ambassador who is “an insider” and who “knows how to work the system.” Gottlieb’s book was and is a pioneering contribution to “the new diplomacy.” This new diplomacy, he wrote, “is, to a large extent, public diplomacy and requires different skills, techniques, and attitudes than those found in traditional diplomacy, as it is practiced in most countries, including Canada.”

Asia Foundation, Afghanistan in 2011: A Survey of the Afghan People, November 15, 2011. While nearly half (46%) of Afghans say their country is moving in the right direction, more respondents (35%) than at any time since the Foundation began polling there in 2004 say Afghanistan is headed in the wrong direction. Attacks, violence, and terrorism are cited. The survey also found, however, that Afghans see progress in access to education, drinking water, health services, and in household financial well-being. Sympathy for armed opposition groups declined dramatically in 2011, reaching its lowest level since the Foundation”s surveys began.

Tom Bartlett and Karin Fisher, “The China Conundrum,” The New York Times, November 6, 2011. In this NYT Education Lifefeature, Bartlett and Fisher argue that American colleges have been slow to adjust to challenges caused by the rapid rise in Chinese undergraduates — now the largest group of foreign students in the United States. In their eager competition for students from China”s expanding middle class who can afford to pay full tuition, American colleges contend with application, language, and acclimation problems as they “struggle to distinguish between good applicants and those who are too good to be true.” The article is a collaboration between The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

British Council, Corporate Plan 2011-2015, posted September 2011. The British Council”s vision for 2015 anticipates significant reductions in government funding, more collaboration with corporate and civil society partners, increased income from paid services, and greater priority to countries with strategic importance to the UK. Includes a foreword by Council CEO Martin Davidson and sections on English teaching, education and society, the arts, sports, science, climate change, digital platforms, regional programs, and a financial plan. See blog comments by Alex Case on implications of a 26 percent cut in government funding and keeping an eye on the Council”s “increasing commercialism.”

British Council, “Trust and Why it Matters,” Culture Report, EUNIC Yearbook 2011, pp. 190-193. Calling for an evidence-based approach to trust building, the Council reports on its survey of young urban, educated, and online “influencers” (age 16-34) in India, China, Poland, and Saudi Arabia. The survey tested for levels of trust in the people and governments in the UK, the US, Germany, and France. The Council found “a clear positive association” between self-assessed levels of trust and some form of cultural relations activity involving the base line countries as well as a willingness to engage further with those countries. Levels of trust were significantly higher for the UK, Germany, and France than for the United States.

Broadcasting Board of Governors, Impact Through Innovation and Integration, BBG Strategic Plan, 2012-2016, posted November 2011. In this brief (seven pages) and imaginative five year plan, the BBG outlines a strategy for US international broadcasting intended to address fundamental changes in the global information environment. Its strategy includes a revised statement of mission, a vision for “altogether new ways of doing business” in programing and use of new technologies, making internet censorship circumvention and anti-jamming a top priority, and transformational changes in the identity and organizational structure of the BBG and its broadcasting services. See also the BBG”s press release and “Frequently Asked Questions.”

Massimo Calabresi, “Hillary Clinton and the Rise of Smart Power,” Time, November 7, 2011, 26-33. Time magazine”s cover story chronicles US Secretary of State Clinton”s efforts to face different situations, threats, and opportunities with smart combinations of diplomacy, development, and military hard power. Her tools include the “convening power” of connections with civil society organizations, greater control over US foreign aid strategy, expansion of political advisors in the Department of Defense, and immersing “everyone from entry-level foreign service officers to newly appointed ambassadors in social media.” Many of her initiatives, Time observes, are low on budget, “long on jargon and short on deliverables,” and run out of her office making their duration problematic. Includes a Q&A with the Secretary by Time”s Managing Editor Richard Stengel.

Daryl Copeland, “Science Diplomacy: What”s It All About?” Center for International Policy Studies, Policy Brief No. 13, November 2011. Copeland (Canadian diplomat and author of Guerrilla Diplomacy) calls for greater attention to science diplomacy in addressing global issues that challenge development and security. He distinguishes between science diplomacy (a subset of public diplomacy with governance connections) and international scientific collaboration among corporate and civil society partners. His paper frames conceptual issues and outlines difficulties flowing from dominance of defense-related funding and lack of awareness and capacity in foreign ministries, multilateral organizations, and science-based institutions.

Mai”a K. Davis Cross, “All Talk and No Action,” Culture Report, EUNIC Yearbook 2011, pp. 20-25. Cross (University of Southern California) looks at rising Euro-pessimism in the United States and finds widespread lack of awareness of Europe”s political, economic, and military achievements. She suggests three images that Europe should strive to promote: a Europe “united in diversity,” a Europe that acts and doesn”t just talk, and a Europe that effectively combines hard and soft power in facing 21st century challenges. Cross examines the role the European External Action Service can play in addressing US misperceptions with particular emphasis on the value of networked cultural diplomacy.

