Issue #124

Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu  

Bruce Gregory, American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). 

Get the eBook text and paperback here. 

Get Kindle and paperback here.

Alina Dolea, “Diaspora Diplomacy, Emotions, and Disruption: A Conceptual and Analytical Framework,” June 2024, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. In this perceptive article, Alina Dolea (Bournemouth University and USC CPD Research Fellow) develops a theoretical framework for understanding diaspora diplomacy. She advances important claims. (1) Diaspora diplomacy requires a foundational assessment of emotions understood as enabling and disruptive mediating factors in diplomatic agency, practices, and discourses. (2) The way forward lies in a constructivist approach in which identity, belonging, and transnational ties are central analytical categories. (3) Media, migration, and digital technologies are essential gateway perspectives. (4) Diasporas should be examined, not as bounded entities, but as categories of practice in which actors make claims, initiate projects, project loyalties, make judgments, and mobilize support. (5) The intersubjective and sociocultural nature of emotions as political forces linked to relations of power — and the sense of loss and trauma common to all displaced peoples — are key dynamics. Dolea applies her framework to the Romanian disaspora in the United Kingdom. She employs semi-structured interviews with 21 representatives of their organizations to address two research questions. How do these representatives construct their identity? And how do they situate themselves with roles and identities in the diaspora assemblage as a “field of power?” Her essay provides a capacious review of relevant literature and is filled with research enhancing ideas. 

Matthew Evans, Matt Lipka, Joshua McDaniel, Isa Nambo, Evan Rein, and Gabriel Teitelbaum, “Partnerships, Policy, and Public Diplomacy: A Deep Dive Into Influencer Diplomacy for the Secretary’s Priorities.” Diplomacy Lab Project, School of International Service, American University (AU). In this capstone project, six AU seniors explore the private sector roles of social media influencers and ways State Department partnerships with 24 selected influencers could advance US public diplomacy objectives. Their project drew on interviews with Public Diplomacy Council of America members, analysis of State Department press releases, and a review of scholarly and practitioner literature on public diplomacy and social media influencers. The authors identify best practices in partnerships with influencers, criteria for selecting events and influencers, themes from past events likely to have future value, and recommended State Department events for influencer partnerships. The project was supervised by Ambassador (ret.) Earl Anthony Wayne, AU’s Distinguished Diplomat in Residence.

Alicia Fjällhed and James Pamment, “Disinformation,” in Eytan Gilboa, ed., A Research Agenda for Public Diplomacy, pp. 173-186, (Edward Elgar, 2023). This essay stands out in the enormous literature on disinformation for its clarity and generative ideas. Fjällhed (Lund University) and Pamment (Stockholm University) argue central challenges for public diplomacy research and practice are (1) to connect disinformation’s development to a volatile political, security, and communications environment and (2) to “deliver cutting-edge insights to practitioners of PD before they become outdated.” To achieve this, public diplomacy requires reciprocity between vast transdisciplinary research domains and diplomacy-specific studies that can enhance research and practice. The authors begin with a summary of the evolution of propaganda and disinformation research. Then they identify “windows of opportunity” for theoretical and empirical inquiry. Continuous engagement between scholars and practitioners is critical to developing evidence-based concepts and enhancing the operational value of theory. Examples of how this can work are drawn from collaborative efforts of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Lund University’s work with the Swedish, U.K., and Finish governments and EU institutions.

“Focus on AI for Diplomacy,” The Foreign Service Journal, June 2024. Forward leaning diplomacy practitioners have often shaped change at technological (telegraph, shortwave, internet) and geopolitical (WWI, Cold War, 9/11) turning points. This month’s FSJ offers a rich collection of essays by serving and retired diplomats that focus on artificial intelligence as a technology turning point.

Dan Spokojny (CEO of the think tank fp21), “New Tools for Better Foreign Policy,” 21-23. His scene setter urges regard for the art of diplomacy and four enduring characteristics shaping change in diplomacy as a human enterprise: defining national interests; intellectual agility, challenging orthodoxy, and anticipating surprise in setting goals; moral clarity; and strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Zed Tarar (Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Department of State), “An AI Primer for Policy Professionals,” 24-27. A superb clearly written survey of AI’s evolution, characteristics, and models; the threat/promise debate; and guidelines for diplomats.

Paul Kruchoski (Director, Office of Planning and Resources for Public Diplomacy, Department of State), “At the Crossroads of Tradition and Innovation With AI,” 28-30. Adopting AI to support diplomacy’s core missions is not a technology problem, it is a State Department culture problem. Resistance to sharing information. A fragmented, stove-piped environment. Technology tools as sources of inefficiency. Cultural change, he argues, requires sharing “dramatically siloed data,” a common data model, leadership and incentives that reward collaboration and innovation. Important ideas, reminiscent of US public diplomacy’s “reinvention” agendas in the 1990s.

Paula Osborn (Chief Data Officer, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Department of State), “Toward Data-Informed Multilateral Diplomacy,” 31-34. A case study of the potential benefits and obstacles encountered in adopting AI and data science in State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs.

Evanna Hu (CEO of Omelas and non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council), “AI Disruption and Responsible Use in Diplomacy,” 35-37. A summary of the debate between AI accelerationists and decelerationists; AI’s implications for international rules and norms, democratic values, collective action, and global engagement; and the concept of “Responsible AI.”

Bettyjane Hoover, “Strengthening Japanese Public Diplomacy: Steps for the Future,” Substantive Research Paper, School of International Service, American University, Spring 2024. Hoover, a graduating MA student, examines the history of four actors in Japan’s public diplomacy: the Japan Foundation, the Japan House, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK), and the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET). Building on an analysis of their activities, her well-organized and clearly written paper makes recommendations for conceptual and operational changes that would strengthen the nation’s public diplomacy. Leading the list is her call for Japan to rely less heavily on promoting culture and soft power and consider “integrating its strategic communications, currently the domain of the Self Defense Force (SDF) with its PD activities.” Her paper was supervised by Ambassador (ret.) Earl Anthony Wayne, AU’s Distinguished Diplomat in Residence.

Harry W. Kopp, The Voice of the Foreign Service: A History of the American Foreign Service Association, second edition, (American Foreign Service Association, 2024). In this essential second edition, historian and retired FSO Harry Kopp, takes AFSA’s story forward from the Obama administration through the turmoil of the Trump administration to the third year of the Biden administration. New chapters focus on leadership and internal governance issues, professional and labor-management issues, and questions relating to Foreign Service reform and the role of a career service in American diplomacy. Particularly useful is his account of the legal and professional challenges confronting AFSA during the first impeachment of President Trump and the predations of his administration. Earlier chapters — on the nation’s first diplomats and consuls, AFSA’s origins, its evolution into a professional association and then an employee union — are slightly revised. Kopp states accurately that his book “is unashamedly pro-AFSA.” “Failures and scandals are not ignored, but neither are they highlighted.” It is a well written account of people, events, and contested issues based on deep research in AFSA’s records and meeting minutes, the Foreign Service Journal, online interviews in the American Association of Diplomatic Studies and Training’s oral history project, and published primary and secondary sources. Practitioner oriented scholars will find it is more than the history of an organization; it illuminates larger concerns in understanding societal drivers of an American way of diplomacy.  

Carlos Lozada, “Is America a City on a Hill or a Nation on the Precipice?”  July 2, 2024, The New York Times. In this lengthy but easily read essay, opinion columnist Lozada gives us a thoughtful summary of what numerous scholars and political leaders have said about claims of American exceptionalism — from sociologist Daniel Bell, to historian Andrew Bacevich, to historian Ian Tyrrell, from the Puritan John Winthrop to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden. American exceptionalism’s reality or falsity is not an unambiguous fact, Lozada argues, but an endless argument over a political or cultural belief. It is a discourse in which America’s leaders praise a shining city that is, or once was, or imagined in the future. Diplomacy is a political instrument of power, and this complex discourse is characteristic of an American way of diplomacy. US diplomats must contend with how it is framed in intensely partisan contests in the moment, with how foreign publics understand their own histories, and with how conflicting versions create differences and misunderstandings in diplomatic practice. There are significant implications for how the State Department creates a learning culture and adopts needed reforms in professional education.

Anna Helene Kvist Møller, Rebecca Adler-Nissen, Yevgeniy Golovchenko, Kristin Anabel Eggeling, “The Social Aesthetics of Digital Diplomacy,”  International Political Sociology, Vol. 18, Issue 3, September 2024. These respected diplomacy scholars at the University of Copenhagen argue that social media images posted by diplomats can be analyzed, not as strategic or representative signifiers, but as “ritual, performative, and symbolic markers” that encode social norms and project authority, power, and privilege. Drawing on explanations of visual social theories and ideas in the sociology of taste — and their analysis of 55,559 images in tweets by more than 1,000 ambassadors worldwide using computer vision techniques — the authors assess recent scholarship in digitalized diplomacy and advance several claims. Using graphics and categories of photographs as evidence in the article, they assert that collectively the images diplomats share display harmony and conceal conflicts. They reveal a global uniformity and “formalized code” that reinforces ideals of mediation and sovereign equality. They convey a “we” orientation that often excludes alternative narratives and largely adheres “to a Western and elite-oriented visual repertoire.” The social aesthetics of these images does not mean there is homogeneity among incredibly diverse diplomats; rather the images are carefully curated to project an illusion of equality. Their projection on social media represents tradition as much as innovation. The article provides further support for blended diplomacy, meaning integration of analog and digital technologies in diplomatic practice, argued persuasively by two of the authors in earlier research. See Adler-Nissen and Eggeling “Blended Diplomacy: The Entanglement and Contestation of Digital Technologies in Everyday Diplomatic Practice,” European Journal of International Relations 28(3), (2022), 640-666. 

Richard Rorty, Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism, (Harvard University Press, 2021, 2024). In 1996 the American philosopher Richard Rorty (1931-2007) delivered ten lectures in which he voiced his mature views on pragmatism as an intellectual and political commitment at the University of Girona in Spain. They were published in Catalan and Spanish, but not as a unified collection in English (with an excellent foreword by Robert B. Brandom) until 2021. This year they were published in paperback. Rorty’s ideas turn on his belief that our practices — grounded in individual autonomy and what emerges from human conversations — should form the basis for knowledge, ethics, and politics, not truth criteria beyond human experience. In the tradition of John Dewey and Jurgen Habermas, Rorty’s “anti-authoritarian” pragmatism animates thinking about ideas, democracy, and discursive social practices. In diplomacy’s public dimension, Rorty and other pragmatists inform a variety of assumptions, tools, and methods: cognitive framing of a mediated world beyond immediate grasp, treating publics as participants not spectators, managing relations between groups through discourse and face-to-face relationships, public opinion research, democracy promotion, and educational and cultural exchanges. These lectures are Rorty at his best — a thinker and provocative public intellectual who wrote clearly and has much to say about our understanding of democratic politics and diplomacy. 