Recent articles by Professor Cross also include: “Building a European Diplomacy: Recruitment and Training to the EEAS,”European Foreign Affairs Review, (2011), 16: 447-464. On building professionalism, expertise, flexibility, and collective identity in the European External Action Service. “Europe, A Smart Power?” International Politics (2011), 48, 691-706. On the meaning of smart power and Europe”s use of soft and smart power.

European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC), Culture Report, EUNIC Yearbook 2011. This fourth edition of theCulture Report — published for the first time within the framework of EUNIC (a network of 19 European cultural diplomacy organizations) — examines the current state of Europe”s external cultural relations. Includes chapters by 30 scholars and practitioners from 20 countries that examine external perspectives on Europe, the role of culture in Europe”s external affairs, and the evolution of the EUNIC network.

“2011: Facets of Diplomacy,” Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy, Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars, Syracuse University, November 2011. Graduate students at Syracuse University have published their second edition of online journalExchange. Includes:

Simon Anholt (Editor, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy), “Beyond the Nation Brand — The Role of Image and Identity in International Relations”

Rachel Wilson (Syracuse University), “Cocina Peruana Para El Mundo: Gastrodiplomacy, the Culinary Nation Brand, and the Context of National Cuisine in Peru”

Sofia Kisou (Ionia University), “The Power of Culture in Diplomacy: The Case of U.S. Cultural Diplomacy in France and Germany”

Ivaylo Ladjiev (University of Bath), “Searching for Influence and Persuasion in Network-Oriented Public Diplomacy: What Role for “Small States?””

Shahihul Alam (Independent University) “Stretching the Parameters of Diplomatic Protocol: Incursion into Public Diplomacy”

Ellen Huijgh (Netherlands Institute of International Affairs), “Changing Tunes for Public Diplomacy: Exploring the Domestic Dimension”

Candace Ren Burnham (University of Southern California), “Public Diplomacy Following 9/11: The Saudi Peace Initiative and “Allies” Media Campaign”

Michael Schneider (Syracuse University), “Book Review: The Practice of Public Diplomacy — Confronting Challenges Abroad”

Bruce Gregory, “American Public Diplomacy: Enduring Characteristics, Elusive Transformation,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 6 (2011) 351-372. This article looks ways in which characteristics of an American approach to public diplomacy are rooted in the nation”s history and political culture. These include episodic resolve correlated with war and surges of zeal, systemic tradeoffs in American politics, competitive practitioner communities and powerful civil society actors, and late adoption of communication technologies. The aarticle examines these characteristics in the context of the Obama administration”s strategy of global public engagement and three illustrative issues: a culture of understanding, social media, and multiple diplomatic actors. It concludes that characteristics shaping US public diplomacy significantly constrain its capacity for transformational change.

Craig Hayden, The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts, (Lexington Books, 2012). Hayden (American University) asks why do international political actors increasingly believe communicating with foreign audiences is crucial to their interests? His answers are provided in a significant new inquiry into the theoretical nature of soft power and the variety of ways soft power is interpreted and implemented in the public diplomacy initiatives of different actors. Hayden draws on concepts and methods in international relations and communications to develop a theoretical treatment of soft power and public diplomacy. He then examines discourses and practices of soft power in case studies of the public diplomacy and strategic communication policies of China, Japan, Venezuela, and the United States. Hayden is particularly concerned with the rhetoric of soft power — the reasoning, policy discussions, and public arguments that shape how public diplomacy programs of these actors are imagined and what they view to be necessary political action through communication.

Institute for International Education (IIE), Open Doors 2011, November 2011. IIE”s annual report on cross border student flows finds international student enrollment in the US increased 5% in 2011. Students from China led the increase followed by students from India, South Korea, Canada, and Taiwan. The top three countries comprise almost half of the international enrollment in US higher education. Although only 270,604 American college students studied abroad in 2010-2011, there has been a steady annual rise with an increase of about 10,000 from the previous year. Most US students still choose traditional destinations in Western Europe. However, enrollment in less traditional destinations such as India, Israel, and Brazil is on the rise.

Robert Kelley, “Repairing the American Image, One Tweet at a Time,” The United States After Unipolarity, LSE Ideas, London School of Economics, 2011, 35-39. Kelley (American University) looks at the Obama administration”s public diplomacy. He commends efforts to put “social media and technology exchanges into the toolkit of the public diplomat.” In contrast with these innovations in method, however, he finds an “absence of a strategic framework for public diplomacy” and a “strategic incoherence” in which means matter more than content.