Efe Sevin, “Unpacking Soft Power for Cities: A Theoretical Approach,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, accessible online June 2024. Sevin (Towson University) continues his excellent work on city diplomacy and city branding with this inquiry into how a soft power framework can be used to theorize and operationalize international activities of cities and relationships with their home countries. He begins with an overview of Joseph S. Nye’s definition of soft power, its evolution and conceptual characteristics, and critical assessments by scholars over time. Sevin then constructs a framework grounded in three “soft power logics:” resources (assets and capabilities), representation (city diplomacy), and reputation (city branding). His goals are to create stronger links between city diplomacy and city branding, examine limitations caused by activities that don’t easily fit within these categories, and point to issues raised by connections between cities and their home countries. His intent is to encourage greater attention to cities as diplomatic and branding actors and the value of soft power for understanding activities of political entities other than nation-states. His open access article provides a comprehensive literature review and raises important questions for debate and research. 

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “A Historical Overview of the Global Engagement Center [GEC]: ACPD Official Meeting Minutes,” May 15, 2024. At its quarterly public meeting held at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, the bipartisan Commission presented its special report “The Global Engagement Center: A Historical Overview 2001-2021.” A panel, moderated by Executive Director Vivian Walker, discussed the Commission’s report, the evolution of the GEC, and its value in understanding and countering foreign and non-state disinformation and propaganda. Panelists included James Glassman, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and Chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors; Kitty DiMartino, former Chief of Staff to Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale; and Graham Brookie, former Advisor for Strategic Communication at the National Security Council. As noted in a previous edition of this list, the Commission’s report identifies lessons for the future from the GEC’s history. Importantly, it also provides essential knowledge and advice in the context of partisan attacks on the GEC in Congress and by critics elsewhere. A transcript and video of the meeting (approximately one hour) can be downloaded at the link.

The Commission acknowledged the many contributions of Vivian Walker, who is departing as executive director after five years of extraordinary service during a difficult time for the Commission and US public diplomacy. During her tenure the Commission published comprehensive annual reports and numerous special reports on cutting edge issues; maintained a regular schedule of quarterly public meetings in person and on Zoom; and fully carried out its statutory mandate to advise and report to presidents, secretaries of state, Congress, and the American people. All at a time when it faced the Covid pandemic, contrasting challenges of the Trump and Biden administrations, and a gridlocked Congress that failed to confirm presidential nominations of Commissioners of both parties. Vivian stands out in the Commission’s 75-year history as a talented professional who has performed a difficult job exceptionally well — successfully navigating the often-contested terrain between lawmakers, Congressional staffs, government officials, and diplomacy practitioners. Hats off also to Commission Chair Sim Farar and Vice Chair Bill Hybl who have served long past their expired terms as they await Senate confirmation of their successors.

Hugh Wilford, The CIA: An Imperial History, (Basic Books, 2024). Histories of institutionalized foreign intelligence and public diplomacy in the United States have separate trajectories but also much in common. The fortunes of both have been episodically connected with wars throughout American history. Durable institutions were not established until the late 1940s. Covert operatives and citizen front groups were public diplomacy practitioners during the Cold War. Americans have supported covert funding of information and cultural programs until exposure damaged reputations and their perceptions of the nation’s values. Hugh Wilford (California State University, Long Beach) explored the CIA’s covert Cold War front groups in detail in his excellent earlier book, The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America  (Harvard University Press, 2008). Now, in The CIA, he frames its evolution in the context of America’s “modern imperial history, comparing, contrasting, and connecting it with prior colonial intelligence services.” He uses experiences of key CIA operatives — Sherman Kent, James Angleton, Cord Meyer, Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, Edward Lansdale, and others — to illuminate patterns of practice and the book’s central themes: the United States as a “covert empire” and the CIA “as an imperial intelligence service.” Diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find of particular interest his chapter on the CIA’s cultural Cold War; Walt Raymond’s activities as director of the Reagan administration’s Office of International Communication and Public Diplomacy at the NSC, his role in creating the National Endowment for Democracy, and his support for Oliver North’s Iran-Contra project; and Otto Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean in the State Department. This is a beautifully written book filled with compelling stories and superb scholarship.

Recent Items of Interest

Matthew Asada, “Diplomacy as a Profession: Reflections on a Foreign Service Career,”  May 17, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Max Boot, “As China Ramps Up Disinformation, the U.S. Is Far Too Vulnerable,”  May 20, 2024, The Washington Post.

Julian Borger, “Trump Win Could See Mass Purge of State Department, US Diplomats Fear,”  June 13, 2024, The Guardian.

Bradley Bowman, ed., “Cognitive Combat: China, Russia, and Iran’s War Against Americans,”  June 2024, Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Elizabeth Braw, “When Knowledge Stops at the Water’s Edge.”  May 24, 2024, Foreign Policy.

Thomas Carothers and Brendan Hartnett, “Misunderstanding Democratic Backsliding,”  July 2024, The Journal of Democracy.

John J. Chin and Haleigh Bartos, “Rethinking U.S. Africa Policy Amid Changing Geopolitical Realities,”  Spring 2024, Texas National Security Review.

Lyor Cohen, “YouTube Partners With U.S. State Department to Promote Peace,”  June 24, 2024, YouTube. 

Joe Davidson, “Sen. Kaine Wants More Career, Fewer Political-fundraising Ambassadors,”  June 7, 2024, “The Washington Post; “Kaine Introduces Bill to Strengthen State Department Workforce.”

Justin Doubleday, “With New AI Tools Available, State Department Encourages Experimentation,”  June 28, 2024, Federal News Network.

Sheera Frenkel, “Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza War,”  June 5, 2024, The New York Times.

Cory R. Gill and Emily M. McCabe, “Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations: A Guide to Component Accounts,”  June 18, 2024, Congressional Research Service.

Bruce Gregory, “At Last, State Moves Toward Public-Private Research on Diplomacy,”  June, 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Jory Heckman, “State of the State Department: Hiring Above Attrition, Training a New Generation of Diplomats,”  July 22, 2024, Federal News Network.

Jacob Heilbrunn, “The Rise and Fall of America’s Diplomats [Review of] The Voice of the Foreign Service: A History of the American Foreign Service Association at 100 by Harry W. Kopp,”  June 2024, The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.

Jessica Jerreat, “McCaul Raises Concerns Over USAGM Ability to Vet Staff,”  June 14, 2024, VOA News; “Chairman McCaul Releases Report on Culture of Corruption at USAGM,” and “Report on the Office of Labor and Employment Relations at the U.S. Agency for Global Media,” June 12, 2024, Committee on Foreign Affairs, US House of Representatives; 

Joe B. Johnson, “Who Will Stem Media Attacks From Hostile Powers,”  July 2024; “Public Diplomacy Needs Qualified Professionals,” June 2024; “New Insights From The Public Diplomacy Laboratory,”  May 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Tomasz Kamiński, [Book Review], Diplomacy for Professionals and Everyone by Alisher Faizullaev, (Brill | Nijhoff, 2022), Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 20, 253–254 (2024). 

Dan Kimmage, “What Does the Global Engagment Center Do? | July 8, 2024 First Monday Forum Highlights [8 minute video produced by Yuchen Lee],”  Public Diplomacy Council of America  

Paul Kruchoski, Director, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Office of Policy Planning and Resources, “Planning for the Future: PD 2034,” (70-minute video), June 19, 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America, GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Lily Kuo, “The United States Used to Have Cachet in China. Not Anymore,”  May 25, 2024, The Washington Post.

Jan-Werner Muller, “The World Still Needs Habermas: The German Philosopher is Starting to Outlive His Liberal Legacy,”  June 30, 2024, Foreign Policy.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “The End of Soft Power?”  June 12, 2024, The National Interest; “America Still Retains a Soft Power Advantage Over China,”  May 22, 2024, The Hill.

Donna Oglesby, “A Professional Foreign Service Is Vital, and Here’s Why,”  May 16, 2024, Tampa Bay Times.

“A Reckoning at Voice of America,”  July 11, 2024, National Review.

Heather Cox Richardson, “American Conversations: Secretary of State Antony Blinken,”  July 12, 2024; “Letters from an American [George Creel, OWI, and disinformation],” June 12, 2024.

Ian Rosenzweig, “Disinformation: A Threat to Every Level of Diplomacy,” 2024 High School Essay Contest Winning Essay, June 2024, American Foreign Service Association. 

Sam Sabin, “The State Department Wants to Hear From the Tech Sector,”  June 18, 2024, Axios.

Dan Spokojny, “Lessons from Quantum Physics for Foreign Policy,”  July 15, 2024; “Implementing a Curriculum for Foreign Policy Expertise,”  July 9, 2024; “The (in)Definitive Reading List for Foreign Policy Expertise,” June 24, 2024;  “A Curriculum for Foreign Policy Expertise,”  June 12, 2024; “Huge Win for Diplomacy: A Research Center for State,”  May 21, 2024, fp21 substack.

Cristina Stassis, “Senate Democrats’ Bill Would Reaffirm Nonpartisan State Department,”  June 10, 2024, The Federal Times.

Michael G. Stevens and C. Eugene Steuerle, “To Win the Messaging Wars, Restore the US Information Agency,”  May 31, 2024, The Hill.

Tara D. Sonenshine, “Has American Lost Its Moral Compass,”  June 20, 2024, The Hill.

Tom Temin, “Why the State Department Wants to Set Up Federally-Funded Research and Development Centers,”  July 17, 2024.

Eric Tucker, “US Disrupts Russian Government-backed Disinformation Campaign That Relied on AI Technology,”  July 9, 2024, The Washington Post.

Larry Tye, “Satchmo, the Duke, and the Count: Representing America at Its Best Despite Having Experience Its Worst,”  May 2024, American Diplomacy.

Bill Wanlund, “Remembering Charlie Wick — A Few Chime In,”  and “Remembering Charles Z. Wick — A Few More,” June 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Eric Weiner, “What We Can Learn From America’s First Diplomat,”  July 4, 2024, Foreign Policy.

Gavin Wilde and Rick Landgraf, “From Panic to Policy: The Limits of Foreign Propaganda and the Foundations of an Effective Response,”  May 28, 2024, War on the Rocks podcast.

Lauren C. Williams, “A US Agency Focused on Foreign Disinformation Could Shut Down After the Election,”  July 8, 2024, Government Executive.

Tom Yazdgerdi, “Citizen Diplomats and the Foreign Service,”  May 20, 2024, Global Ties, U.S.

Karin Zeitvogel, “Breakdancing News: Diplomacy Meets Hip Hop As 22 Artists Visit US,”  June 5, 2024, The Washington Diplomat.

Gem from the Past

Deborah N. Cohn and Hilary E. Kahn, eds., International Education at the Crossroads,  (Indiana University Press, 2020). Title VI of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) has been a funding source for foreign language and area studies programs through the US Department of Education since 1958. Less well known perhaps than other educational and cultural activities in US diplomacy’s public dimension, it nevertheless has long been an important category of practice in the nation’s cultural diplomacy. In this compendium, Cohn and Kahn (Indiana University) bring together 29 scholars, educators, and policymakers to examine diverse approaches to the future of international education. The volume builds on a symposium hosted by Indiana University in 2018 celebrating the 60th anniversary of Title VI. Chapters are organized in separate but interrelated categories. Perspectives on international education in a global context. The current and future roles of area studies, global studies, and language learning. The impact of Title VI in the United States and tensions between area studies and global studies. A deep dive into language learning in the United States. Tensions between practice and scholarship and critical thinking about how internationalization is approach by institutions of higher education. And contrasting approaches to international education of the US Departments of Education, State, and Defense; other federal agencies; and key actors in civil society.

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, the Public Diplomacy Council of America, and Len Baldyga’s email listserv.

Issue #123

Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu  

Bruce Gregory, American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). 

Get the eBook text and paperback here.    

Get Kindle and paperback here.

Matthew Asada, “The Department of State’s Reception Centers: Back to the Future,”  The Foreign Service Journal, April 2024, 38-42. State Department Foreign Service Officer Asada is a visiting senior fellow at USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy where he has written a carefully researched history with interesting photos of the Department’s 20th century US-based reception centers (Seattle, San Francisco, Honolulu, New Orleans, Miami, Washington, DC, and New York). All but the New York center were closed decades ago due to budget cuts. Their responsibilities were absorbed by local organizations, many affiliated with the National Council for International Visitors (now Global Ties, U.S.). Asada frames the narrative as a predicate for ways to enhance State’s domestic engagement today. Among his ideas: establish domestic geographic districts (aligned with federal regions and divisions); establish “Diplomatic Engagement Centers” in districts or spanning districts; and bring together existing offices concerned with exchange programs, public outreach, media engagement, public-private partnerships, liaison with city and state officials, and support for foreign embassies and consulates.

Niklas Bremburg and Anna Michalski, “The European Union Climate Diplomacy: Evolving Practices in a Changing Geopolitical Context,”  The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, April 12, 2024. Bremburg (Stockholm University) and Michalski (Uppsala University) examine the evolution of the EU’s climate diplomacy following the “perceived failure” of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 and the consequences of rising geopolitics for the global climate agenda. They use practice theory methods in IR and diplomacy studies to show how the EU’s External Action Service and member states adopted a more “linked-up and universal approach” to its climate mitigation and adaptation diplomacy. Using a combination of elite interviews and systematic analysis of official documents and academic literature they assess the EU’s adoption of four practices. (1) Creation of narratives to persuade other actors to strengthen their global climate agendas. (2) Efforts to co-ordinate the negotiating positions and objectives of EU and member states. (3) Outreach actions tailored to the interests of selected national governments, businesses, and civil society organizations. And (4) the practice of mainstreaming, meaning dealing with climate change in the context of human rights, migration, trade, geopolitics, and other issues. Bremburg and Michalski conclude that, despite these operational practices, deep-seated beliefs by EU diplomats and officials “have remained more or less unchanged,” particularly their reliance on leading in climate negotiations through the power of example. They also call for more context-specific analysis and evidence to support answers to why, how, and with what effects diplomatic practices shape policy outcomes. 

Andrew F. Cooper, The Concertation Impulse in World Politics: Contestation Over Fundamental Institutions and the Constrictions of Institutionalist International Relations, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Cooper’s (University of Waterloo) prodigious body of work ranges from deep dives into IR theory and global governance to studies of diplomatic practice, notably in the BRICs, G-7, and G20. His writings include Celebrity Diplomacy (2008), “Adapting Public Diplomacy to the Populist Challenge,” (The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 2019), and other articles on practitioners in diplomacy’s public dimension. Cooper’s new bookcombines a rereading of Hedley Bull’s understudied ideas about the concept and practice of concertation in world politics with a multi-faceted critique of mainstream IR. The latter includes neglect of crises as stimulants of international change, a stereotyped “non-West” as either subordinate to universalistic “rules of the game” or potential disrupters of the system, and inattention to the disruptive effect of domestic forces in the United States (Donald Trump’s personalist-populist challenge). Cooper defines concertation as “an institutional format that places the emphasis on forms of dialogue, mutual exchange of information, knowledge sharing, and the aim of unified proposals, among competing and even fractious actors.” His book explores how the institutional concert format – understood as the construction of patterned practices used to solve problems and facilitate co-existence – is a productive approach to sovereignty and multilateralism. Analytical chapters address Bull’s scholarship and institutional IR as a foil for his book. Other chapters discuss concertation as a foundational and sustained fundamental institution, the G-20 as a modern institutional concertation format, the challenges of personal-populist disruption, and aspirations of the BRICs as a solidarity concert and plurilateral summitry.

“Disinformation is on the Rise. How Does it Work?”  The Economist, May 4, 2024, 66-71. The Economist devotes its entire Science & Technology section in this issue to a discussion of what disinformation is, how it works, and how it can be mitigated. The feature article explores the role of AI in creating disinformation, detecting it, and using it to overcome problems it creates. Issues discussed include the uses of analytical tools in combination and challenges of distinguishing between disinformation originators and spreaders. The article includes a case study of the disinformation campaign intended to falsely show that Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zalenska spent $1.1m of Ukrainian aid on jewelry. It summarizes the role of the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center in exposing and responding to a Russian campaign to discredit Western health programs in Africa. The article also takes aim at how US efforts to fight disinformation through coordinated activities of tech companies, academics, government agencies, civil society groups, and media organizations have become entangled in polarized politics and the objects of litigation and right-wing conspiracy theories. The experiences of Taiwan, Finland, Sweden, and Brazil are also examined. Separately, in an editorial, “Truth or Lies?” (p. 10), The Economist optimistically states that although disinformation is a serious problem there is little evidence it alone can influence election outcomes, and “it has not yet revealed itself as an unprecedented and unassailable threat.”

David V. Gioe and Michael J. Morell, “Spy and Tell: The Promise and Peril of Disclosing Intelligence for Strategic Advantage,”  Foreign Affairs, May/June 2024. CIA director Bill Burns calls it “intelligence diplomacy.” Gioe (Kings College London) and Morell (Beacon Global Strategies), both former CIA practitioners, call it “strategic disclosures.” It is a strategy with a long history in diplomacy’s public dimension: U-2 spy plane disclosures of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, Colin Powell’s satellite images of alleged weapons sites in Iraq, and recent advance disclosures of Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. In their measured assessment, Gioe and Morell assess differences between recent vetted disclosures of secrets that serve public interests, seen as resoundingly successful, and leaks that serve private interests. They conclude with a call for caution and guardrails. Disclosures must protect sources and methods. Revelations that are wrong damage reputations and undermine goals. They are especially concerned that using intelligence as a policy and diplomacy tool risks it being used as a partisan political weapon. Gioe and Morell emphasize that in today’s disinformation environment the disclosed information must be true. “Although it may be tempting to embed disinformation in a disclosure, that line should never be crossed.”

Alan K. Henrikson, “What is Public Diplomacy? Fostering Cooperation, Countering Disinformation,”  Baku Dialogues: Policy, Perspectives on the Silk Road Region, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter 2023-2024), 98-117. In this article Henrikson (Professor of Diplomatic History Emeritus and founding Director of Diplomatic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) has adapted and made more accessible an essay he published as chapter 11 in “The Role of Diplomacy in the Modern World,” in Reimagining the International Legal Order​, ed. Vesselin Popovski and Ankit Malhotra (Routledge, 2024),145-168. These essays address the international legal framework in which public diplomacy is and should be conducted. He frames his analysis in a discussion of five interrelated steps: (1) the origins and “historically evolved” meaning of the term public diplomacy, (2) the range of public diplomacy activities and how they can vary with country size, (3) his central legal-normative question, (4) challenges to public diplomacy in the international political system and global communications space, and (5) a critique of responses to these challenges and suggestions of ways public diplomacy could strengthen the international legal order and contribute to global comity and human enlightenment. Henrikson’s essays stand out in the vast literature on public diplomacy for their assessment of understudied legal and normative issues, and ways in which narrative and power are related. 

Jovan Kurbalija, History of Diplomacy and Technology: From Smoke Signals to Artificial Intelligence, (DiploFoundation, 2023). In this slim, well-resourced, and easy to read volume, DiploFoundation’s executive director examines the ways changing technologies interact with the continuity of diplomacy in human experience. He shapes the narrative in three contexts. The impact of technologies on power distribution, geopolitics, and the relevance of countries, cities, and continents. The topics and issues that diplomats address. And the tools diplomats use to communicate, negotiate, and build relationships. Images, graphics, and affordable pricing make this an excellent book for courses in diplomacy and global communications.

“Letters-Plus,” The Foreign Service Journal, April 2024, 13-15. In FSJ’s April issue, three seasoned career diplomats respond to the Journal’s March 2024 article, “A Look at the New Learning Policy: How, When, and Where Do State Department Employees Learn,” by Sarah Wardwell. In “A Step in the Right Direction,” retired FSO Alexis Ludwig welcomes State’s intentions but rightly contends that success will depend on harnessing the political will to make implementation mandatory and obtaining the resources needed to achieve results at scale. In “Prioritizing Learning,” acting deputy assistant secretary for passport services Don Jacobson applauds this “potentially transformative commitment to professional development.” Much will depend, he observes, on the time commitments and strategic thinking of supervisors at all levels and the need for all employees to take ownership of their professional development. Career Ambassador James Jeffries in “Deeply Disillusioning” objects that with one exception none of the policy’s 16 Core Curriculum courses seem to address State’s central foreign policy mission.

Keith E. Peterson, American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission, (Armida Publications, 2024). Peterson’s career as a US diplomat included information officer, cultural officer, and PAO assignments in Dhaka, Tunis, Nicosia, Bridgetown, London, Valetta, Stockholm, and Washington. American Dreams is his account of the 52-year history of the independent bicommunal Fulbright Commission in Cyprus, its role in bridging different memories and visions of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, the difficulties it encountered in conflict resolution training, and the commitment of its Greek, Turkish, and American board members. His book is both a narrative of strategic issues and the Cold War politics of Cyprus and a useful case study of one Fulbright Commission facing unusually difficult operational challenges.

Peter Pomerantsev, How to Win the Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler,  (PublicAffairs, 2024). In his latest book, Pomerantsev (Johns Hopkins University), author of Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible (2015) and This Is Not Propaganda (2020), combines analysis of Russian disinformation under Vladimir Putin with a biography of the British print and broadcast journalist Thomas Sefton Delmer. Through his parties for top Nazi officials and flattering articles, Delmer gained access and scoops. When war began in 1939, he was recruited by British intelligence. Pomerantsev’s book is part history, part biography, and part guide to understanding and countering disinformation. It has garnered praise from Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny (2017), The Atlantic’s Anne Appelbaum, and The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman. For a critical review, see Max Fisher, “The Journalist Who Tried to Fight the Nazis With Radio Stories” The New York Times, March 9, 2024. 