Michelle Lee, “Public Diplomacy: At the Crossroads Between Practitioner and Theorist,” Council of American Ambassadors, The Ambassadors Review, Fall 2011. Lee (a US Foreign Service Officer currently assigned at the Department of State) looks at reasons for the divide between practitioners and academics in public diplomacy and what might be done in the two communities to benefit from greater collaboration. Her article discusses recent efforts to bridge the divide, the value of advanced educational as well as increased training for mid-career diplomats, and recommendations to strengthen the practice and study of public diplomacy.

Jan Melissen, Beyond The New Public Diplomacy, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael Discussion Paper No. 3, October 2011. The Director of Clingendael”s Diplomatic Studies Program and co-editor of The Hague Journal of Diplomacylooks at changes in diplomatic practice in a world of multiple actors and diverse networks. His paper assesses criticisms of public diplomacy; varieties of public diplomacy practices by states; the increasing public diplomacy roles of sub-state, regional, and civil society actors; and points of learning from the public diplomacy of East Asian countries. Given these changes, Melissen argues the juxtaposition of “traditional” and “new” public diplomacy is no longer satisfactory. Rather, public diplomacy and diplomacy are merging into a more inclusive and “societized” form of diplomacy. In a polylateral world of multiple actors, states remain highly relevant, but their diplomacy can best be understood in a context where non-state and non-official actors have a much greater role in international relationships. Practitioners, he suggests, can learn much “outside their comfort zone from how public diplomacy is practiced in distinct organizational and cultural settings.”

Pew Research Center, Global Digital Communication: Texting, Social Networking Popular Worldwide, December 20, 2011. Pew”s survey of digital communication in 21 countries finds overwhelmingly large majorities in most major countries use cell phones for text messages (75%), taking pictures/video (50%), and Internet use (23%) based on median percentages across the nations surveyed. Social networking remains popular but with only marginal change in use since 2010. Exceptions are Egypt and Russia where usage has increased from 18% to 28% in Egypt and 33% to 43% in Russia. Multiple uses of cell phones and social networking correlates with youth demographics and education. Media release.

Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, guest editors, “American Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 6, Nos. 3-4 2011. In this special issue of the Journal, Sharp (University of Minnesota, Duluth) and Wiseman (University of Southern California) convene a team of scholars and practitioners to look at the conduct of American diplomacy, the character of its diplomatic culture, efforts to reform, and suggestions for what lies ahead. Includes:

Introduction

Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, “American Diplomacy,” 231-234

Research Papers

Geoffrey Wiseman, “Distinctive Characteristics of American Diplomacy,” 235-259

David Clinton (Baylor University), “The Distinction Between Foreign Policy and Diplomacy in American International Thought and Practice,” 261-276

CHEN Zhimin (Fudan University), “US Diplomacy and Diplomats: A Chinese View,” 277-297

Michael Smith (Loughborough University), “European Responses to US Diplomacy: “Special Relationships,” Transatlantic Governance and World Order,” 299-317

Karin A. Esposito and S. Alaeddin Valid Gharavi (School of International Relations, Tehran), “Transformational Diplomacy: US Tactics for Change in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2004-2006,” 319-334

David Bosco (American University), “Course Correction: The Obama Administration at the United Nations,” 335-349

Bruce Gregory (George Washington University/Georgetown University), “American Public Diplomacy: Enduring Characteristics, Elusive Transformation,” 351-372

James Der Derian (Brown University), Quantum Diplomacy: German-US Relations and the Psychogeography of Berlin,” 373-392

Paul Sharp, “Obama, Clinton and the Diplomacy of Change,” 393-411

Practitioners” Perspectives

Chas W. Freeman Jr. (US diplomat, retired), “The Incapacitation of US Statecraft and Diplomacy,” 413-432

Thomas Hanson (University of Minnesota, Duluth), “The Traditions and Travails of Career Diplomacy in the United States,” 433-450

Alec Ross (US Department of State), “Digital Diplomacy and US Foreign Policy,” 451-455.

Clay Shirky, Salant Lecture — Press Freedom in a Global Era, Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, October 2011. Shirky (New York University and author of Here Comes Everybody) looks at press freedom as a relationship between technological capability and the regulatory power of legal and policy constraints. Using Wikileaks and other examples, Shirky examines challenges to freedom of expression in “a post national environment.” He argues the US and other democracies, which have been good at lecturing autocracies on freedom of speech, need to become much better at holding themselves to the standards they espouse. (Courtesy of Bob Coonrod)

Russell Shorto, Descartes” Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason, (Vintage Books, 2008). Intellectual historian and journalist Russell Shorto tells the story of Descartes” legacy and its relevance to today”s competing fundamentalist impulses (secular, Christian, and Muslim). His lively and witty narrative uses the strange story of a centuries long struggle between scientific and religious authorities over the disposition of Descartes” physical remains as a metaphor for understanding the continuing conflict between faith and reason.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A New Theory for the Foreign Policy Frontier: Collaborative Power,” The Atlantic, November 30, 2011. Slaughter (Princeton University) updates her inaugural Joseph S. Nye lecture at Princeton to frame a concept of “collaborative power,” — defined as “the power of many to do together what no one can do alone” — which she contrasts with Nye”s concept of “top down” relational power. Elements of collaborative power include mobilization, connection, and adaptation of one”s preferences to enable meaningful dialogue. For Slaughter, collaborative power is not held by A in relation to B. Rather it is an “emergent phenomenon,” which leaders can learn to unlock and guide but not possess.