David E. Sanger, New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West, (Crown, 2024). Twenty-five years ago, the New York Times’ David Sanger and the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, then rising national security reporters, were quick to accept cold call invites to meet with US and international students in small (14 person) seminars at the National War College. They valued professional education, but they also knew they were connecting with future ambassadors and flag rank military officers. The range and depth of the interviews in Sanger’s latest book demonstrate the wisdom of this reportorial strategy. It is a deeply connected reporter’s easy to read account of “the revival of superpower conflict” and struggles for military, economic, political, and technological supremacy. He examines not only how leaders and key aides assessed strategic choices but also how they sought to frame their choices in the public square. Three cameos are particularly useful. Sanger’s analysis of NSC advisor Jake Sullivan’s reasoning and desire to shape the “information narrative” as to what was happening and who was responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in advance (pp. 210-215). His discussion of how the toxic zero sum domestic debate on US immigration policies damages US soft power and creates many missed opportunities including attracting a younger generation of Russians to emigrate (pp. 447-449). And his Epilogue in which the reporter turns opinion writer on what’s new in the new cold wars and what the future may hold.

Elizabeth N. Saunders, The Insiders’ Game: How Elites Make War and Peace, (Princeton University Press, 2024). Saunders (Columbia University) begins with a paradox. Publics have scarce time for the details of most foreign policies and issues. Yet leaders act as if public opinion matters, even though they rarely change public views and attitudes through persuasion. Why then, she asks, do elites care about public opinion? Her book provides explanations for this paradox and a thoughtful examination of the importance of political elites in democratic governance and decision-making. Elites lead mass opinion in part, she argues, because publics use trusted elite cues as shortcuts. Saunders distinguishes between leaders and three groups of elites with systematic influence: lawmakers, military leaders, and senior government officials. Grounded in survey experiments and case studies, her book is a nuanced assessment of how elites shape choices in war and peace decisions in the United States — with frequent asides for her theory’s implications for other democracies. This is a study of elite politics, decision-making as an “insider’s game,” a “hawkish bias” in a militarily powerful country, elite accountability, and how a democracy initiates, escalates, and ends wars. It combines well written and interesting history with sophisticated theoretical analysis. 

Sarah E. K. Smith and Sascha Priewe, eds., Museum Diplomacy: How Cultural Institutions Shape Global Engagement, (American Alliance of Museums, 2023). Smith (Western University, Ontario) and Priewe (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto) have compiled 18 chapters by practitioners and scholars on the global engagement of museums. Contributors address a range of professional, cultural, political, and academic issues. The editors situate their contributions in a conceptual framework that treats museum diplomacy as a subset of cultural diplomacy now carried out by state actors, cities and other substate actors, and a diverse array of nonstate actors. Museums exist to educate and provide enjoyment. They also serve political agendas as “arbiters of cultural significance, custodians of prized objects, and narrators of histories, communities, and identities.” Chapters address ways museums have advanced hegemony and current efforts to achieve decolonization and social justice. The collection, which includes case studies, contributes helpfully to current debates over cultural diplomacy, network diplomacy, cross cultural globalism, and boundaries between what is and is not diplomacy.

Elise Stephenson and Susan Harris Rimmer, “Bolstering the Boys Club: Security Vetting, Diversity and Diplomatic Gatekeeping,”  The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, May 8, 2024. Stephenson (Australian National University Canberra) and Rimmer (Griffith University) turn the focus on gender and diplomacy away from serving diplomacy practitioners to the security clearance processes that influence levels of clearance and career progression. They argue that clearance processes include not only criteria use to assess potential national security risks but also values (loyalty, maturity, trustworthiness), which may lead to bias or discriminatory exclusion. Their research is grounded in a larger Australian project that also focuses on cultural and linguistic diversity, First Nations and Indigenous inclusion, generational differences, sexuality, neurodiversity, mental health, and people living with disabilities. The authors discuss a variety of issues related to security vetting processes and methodological challenges for researchers. They conclude that problematic security clearance processes mean the exclusion of women and sexual minorities remains “explicit policy and practice.”

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Celebrating 75 Years of ACPD Reporting: ACPD Official Meeting Minutes,” February 26, 2024, Transcript here and Video hereThe Commission’s meeting, held at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and moderated by Executive Director Vivian Walker, achieved two goals. First, the Commission presented its Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting: Focus on FY 2022 Budget DataThe report provides detailed budget and program data on the public diplomacy activities of the US Department State and activities of the US Agency for Global Media. Critically important are the Commission’s 25 policy, program, and structural recommendations to the White House, Congress, State Department, and USAGM at pp.13-16. Second, Commissioners and a panel reflected on the presidentially appointed, bipartisan Commission’s essential and durable role in US public diplomacy for 75 years. Panelists included: Tom C. Korologos, ACPD Commissioner and Chairman, 1981-1994, former Ambassador to Belgium, and founding member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors; Katherine Brown, President and CEO of Global Ties U.S. and APCD Executive Director, 2013-2016; and Bruce Gregory, Visiting Scholar, George Washington University and ACPD Executive Director, 1985-1998. 

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “The Global Engagement Center: A Historical Overview 2001-2021,” May 2024. In this timely, important, and deeply researched 47-page report, the Commission’s senior advisor Adele E. Ruppe and executive director Vivian S. Walker examine the origins, evolution, mandates, objectives, tools, methods, and activities of the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC). The GEC’s mission is to counter foreign state and non-state disinformation threats to US national security. The report is grounded in interviews with 22 former and current political appointees and senior officials, legislative and archival records, and the insights of the Commission’s professional staff. Following a detailed historical overview, illuminated by helpful graphics, the report identifies a series of findings and lessons learned. Findings include the importance of Senate confirmed under secretaries of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, the need for White House validation and strong bipartisan support, and alignment of expectations and activities with budget realities. Other findings point to the disruptive impact of changes in administrations and funding delays due to cumbersome authorization processes and bureaucracies in the State and Defense Departments. 

Looking ahead, the Commission identified eight lessons learned: (1) the United States needs a GEC located within State to counter global disinformation threats; (2) the GEC requires appropriate legislative and executive branch legal authorities; (3) adequate support from interagency stakeholders is essential; (4) the Defense Department and intelligence community are crucial partners; (5) direct funding is required rather than highly inefficient indirect funding through other government entities; (6) special authorities and hiring mechanisms are necessary to recruit specialized expertise; (7) flexible capabilities and funding are key to coping with constant change in the threat environment; and (8) mistaken past assumptions that disinformation threats can be “eliminated” means a robust and sustained GEC or similar entity is necessary to counter a radically new global disinformation environment. 

The Commission’s bipartisan report provides essential knowledge and advice in the context of partisan attacks from critics in Congress and elsewhere (e.g., Elon Musk, The Federalist, the Daily Wire, and the state of Texas). See “Don’t Defund the Fight Against Russia and China’s Disinformation,” Editorial, The Washington Post, March 19, 2024 and Steven Lee Meyers, “State Department’s Fight Against Disinformation Comes Under Attack,” The New York Times, December 14, 2023. 

US Department of State, “United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy,”  May 2024. The State Department’s strategy, framed as a policy of “digital solidarity,” sets forth goals for achieving effective uses of technologies in diplomacy by the US and its allies and partners; an open, inclusive, secure, and resilient internet; and responsible behavior by political entities in cyberspace. The document states that a US goal also is to maintain global technology primacy and set global standards and norms. Part one of the document examines threats to national security and internet freedom, protection of physical infrastructures, competing internet norms, challenges to digital economies, the future of AI technologies governance, and working with the private sector and civil society. Part two sets forth priorities and examines four “action domains” to achieve policy goals. The Department’s Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nathaniel Fick summarized its importance in an interview with The New York Times, “Just about everyone is willing to acknowledge that technology is an important element of foreign policy, but I would argue that tech is not just part of the game — it’s increasingly the entire game.” The “entire” game is debatable. Technologies are tools of diplomacy and policies. As with most strategy documents, much will depend on how road maps are implemented, how cost/benefit choices are made, and how bureaucratic wars are fought and won. See also, David Sanger, “A New Diplomatic Strategy Emerges as Artificial Intelligence Grows,”  May 6, 2024, The New York Times;  Rishi Iyengar, “Washington Takes Its Cyber Strategy Global,”  May 8, 2024, Foreign Policy; Office of the National Cyber Director, “2024 Report on the Cybersecurity Posture of the United States,” May 2024; and report Fact Sheet.

Recent Items of Interest

Madison Alder, “State Department to Use New Purdue Tech Diplomacy Platform to Train Officials,”  April 30, 2024, Fedscoop.

Anne Applebaum, “The New Propaganda War,”  May 6, 2024, The Atlantic.

Phillip C. Arceneaux, “‘Nation of Storytellers”: Ireland’s Public Diplomacy Success Centers on Storytelling,”  March 22, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Matt Armstrong, “Main Street on a Flattop aka Operation Flattop,”  May 6, 2024; “Political Warfare: The Obvious Choice Against Our Maginot Line,”  April 19, 2024; “It’s Not New, We’re Just Ignorant,”  April 4, 2024, Arming for the War We’re In.

Michael Birnbaum, “U.S. Diplomat Explains Why She Quit Biden Administration Over Gaza War,”  April 30,2024, The Washington Post.

Antony J. Blinken, “Building a More Resilient Information Environment,”  March 18, 2024, US Department of State.

Doug Cunningham, “State Department Invites 22 Countries for Some Hip-hop Diplomacy,”  April 17, 2024, UPI. 

“Don’t Defund the Fight Against Russia and China’s Disinformation,”  March 19, 2024, Editorial Board, The Washington Post.

Andrew Dubbins, “Public Diplomacy in the News: Michael Douglas as Ben Franklin, Global Health, and Election Misinformation,”  April 22, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Jorge Heine, “Attacks on Embassies in Ecuador and Syria Set a Dangerous Precedent,”   April 23, 2024, The Washington Diplomat; “Are Embassies Off-limits? Ecuadorian and Israeli Actions Suggest Otherwise — And That Sets a Dangerous Diplomatic Precedent,”  April 9, 2024, The Conversation.

Ellice Huang, “Can You Change Your Mind? Decision-making and the Debate on AI Regulation,”  April 17, 2024, guest post, fp21.

Zhao Alexandre Huang, “China’s Digital Public Diplomacy Towards ASEAN Countries: How Beijing Frames the South China Sea Issue,”  May 6, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Patricia H. Kushlis, “Santa Fe Forum Reviews US Place in the World,”  May 2024,  Public Diplomacy Council of America.  

Don Jacobson, “Speaking Out: It’s Up To Us to Implement the Learning Policy,”  May 2024, The Foreign Service Journal.

Umme Laila, “Chinese Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in the United States,”  May 15, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Joseph I. Lieberman and Gordon J. Humphrey, “How to Start Winning the Information War,”  April 2, 2024, The Washington Post.

Ilan Manor, “From ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’ To ‘Lone Wolf Diplomacy,’ The New Logic of Digital Diplomacy,”  May 15, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

“Meet the Author: Bruce Gregory on ‘American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension,”  April 22, 2024, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Sherry Mueller, “Citizen Diplomacy — The Role of the Individual in Foreign Affairs,”  April 2024;  “International Visitor Leadership Program,”  April 2024; “Senator Fulbright’s Letter To President Reagan On The Importance Of Exchange Programs To U.S. National Security,”  March 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America. Letter available here.

John K. Naland, “AFSA and the Evolution of the Foreign Service Career,”  May 2024, The Foreign Service Journal.

Caroline Nihill, “State Department is Launching an Internal Chatbot,”  April 2, 2024, Fedscoop.

David Pierson, “U.S.-Funded Broadcaster [Radio Free Asia] Leaves Hong Kong, Citing Security Law,”  March 29, The New York Times.

Katie Robertson, “Voice of America Will Get a New Director,”  April 19, 2024, The New York Times.

Jon Schaffer, “Youth Exchanges: ‘The Perfect Fit’ For This Volunteer,”  May 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Alexander Smith, “Antony Blinken’s Guitar Diplomacy Draws Criticism in Ukraine,”  May 15, 2024, NBC News.

Tara D. Sonenshine, “How Russia and China are Ridiculing America,”  April 9, 2024; “A Triple Threat in the Middle East: Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis,”  March 21, 2024, The Hill.

Dan Spokojny, “Should Artificial Intelligence Be Used in Foreign Policy?”  May 7, 2024; “Should I Distrust Story Telling?”  May 1, 2024; “A Roadmap to Modernize Foreign Policy,”  April 11, 2024; “Foreign Policy Expertise Requires a Culture of Evidence,”  April 2, 2024; “The World is Hard to Change,”  March 29, 2024; “Foreign Policy Doesn’t Promote Expertise: But It Could,”  March 20, 2024, fp21substack.

Jillian Steinhauer, “For U.S. Pavilion At Venice Biennale, a Bold Rainbow,”  April 14, 2024Julia Halperin, “Indigenous Artists Are the Heart of This Year’s Venice Biennale,”  April 14, 2024, The New York Times.

Bill Wanlund, “Worried About Disinformation? Chill [Thoughtfully],”  April 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America.  

Gem from the Past

Taylor Owen, Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age, (Oxford University Press, 2015). Almost a decade ago, Taylor Owen (McGill University) took the measure of ways in which digital technologies were transforming states and key institutions underpinning world order. Luminaries who endorsed his book included Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michael Ignatieff, Clay Shirkey, and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Although technologies and the global environment have changed greatly in subsequent years, his central arguments in this slim volume are worth another look. Owen rehearses now familiar themes: the decentralization of hierarchical power, the rise of individuals and groups empowered by digital technologies, and the challenges states face in giving up power to achieve success in a networked world. Today, when much of the literature prioritizes technologies over diplomacy and governance, Owen puts power, accountability, stability, and democratic engagement first and technologies second. His final three chapters constitute a prescient examination of public diplomacy’s uses of social media, how the “violence of algorithms” is blurring boundaries in war and international relations, and models for the structural adaptation of traditional institutions.

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Issue #122

Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu  

Bruce Gregory, American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). 

Get the eBook text and paperback here.    

Get Kindle and paperback here.

Phillip Arceneaux, “Value Creation Through Organizational Storytelling: Strategic Narratives in Foreign Government Relations,”  Public Relations Review, Vol. 50, Issue 2, June 2024. Arceneaux (Miami University of Ohio) examines ways in which governments use public relations and tell stories to promote their interests and create value in competitive environments. He begins with a brief literature review followed by discussion of conceptual issues in narrative theory, the politics of strategic narratives, and use of value propositions to build brands and convey value through stories. He grounds his analysis in a comparison of Canadian, Irish, and Norwegian campaigns to win a seat on the UN Security Council. Arceneaux argues practitioners need to adopt a storytelling approach that blends identity, system, and issue narratives with a holistic content strategy. His conclusion: “Contextualizing strategic narratives as value propositions expands the interdisciplinarity of government public relations scholarship at the nexus of international relations, public diplomacy, and nation branding.” The article is available for a limited time through open access.

André Barrinha, “Cyber-diplomacy: The Emergence of a Transient Field,”  The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, February 26, 2024. Barrinha (University of Bath, UK) draws on 40 interviews with diplomats and experts and scholarship on diplomatic practices to make a case for cyberspace as a “diplomatized” governance and policy domain.By this he means it is becoming a “diplomatic field.”  Its diplomatic actors range from states, multiple government departments, the military, and so-called non-diplomatic groups such as NGOs, corporations and “even journalists.” Barrinha usefully examines a variety of institutional, instrumental, and process dynamics in “cyber-diplomacy.” But it is not clear why this term and a separate form of diplomacy are needed. Diplomacy, a robust and capacious term, is adequate to describe communication and representation of interests and policies by diplomatic actors in a variety of governance and issue domains, including cyberspace.

Jon Bateman and Dean Jackson, Countering Disinformation Effectively: An Evidence-Based Policy Guide, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 2024. In this119-page report, Bateman (Carnegie Endowment) and Jackson (Public Circle Research & Consulting) examine conceptual issues, collate insights from empirical research, and use case studies to provide a guide to major proposals on how democratic governments, platforms, and others can counter disinformation. Among the findings. There are no “best” policy options. Adopt a portfolio approach to managing uncertainty. Give more attention to long-term structural reforms. Countering disinformation is not always apolitical. Generative AI will have complex effects but might not be a game changer. Case studies include: Fact checking. Counter-messaging strategies. Statecraft, deterrence, and disruption. Changing recommendation algorithms. And generative AI.

Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Thismassive volume is sure to be a dominant resource on digitalized diplomacy in coming years. Bjola (Oxford University) and Manor (Ben Gurion University of the Negev) have compiled 34 essays in a multidisciplinary compendium described as an examination of how digital technologies are used in diplomacy “as a practice, as a process, and as a form of disruption.” It divides into four parts: (1) concepts and theories, (2) diplomatic practices, (3) diplomatic institutions, and (4) diplomatic relations. Chapters include a variety of conceptual approaches and globally diverse case studies. The Handbook is institutionally priced. Readers will want to confirm it is available at their universities and in the libraries and training programs of ministries of foreign affairs. 

Contributors include a stunning array of accomplished diplomacy scholars and practitioners. Rebecca Adler-Nissen (University of Copenhagen), Banu Akdenizli (Northwestern University Qatar), Phillip Arceneaux (Miami University of Ohio), Daniel Aguirre (Arizona State University), Victoria Baines (Gresham College, London), Corneliu Bjola, Emma L. Briant (Monash University), Caroline Bouchard (Université du Québec à Montréal), Jennifer Cassidy (University of Oxford), Andrew F. Cooper (University of Waterloo), Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), Rhys Crilley (University of Glasgow), Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt (Universität Duisburg-Essen), Kristin Anabel Eggeling (University of Copenhagen), Anne Marie Engtoft Larsen (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark), Alisher Faizullaev (University of World Economy and Diplomacy), Alicia Fjällhed (Lund University), Tom Fletcher (University of Oxford), Luciana Alexandra Ghica (University of Bucharest), Natalia Grincheva (LASALLE College of Art, Singapore), Elsa Hedling (Lund University), Jorge Heine (Boston University), Marcus Holmes (William & Mary), Zhao Alexandre Huang (Université Paris Nanterre), Lucas Kello (University of Oxford), Didzis Kļaviņš (University of Latvia), Juan Pablo Prado Lallande (University of Puebla), Jeff Hai-chi Loo (University of Waterloo), Matthias LÜfkens (Founder of Twiplomacy), Alex Manby (University of Oxford), Ilan Manor, Fiona McConnell (Lund University), Alejandro Ramos (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico), Gary D. Rawnsley (University of Lincoln), Andreas Sandre (Embassy of Italy, United States), Efe Sevin (Towson University). Damien Spry (University of South Australia), Pawel Surowiec-Capell (University of Sheffield), Geoffrey Wiseman (DePaul University), Katherine A. M. Wright (Newcastle University), Moran Yarchi (Reichman University), and Ruben Zaiotti (Dalhousie University). 

Chapter titles are available at an open access Table of Contents here.

William J. Burns, “Spycraft and Statecraft: Transforming the CIA for an Age of Competition,”  Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2024, 74-85. Retired career Foreign Service officer and now CIA director William Burns provides evidence that intelligence services are more than compartmented espionage instruments. They are also actors in diplomacy’s public dimension. “Strategic declassification,” the selective public disclosure of secrets through “intelligence diplomacy,” can help allies and undercut false narratives of rivals. Well-crafted arguments by a spy chief in a leading journal can inform and persuade in support of policy agendas. Intelligence officers can engage diplomatically with enemies, and be seen as doing so, in circumstances where normal diplomatic contact might signal formal recognition. Burns has long been regarded as one of America’s top diplomats and change agent in diplomacy reform. This article contains lessons for diplomats and intelligence operatives on ways to transform patterns of practice in the face of geopolitical challenges, new technologies, and complex transnational issues.

Thomas Carothers and Frances Z. Brown, Democracy Policy Under Biden: Confronting a Changed World,  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 2024. Carnegie’s Carothers and Brown assess Biden administration democratization efforts in the context of three challenges: a continuing long-term global democratic recession; the rising assertiveness of China, Russia, and other autocracies; and “the troubled status” of the United States as a democracy model. Their paper examines five main elements of the Biden administration’s democratization policies taken in the absence of a global democracy strategy. Countering autocratic challengers. Engaging multilaterally on democracy. Responding to democratic backsliding. Upgrading democracy aid. Reforming U.S. democracy. Although they find positive potential and a significant change from damage inflicted by Donald Trump, they also find “nagging dilemmas and constraints.” A fuller assessment, they argue, will ultimately depend on answers to three questions. Can thematic democracy initiatives be more fully integrated into bilateral country policies? Can initiatives be integrated to become more than the sum of the parts? Can successful efforts be institutionalized and sustained? 

Yana Gorokhovskaia and Cathryn Grothe, Freedom in the World 2024: The Mounting Damage of Flawed Elections and Armed Conflict,  Freedom House, February 2024. “Freedom declined for the 18th year in 2023.” So begins the current Freedom House report on global trends and country scores on political rights, civil liberties, human rights, and democratic processes and institutions. In the aggregate, 52 countries experienced declines; 21 countries improved. The manipulation of elections and armed conflict were leading causes. The 35-page report contains regional profiles, graphics, and policy recommendations. 