Tara Sonenshine, Under Secretary-designate for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, US Department of State, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, December 8, 2011. In prepared remarks for her confirmation hearing, Sonenshine (Executive Vice President, US Institute for International Peace) described public diplomacy as “a shared means to a shared goal of extending America”s reach and security by influencing how individuals around the world come to know and understand us. It is about the advancement of foreign policy goals through people-to-people connections in a complex, global networked society.” Successful public diplomacy, she stated, “is inextricably linked to national security.” Public diplomacy “increases economic security through global engagement,” and it “must be agile and adaptive in using state of the art information technologies.”

In a Huffington Post blog, “America”s Next Move on Public Diplomacy,” co-authored with her USIP colleague Sheldon Himelfarb on May 5, 2009, Sonenshine offered her ideas to then incoming Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale.

Janet Steele, “Justice and Journalism: Islam and Journalistic Values in Indonesia and Malaysia,” Journalism, 12(5) 533-549. Drawing on interviews with journalists in Jakarta, Surabaya, and Kuala Lumpur, Steele (George Washington University) looks at ways in which Southeast Asian journalists think about their work and implications for US public diplomacy. She argues “journalists in Indonesia and Malaysia express universal values of journalism, but do so in an Islamic idiom” that privileges goals of economic justice and the legitimacy of those in authority more than freedom. If the US wishes to engage journalists in these countries, Steele contends, “rather than focusing on “the role of a free press in a democracy,” it would make far more sense to focus on “the role of independent media in a just society.””

Kishan S. Rana, 21st Century Diplomacy: A Practitioner”s Guide, (The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011). In this recent contribution to the Key Studies in Diplomacy series, former Indian Ambassador and DiploFoundation scholar Kishan Rana provides a guide to modern diplomacy for diplomacy practitioners and scholars. His book is written with particular attention to its use in foreign ministry training courses and by teachers and students in academic institutions. The book divides into three categories. (1) A section on the international environment includes chapters on globalized, regional, and small states diplomacy; public diplomacy and country branding; and disapora diplomacy. (2) Chapters on institutions and processes look at foreign ministry reform, the reinvented embassy, decision-making and risk management, performance evaluation, information and communications technologies, the new consular diplomacy, and protocol. (3) A section on diplomacy skills offers guidance on professional responsibilities, advocacy and public speaking, media skills, writing skills, and training exercises.

Websites and blogs of Interest

Robert Albro (American University), Public Policy Anthropology, a blog site that looks at cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy, intercultural dialogue, and other topics.

Intermedia”s AudienceScapes, an interactive tool and knowledge resource “on how citizens and policymakers gather, share, and use information for all sources.” In a news release on December 15, 2011, Intermedia announced the appointment of Ali Fisher (Director of Mappa Mundi Consulting) as Associate Director of Digital Media Research.

R. S. Zaharna (American University), Culture Posts, an interactive blog site on USC”s Center on Public Diplomacy platform.

“U.S. Department of State Announces Launch of New Website,” Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, October 12, 2011. The Department”s interactive Discover Diplomacy website seeks to introduce the world of diplomacy and the work of the State Department to high school and college students.

Gem from the past

Walter R. Roberts, “The Evolution of Diplomacy,” Mediterranean Quarterly, 17.3 (Summer 2006), 55-64. In this article, retired US diplomat and scholar Walter Roberts examines the origins of diplomatic practice as it focused increasingly on publics and differed from traditional diplomacy between governments during the second half of the 20th century. It is a succinct overview of a transformation in diplomatic practice that led eventually to a global conversation on the meaning and methods of public diplomacy. His article 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 unique theoretical concept and subset of diplomatic practice. Mediterranean Quarterly lists “The Evolution of Diplomacy” as its seventh most cited article of the past eleven years. His article is available online courtesy of the Public Diplomacy Alumni Association.

Walter Roberts career, which began in the Voice of America in 1942, included diplomatic assignments in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere, service as an associate director of the US Information Agency, and a presidential appointment to membership on the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. He pioneered the teaching of public diplomacy at George Washington University in the 1980s and 1990s.