Steven L. Herman, Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President—And Why It Matters, (The Kent State University Press, 2024). Veteran Voice of America (VOA) journalist Steve Herman’s memoir is a fascinating account of the daily life of a reporter covering the White House during the Trump and early Biden administrations. It is filled with vivid, short, and well-written chapters about what it takes to report from the White House pressroom and Air Force One, technologies needed for just in time reporting in the age of social media, and personalities at the crossroads of journalism and politics during the administrations of two very different presidents. Chapters on the chaos Trump appointee Michael Pack brought to the US Agency for Global Media and VOA during the administration’s last year in office are compelling and instructive. Readers will find broad-brush strokes from his earlier assignments as a VOA foreign correspondent, brief descriptions of VOA’s history and modus operandi, and his views on journalism in a democracy. But this is not a study of VOA as a government-funded media organization. It is the story of a White House reporter for whom good journalism is central, and VOA’s government sponsorship is largely incidental. It is also a finely crafted 21st century successor to Philomena Jurey’s A Basement Seat to History: Tales of Covering Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan for the Voice of America (1995).

Zhao Alexandre Huang and Phillip Arceneaux,  “Ethical Challenges in the Digitalization of Public Diplomacy,”  Chapter 13 in Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Huang (Université Paris Nanterre) and Arceneaux (Miami University of Ohio) examine three ethical challenges for diplomats in a digital society through the lens of public diplomacy — principles of openness versus secrecy, inclusivity versus exclusivity, and state interests versus public interests in diplomatic practice. Following overviews of definitions of ethics and professionalization of public diplomats, their chapter provides distinctions and assertions that will provoke thought and energize debate. For example: (1) Diplomacy differs from other types of organized communication because diplomats have authority and agency as representatives of political collectives. (2) Diplomatic allegiance has evolved through stages that correspond to principles of dynastic sovereignty, territorial sovereignty, and international norms. (3) Social media create a “hybrid media system” that is weakening gatekeeping power; reshaping global distributions of power; and weaponizing disinformation, computational propaganda, information operations, and fake news. (4) Diplomacy practitioners face challenges brought by a weakened ability to build trust in chaotic information environments. Huang and Arceneaux are cautious in providing answers to important questions in digitalized diplomacy. The value of their chapter lies in framing them for scholars and practitioners to consider and debate. How should tensions between personal morality, professional ethics, and international norms be reconciled? Do cultural differences influence ethics? How should freedom and order be coordinated? What are the ethics of responsibility in spaces where globalization and digitalization are increasingly pervasive?

Dilara Cansın Keçialan, “Webster University, Visiting Prof. Alisher Faizullaev: ‘Social Diplomacy is a Societal Phenomenon and Has Certain Distinct Features,’” February 22, 2024, Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy Studies. Social diplomacy is an ascending topic in diplomacy studies, and Alisher Faizullaev (scholar, teacher and former Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the United Kingdom) is one of its leading proponents. His superb book, Diplomacy for Professionals and Everyone, (Brill Nijhoff, 2022), is a comprehensive statement of his thinking. The value of this interview is its brevity. It is an excellent summation of his views and a great assigned reading for students. He defines social diplomacy and compares it to traditional diplomacy. He discusses social diplomacy’s role in addressing solutions to problems that elude states and other political entities. And he reflects on future developments and opportunities for scholars and practitioners. Proponents of social diplomacy must reckon with concerns that stretching diplomacy too far risks losing its particularity and analytical utility. Faizullaev welcomes such critiques and debate — and defends his views with skill.

Suzanne Nossel, “The Real Culture Wars: How Art Shapes the Contest Between Democracy and Autocracy,”  Foreign Affairs, February 29, 2024.  Nossel (PEN America Center) briefly surveys how autocracies seek to control artistic expression and cultural institutions — and how democracies competing with autocracies have prioritized military, political, economic, and diplomatic instruments. Nossel argues outcomes also will depend significantly on culture. “How people in democracies and autocracies see the world is shaped by the music they listen to, the books they read, the films and television they watch, the art they admire, the museums they visit, and the textbooks they must study.” Nossel summarizes US government support for cultural and educational activities during and after the Cold War. Going forward, however, the US should not seek to replicate these methods or spread American culture to counter autocracies. Rather, the US government should strengthen activities of independent thinkers and creators in their own countries. Her article identifies bilateral and multilateral ways this might be achieved. “The aim of such efforts,” she concludes, “should be to lift and celebrate authentic creative thinkers and works rather than to shape what those thinkers say or produce.”

Brian C. Rathbun and Caleb Pomeroy, “See No Evil, Speak No Evil? Morality, Evolutionary Psychology, and the Nature of International Relations,” International Organization 76, Summer 2022, pp. 656–89. Rathbun (University of Southern California) and Pomeroy (Ohio State University) contest the notion that anarchy in international relations (IR) requires states to set ethical concerns aside to achieve security. Rather, evolutionary and moral psychology demonstrate that morality emerged to succeed in anarchy. “It is not despite anarchy but because of anarchy that humans have an ethical sense.” They advance three arguments. (1) It is “almost impossible” to talk about threats and harm without moral discourse. (2) Leaders and publics routinely use moral judgments in assessing threats. (3) Foreign policies shaped by conceptions of international relations as an amoral domain are rare. The authors provide empirical support for these claims with word embedding surveys of large data sets. Rathbun’s and Pomeroy’s ideas have value for diplomacy scholars debating ethical and engagement practices. Their assessment of literature that distinguishes between individual morality (an ethics of caring and providing) and group morality (an ethics of retaliation and protection) is particularly helpful. Also, their discussion of the evolutionary origins of the human tendency to favor insiders over outsiders. Less persuasive, however, is their claim that a central theme in IR studies holds that anarchy “requires” states to set ethics aside, which makes IR an “autonomous sphere devoid of ethical considerations.” Much of the literature on power and morality in IR (e.g., Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, Kenneth Waltz, Michael Walzer, and many others) is not grounded in a dismissal of ethics in international society. It is based on implications of a category distinction between morality in the behavior of individuals and morality in the behavior of social groups. (Article suggested by Eric Gregory)

Joseph Siegle, Winning the Battle of Ideas: Exposing Global Authoritative Narratives and Revitalizing Democratic Principles,  International Forum for Democratic Studies / National Endowment for Democracy, February 2024. ForSiegle (National Defense University), autocracies use narratives as asymmetric instruments of power to shift relations between society and states and between states and coalitions. His report examines four authoritarian narratives. (1) Non-interference, choice, and threats to sovereignty. (2) Exploiting grievances in the Global South. (3) Democracies failing to deliver. (4) Need for a new world order. Autocracies advance these narratives, he argues, through social media, state broadcasters, partnerships with local media, and foreign media cooptation. Siegle calls on democracies to “play the winning hand they have” with a strategy that elevates democracy as an organizing principle in international relations, articulates a positive vision of a democratic world order, challenges authoritarian claims of “performance legitimacy,” fosters cultures of democratic self-correction, and builds strong information ecosystems to counter manipulation.

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Public Diplomacy and DEIA Promotion: ACPD Official Meeting Minutes,”  December 12, 2023. Minutes and a transcript of the Commission’s meeting at the USC Annenberg Center in Washington, DC focus on the Commission’s special report Public Diplomacy and DEIA Promotion: Telling America’s Story to the World. Executive director Vivian Walker moderated a panel that discussed DEIA challenges and opportunities from a field perspective. Panelists included Nicholas J. Cull (USC Annenberg), Krista Johnson (Howard University), C. Brian Williams (Step Afrika Dance Company), and Yolonda Kerney (US Department of State). The event is accessible also on video (80 minutes).

Sarah Wardwell, “A Look at the New Learning Policy: How, When, and Where Do State Department Employees Learn,”  Foreign Service Journal, March 2024, 47-51. In the 1920s the State Department paid for two years of tuition, textbooks, and living expenses in Germany for George Kennan and other Foreign Service officers (FSOs) to study Russian language, literature, and history before assignment to Moscow. A similar investment a century later is hard to imagine. Unlike the US military, State until recently paid scant attention to a culture of professional education. In this article, Sarah Wardwell, a State FSO assigned as an innovation advisor, examines the department’s “Learning Policy” launched in September 2023 in response to recent reports and recommendations by senior US diplomats (e.g., Nicholas Burns, Marc Grossman, and Marcie Ries, A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century, Harvard Kennedy School, 2020.) The new policy, Wardwell writes, “prioritizes learning as a part of the department’s culture by dedicating more time for learning, empowering employee-manager learning partnerships, and expanding learning opportunities.” The policy anticipates a core curriculum for mid-career professionals, expanded Individual Development Plans, and additional professional development and training options. Wardwell defends a policy that is strongly encouraged, but she recognizes “valid” concerns of critics who argue that unless it is mandated, other priorities will “win out.” The policy is a welcome first step, but as the US military recognized long ago, for policies such as professional education and joint force integration to work, they must be well funded and built into the incentives, rewards, and penalties of career advancement systems.

Geoffrey Wiseman, “Digital Diplomatic Cultures,” Chapter 17, 311-329, in Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2024). In this chapter, typically thoughtful and well-written, Wiseman (DePaul University) achieves several objectives. He correctly suggests the term “digital diplomacy” is problematic in that it does not convey a form of diplomacy (e.g., cultural diplomacy, sports diplomacy). It also implies diplomacy is conducted only through digital means. Terms such as “digitalization of diplomacy” or “diplomacy by digital means” are more apt. Other terms, such as “hybrid diplomacy” and “blended diplomacy,” signify qualitative differences made by digital technologies. He provides useful assessments of definitional challenges presented by the words “digital,” “diplomatic,” and “culture.” The central thrust of the chapter is devoted to assessment of research challenges and ways in which digital practices are changing four diplomatic cultures: bilateral, multilateral, polylateral, and omnilateral. Each culture exhibits blended degrees of analog and digital characteristics on a spectrum that ranges from in-person interactions to online norms and practices. His omnilateral culture, characterized as far from “fully conceptualized,” prompts questions as to whether diplomacy can “begin with the individual” and how far it can be stretched into the domain of cross-cultural internationalism. The chapter’s examination of differing degrees of digitalization in diplomatic cultures is evidence-based, deeply grounded in the literature, and an ideal platform for ongoing debate and research.

Recent Items of Interest

“100 Years of Radio in Africa: From Propaganda to People’s Power,”  February 12, 2024, The Conversation.

Matt Armstrong, “Our Dysfunctional Relationship with Information Warfare Starts With Leadership,”  March 5, 2024, Arming for the War We’re In.

Katie Azelby, “The Diplomatic Reserve Corps: A Bold Vision for American Diplomacy.”  March 12, 2024, RealClear Defense.

Andrea Bodine, “Same Number, Different Story: Takeaways from the President’s FY25 Budget Request,”  March 15, 2024, Alliance for International Exchange.

Hal Brands, “The Age of Amorality: Can America Save the Liberal Order Through Illiberal Means,”  March/April 2024, Foreign Affairs.

Katherine A. Brown, “Global Engagement Matters for U.S. Communities,”  February 16, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Michael Crowley, “Blinken Warns of Disinformation Threat to Democracies,”  March 18, 2024, The New York Times.

Andrew Dubbins, “The Future of AI in Africa: Designing an Ethical Rollout of AI-powered Tech on the Continent,”  March 4, 2024.

Kristin Eggeling, “Fieldnotes From Brussels: When Diplomacy Meets (Big) Tech,”  February 22, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Ian Garner, “The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia’s Information War,”  March 9, 2024, Foreign Policy.

Michael Green and Daniel Twining, “The Strategic Case for Democracy Promotion in Asia,”  January 23, 2024, Foreign Affairs.  

Natalia Grincheva, “K11 Alternative Diplomacies: Penetrating the Global Arts Markets,” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Vol. 10, Issue 3, November 2023.

Jonathan Guyer, “The State Department Is Still Pale, Male, and Yale,”  February 12, 2023, The New Republic.

Edouard Harris, Jeremie Harris, and Mark Beall, “Defense in Depth: An Action Plan to Increase the Safety and Security of Advanced AI,” [Report commissioned by the US Department of State], February 26, 2024, Gladstone AI.

Jory Heckman, “State Dept Seeks Mid-career Experts to join Foreign Service in ‘Lateral Entry’ Pilot,”  February 5, 2024, Federal News Network; Molly Weisner, “State Dept. Seeks Mid-career Applicants for Foreign Service,”  February 1, 2024, Federal Times; “State Department Announces New Lateral Entry Pilot Program,”  January 24, 2023, US Department of State; “State Department Eyes More Mid-Career Hiring to Address Skills Gaps,”  January 28, 2024, Fedweek.

Jory Heckman, “AI & Data Exchange 2024: State’s Matthew Graviss, NIH’s Susan Gregurick on AI as Force Multiplier,”  February 28, 2024, Federal News Network.

Michael Hirsh, “Did a Young Democratic Activist in 1968 Pave the Way for Donald Trump,” January 13, 2024, Politico Magazine. [Profile of Geoffrey Cowan, former VOA director, founder of USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and director of USC’s Annenberg Center on Leadership & Policy.]

Nina Jankowicz, “The Coming Flood of Disinformation: How Washington Gave Up On the Fight Against Falsehoods,”  February 7, 2024, Foreign Affairs.

John Katzka, “Russian Propaganda Efforts: Historical Continuities Accompany Technological Changes,”  February 2024, American Diplomacy.

Todd Leventhal, “Soviet vs. Post-Soviet Russian Disinformation,”  February 2024, American Diplomacy.

“Management Letter Related to the Audit of the U.S. Agency for Global Media,” and ”Audit Report,”   February 2024, Kearney & Company, P.C.

“Management Letter Related to the Audit of the U.S. Department of State” and “Audit Report,” February 2024, Kearney & Company, P.C.

Ilan Manor, “Public Diplomacy in the Era of Post-Reality,”  February 13, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Steven Lee Meyers, “Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.,”  March 7, 2024, The New York Times.

Alan Philips, The Red Hotel: Moscow 1941, the Metropol Hotel, and the Untold Story of Stalin’s Propaganda War, (Pegasus, 2024); Reviewed by Jonathan Steele, “The Party Line,” The New York Review, March 21, 2024, 46-48.

Peter Pomerantsev, How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, (Public Affairs/2024). Reviewed by Martha Bayles, “‘How to Win an Information War,’ Review: Deception on the Airwaves,” The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2024.

Charles Ray, “From Mars to Venus: My Journey from Soldier to Diplomat,”  February 18, 2024, Washington International Diplomatic Academy.

Brianna Rosen, “Disclosing Secrets: Deterrence, Diplomacy, and Debate — Reflections on Remarks by DNI Avril Haines,”  March 1, 2024, Just Security.

Tom Selinger, “A Century of Service: Firsthand Accounts From U.S. Diplomats,”  March 2024, Foreign Service Journal.     

Dan Spokojny,  “What is Expertise? Let’s Ask the Experts,”  March 13, 2023 “Introducing: Foreign Policy Expertise,”  March 7, 2024, Foreign Policy Expertise Substack. 

Julie Tremaine, “Everything To Know About The Diplomat, Season 2,” February 10, 2024, People.

Eriks Varpahovskis and Anri Chedia, “Türkiye’s Hizmet Schools: Once a Point of Pride, Now a Government-Labelled Threat,”  March 5, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Vivian Walker, “DEIA and Public Diplomacy: Telling the Real Story,”  January 31, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Gem from the Past

Deborah Cohn, The Latin American Literary Boom and U.S. Nationalism During the Cold War,(Vanderbilt University Press, 2012). Twelve years ago, Deborah Cohn (Indiana University Bloomington) wrote a perceptive and deeply researched book on literature in the Cold War’s cultural politics and diplomacy in the Americas. It warrants reading today for its enduring insights and conceptual frameworks. Cohn’s study is contrapuntal, a word she uses to describe an approach that moves back and forth between perspectives of Latin American and US-based writers, publishers, and promoters of Spanish American literature during the 1960s and 1970s known as “the boom.” She points to Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude as a primary and pivotal example. 

Her book is contrapuntal in other important ways. It frames the Boom as a transnational and cosmopolitan movement that bridged a hegemonic and anti-hegemonic divide in the America’s following the Cuban revolution. It examines “skewed lines of cause and effect” that allowed writers who participated in operations of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, other CIA front groups, the State Department, and the US Information Agency to pursue their own political and literary agendas apart from US government policies. Her book also addresses their literature in the context of modernism, Marxism, and the fierce literary criticism debates in the second half of the 20th century. A long introduction surveys the book’s multiple agendas. Four chapters cover (1) the impact of the McCarthy era blacklist on Spanish American writers, (2) Latin American writers and the 1966 PEN Congress, (3) Latin America and its literature in US universities after the Cuban Revolution, and (4) the Center for Inter-American Relations. This is an essential book in the literature on cultural diplomacy, cross-cultural internationalism, and complex dynamics at the intersections of art, thought, and the state.

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Issue #121

Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu  

Bruce Gregory, American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). As many readers of this list know, books, articles, and websites are entered alphabetically by the author’s last name. I’m breaking with tradition to call attention to a book that examines how diplomatic practitioners adopted new ideas, tested tools and methods, and transformed American diplomacy. 

I also want to acknowledge the mountain of intellectual debt I owe to so many who have made this list and book possible. The book is about American diplomacy, but it is enabled by the thinking and publications of a global community of scholars and practitioners who believe analysis of diplomatic practice, past and present, helps scholars theorize about diplomacy and diplomats adapt to change.

The book frames US public diplomacy in the broad sweep of American diplomatic practice from the early colonial period to the present. It explores how change agents in rival practitioner communities—foreign service officers, cultural diplomats, broadcasters, citizens, soldiers, covert operatives, democratizers, and presidential aides—revolutionized traditional government-to-government diplomacy and moved diplomacy with publics into the mainstream. It challenges a common narrative that US public diplomacy is a Cold War creation that was folded into the State Department in 1999 and briefly found new life after 9/11. It examines historical turning points, evolving patterns of practice, and societal drivers of an American way of diplomacy: a preference for hard power over soft power, episodic commitment to public diplomacy correlated with war and ambition, an information dominant communication style, and an outsized regard for American exceptionalism. It is an account of American diplomacy’s public dimension, the people who shaped it, and the societization and digitalization that today extends diplomacy well beyond the confines of embassies and foreign ministries.

I am pleased American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension is in the Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy, founded by co-editors Kathy Fitzpatrick (University of South Florida) and Philip Seib (University of Southern California), who was succeeded by Caitlyn Byrne (Griffith University, Australia), and is now helmed by Kathy Fitzpatrick and Vivian Walker (Georgetown University and the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy). The book is available in eBook and print versions here and here.

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Karin Aggestam and Constance Duncombe, eds., “Special Issue: Advancing a New Research Agenda on Digital Disruption in Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 19, (2024), Issue 1, Online publication, December 18, 2023. In their introduction to this HJD Special Issue, Aggestam (Lund University) and Duncombe (Copenhagen University) explore concepts and empirical evidence relating to ways information communication technologies manifest “digital disruption” at the micro-level of individual actors and macro-level of diplomacy’s processes and institutions. They begin with a literature review on the digitalization of diplomacy and current research in three areas: technology and diplomatic transformation, diplomatic signaling, and digital transformation. Then they frame a multi-disciplinary research agenda for the study of digital disruptions in diplomacy. Elements include the interplay between actors and systemic factors, how digital disruption reinforces and challenges practices and power structures, varieties of methodologies, and ramifications of big data analysis. They conclude with an overview of the seven articles in this Special Issue that were published online throughout 2023. Four are available through open access. Several were reviewed in earlier editions of this list. These articles are an important resource for scholars and practitioners concerned with the transformative impact of technologies on diplomacy.

“Assistant or Associate Professor (Tenure Track), Grace School of Applied Diplomacy, (24-25),” DePaul University, Chicago, IL. Open date, December 2023. Applications from diplomacy scholars will be accepted until the position is filled. This is a great opportunity for qualified candidates.

Dmitry Chernobrov, Strategic Humor and Post-Truth Public Diplomacy, November 2023, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Building on research relating to the uses of humor in electoral campaigns and as a tool used in resistance to authoritarian regimes, Chernobrov (University of St. Andrews) makes two arguments. First, he develops “strategic humor” as a concept described as “the use of humor by state and proxy actors to promote narratives that . . . advance state interests, deflect criticism, legitimate policy, and challenge the narratives of others.” Second, he argues an increase in the use of humorous content contributes to a “post-truth public diplomacy, reliant on outreach and popularity mechanisms, fictitious representations, emotive messaging, and exploitation of uncertainty.” His essay analyzes characteristics and advantages of strategic humor through multiple examples of its use by state and non-state actors. He devotes considerable attention to uses of humor by and in response to broadcasts by Russia’s state-funded broadcaster RT. He concludes with a brief discussion of strategic communication as an “appealing” tool of post-truth public diplomacy. Scholars and practitioners will find Chernobrov’s claims instructive, provocative, and well worth reflection and assessment.  

Deborah Cohn, “Crafting the ‘Image of America’: The USIA/University of Pennsylvania Certificate in American Studies (1960-1968,” Diplomatica 3 (2021), 95-115. In this cultural diplomacy case study, Cohn (Indiana University) assesses the history and limitations of a government-sponsored academic certificate in American studies, an initiative developed for use with foreign nationals by the US Information Agency in the 1960s by professor Robert Spiller at the University of Pennsylvania. She discusses collaborative efforts by scholars and practitioners to promote a field of academic study in a cultural diplomacy domain that included the Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization and other activities. Her nuanced analysis places the program in the larger and often problematic context of ways Americans in government and civil society leveraged academic fields in support of the nation’s interests during World War II and the Cold War. She also discusses the program’s shortcomings: its inability to attract candidates; insufficient evaluation of its impact, especially on individuals who failed its exams; tensions between “academic cold warriors” and officials responsible for awarding the certificate; and “key discrepancies between the ‘image of America’ as distinctive, static, and a global leader that scholars and officials alike wanted to project, on the one hand, and what was likely to be most interesting to international audiences during a period of racial strife within the US, the Vietnam War, and decolonization movements.” This excellent, deeply researched article provides insights into US cultural diplomacy’s past with important implications for current practice.

Nicholas J. Cull, Reputational Security: Refocusing Public Diplomacy for a Dangerous World, (Polity, 2024). Nick Cull (University of Southern California), one of public diplomacy’s leading historians and conceptualizers, has added a new book to his impressive shelf of publications. It develops his idea that “Reputational Security” is more suitable than soft power as a framing term for today’s era of renewed great power conflict and transformational global challenges. He offers a variety of reasons. It overcomes what he perceives is a mismatch between soft power as understood by public diplomacy practitioners and his understanding of the world, past and present, as a historian. Whereas “soft power” has come to be seen by many as an “optional extra” for the statecraft of top tier countries, “Reputational Security” has value in linking the realms of image and foreign public engagement to statecraft’s highest priority, national defense. It “more explicitly reflects the damage that could come to states whose image has slipped.” Soft power, he argues, has focused on the reputation of single actors. “Reputational Security” is a better fit for an age where the biggest challenges are “fought collectively.” Cull does not intend his concept as a replacement for soft power. Instead, he contends, it is “an alternative way to think” about communication and collective reputation in very different circumstances. His book explores these themes in chapters that discuss why “Reputational Security” is a special concern for diplomatic actors in the 2020s; the reputational challenges of new technologies, disinformation, and counter propaganda; the emergence of diaspora diplomacy; cultural diplomacy and cultural relations; and the war in Ukraine. His book should spark energetic and illuminating debates in academic and practitioner settings on both the practical applications of his concepts and the extent to which “Reputational Security” constitutes a more suitable frame than soft power. See also Cull’s presentation on Reputational Security followed by comments and Q&A moderated by Vivian Walker on the Public Diplomacy Council of America’s First Monday webinar (57 minutes), January 8, 2024.  

Journal of Public Diplomacy, Vol. 3, No. 2, December 2023. Congratulations toJPD, on completing its third year as a peer-reviewed journal devoted to publishing theoretical and empirical research and providing a venue for dialogue and debate on public diplomacy. Launched by founding editor-in-chief Kadir Jun Ayhan and published by the Korean Association of Public Diplomacy, its new co-editors-in-chief are Kyung Sun Lee, Zayed University, United Arab Emirates and Zhao Alexandre Huang, Université Paris Nanterre, France. Articles in the current issue, all open access, include:

Weronika Rucka, Rozane De Cock, and Tim Smits (Institute for Media Studies, KU Leuven), “Nation Branding in Times of Refugee Crisis: Digital Media Practices of Belgian and Swedish Governmental Institutions.”

Lisa Gibson (Washington and Jefferson College), “The Impact of Citizen-led Facebook Public Diplomacy: A Case Study of Libyans’ Views of the US.”

Jami Fullerton (Oklahoma State University), John P. Schoeneman, Jr. (Southern Methodist University), and Alice Kendrick (Oklahoma State University), “Nation Branding and International Media Coverage of Domestic Conflict: An Agenda-setting Study.”  

Dongnu Guo, (Griffith University & Center for Australian Studies, China University of Mining and Technology), “How China Constructs Cultural Self-Confidence.”

Alfredo Zeli (Beijing Foreign Studies University), “Book Review Essay.” Paweł Surowiec and Ilan Manor, eds. Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Uncertainty, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. 

Pablo Sebastian Morales (London School of Economics and Political Science), “Book Review Essay.” Vanessa Bravo and Maria De Moya, eds., Latin American Diasporas in Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Antonio Alejo (University of Granada), “Book Review Essay.” Alisher Faizullaev, Diplomacy for Professionals and Everyone, Brill, 2022. 

Natalie Grincheva and Elizabeth Stainforth, Geopolitics of Digital Heritage, (Cambridge University Press, 2024). Grincheva (University of the Arts Singapore and University of Melbourne) and Stainforth (University of Leeds) analyze how large-scale data aggregators are transforming the ways cultural heritage is stored and shared by galleries, libraries, archives, museums, and other providers. They explore the geopolitical motives and agendas of digital heritage aggregators at different levels of governance in four case studies: the city-state Singapore Memory Project, the National Library of Australia’s Trove, and the regional and global digital platforms of the European Commission’s Europeana and Google Arts & Culture. Their multidisciplinary approach offers thoughtful ideas on digital geopolitics, soft power, cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy, and the reciprocal effects of what actors do and how production of digital heritage shapes their political agendas. Their book is a critical assessment of the benefits of digital aggregation and the challenges of politically and economically driven projects: politicization, commodification, and sustainability issues resulting from dependence on benefactors’ and stakeholders’ political interests and ambitions.

Kyle A. Long, Global American Higher Education: International Campuses for Competition or Cooperation?  December 2023, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Long (George Washington University) examines the under-studied role of international campuses of US universities—some branch campuses, some independent, and some micro-campuses in partner institutions. They enroll approximately 720,000 students; a large majority are in China. His study provides historical context and addresses several research questions. What is the scope of America’s higher education institutions outside the United States? How have they evolved, and what are their characteristics? What is their significance for American public diplomacy and soft power? And how can they be strengthened? Long provides an excellent literature review and empirical data set. He addresses interesting conceptual issues, such as whether and how “soft power” should be distinguished from “knowledge diplomacy.” Long concludes that his research provides a baseline for understanding the global landscape of America’s institutions of higher education with a number of important issues still to be addressed.

Francisco Rodríguez-Jiménez, Lorenzo Delgado Gómez-Escalonilla, and Benedetta Calandra, eds., U.S. Public Diplomacy Strategies in Latin America During the Sixties: Time for Persuasion, (Routledge, 2024). Rodríguez-Jiménez (Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Lisbon), Gómez-Escalonilla (National Research Council of Spain), and Calandra (University of Bergamo) have compiled an excellent and needed compendium by accomplished scholars on the “cultural Cold War” in the Western Hemisphere. As Gilbert A. Joseph (Yale University) notes in his Preface, the under-recognized activities of “‘diplomats,’ broadly construed” — government agencies, foundations, scholars and scientists, writers, artists, musicians, and athletes — are a welcome supplement to accounts that focus on military juntas, leftist guerrillas, and CIA-backed coups. Contributors examine varieties of public diplomacy strategies, methods, and initiatives. Some place them in the context of “‘hard’ imperial power and an unbroken, complacent attitude of U.S. exceptionalism.” Chapters include:

Rodríguez-Jiménez, Calandra, and Gómez-Escalonilla, “US Public Diplomacy Strategies in Latin America in Recent Historiographical Debates.”

Gómez-Escalonilla, “Modernizing Latin America! Cuban Revolution, Alliance for Progress, and Development Decade.”

Alan McPherson (Temple University), “US Public Diplomacy Responses to Anti-Americanism in 1960s Latin America.”

Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), “US Public Diplomacy in Latin America: The Regional Quest for Reputational Security, 1917-1968.”

Patrick Iber (University of Wisconsin, Madison), “The Cost of Freedom: The Congress for Cultural Freedom in Latin America.”

Andrés Sánchez-Padilla (Saint Louis University, Madrid), “Development by the Book: US Book Diplomacy and the Latin American Cultural Cold War.”

Fernando Quesada (Universidad Nacional de Cuyo) and Calandra, “Exploring the Liberal Transformation: The Rockefeller Foundation and the Green Revolution in Chile.”

André Gounot (University of Strasbourg), “Sports in the Anti-Cuban Diplomacy of the US: The Example of the Regional Games of San Juan, 1966.”

Victoria Phillips (Wilson Center), “Political Partnering: The Dance of US Diplomacy in Latin America.”

Elizabeth Schwall (University of California Berkeley), “Dancing Across the Sugar Curtain: Choreographing Critiques of the United States in Cuba.”

Símele Soares Rodrigues (University Jean Moulin, Lyon), “American Leads Materially. Why Not Culturally?’: US Fine Arts in Brazil, 1948-78.”

Rodríguez-Jiménez, “Perceptions and Misperceptions in Inter-American Relations.”

A companion book in Spanish is El americano imposible. Estados Unidos y América Latina, entre Modernización y Contrainsurgencia (Sílex Ultramar 2023).

Harilaos Stecopoulos, Telling America’s Story to the World: Literature, Internationalism, Cultural Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2023). In this imaginative and deeply-researched volume, Stecopoulos (University of Iowa) bridges the domains of Cold War studies, American literature, and US cultural diplomacy. His book examines activities of leading writers in state-sponsored overseas visits in the decades after World War II with the primary intent of showing how their cultural diplomacy contributed to the making of US postwar literature. Chapters focus on Archibald MacLeish, Ralph Ellison, Robert Lowell, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Arthur Miller, Maxine Hong Kingston, and many others. These “cultural ambassadors,” sent abroad by the US government to tell “America’s story,” Stecopoulos observes, were often critical of the United States, a consequence seemingly at odds with the interest-based intent of their sponsors. As Louis Menand and others point out, however, critiques of US policies by America’s writers in Cold War cultural diplomacy advanced the goals of discerning US government sponsors who wanted to project the pluralism of American society and show the Soviet Union that dissent was tolerated in the United States. Stecopoulos’s book merits attention for its scholarship and insights into the ways power and culture are intertwined. It also points to the considerable diversity in the multidisciplinary study of diplomacy’s public dimension. (Suggested by Deborah Cohn)

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting: Focus on FY 2022 Budget Data, December 19, 2023. The Commission’s 75th anniversary report, prepared by executive director Vivian Walker and her colleagues with support from staffs at the Department of State and US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is the premier resource for recommendations and granular budget and program information on US public diplomacy. Readers looking to prioritize the value of this 217-page report should look first to its 25 recommendations to the White House, Congress, State Department, and USAGM at pp.13-16. These brief policy, program, and structural recommendations are at the heart of the Commission’s mandate. They warrant elaboration and follow up by the Commission, assessment by government officials, lawmakers, public diplomacy practitioners, and knowledgeable analysts in civil society. The Commission’s report is a gold mine of current and historical empirical data on US public diplomacy activities carried out by the State Department, USAGM, and US missions abroad. Excellent graphics and formatting enhance the report as a research tool. To celebrate its 75 years as a bipartisan, presidentially appointed advisory panel—with a statutory responsibility to advise the president and State Department and report to Congress and the American people—the Commission invited current and former commissioners, executive directors, practitioners, and partners to reflect on the panel’s past and future. Their comments can be found at pp. iii-xv.

US Government Accountability Office, “Cyber Diplomacy: State’s Efforts Aim to Support U.S. Interests and Elevate Priorities,” GAO-24-105563, January 11, 2024.   In contrast to earlier GAO reports on cyber issues—“Cyber Diplomacy,” GAO-20-607R, September 2020, and “Cyber Diplomacy,” GAO-21-266R, January 2021—this report is more descriptive than prescriptive. It examines activities the State Department is undertaking to advance US interests in cyberspace and the Department’s reports of their impact. It also discusses State’s creation of a new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy in April 2022 and the extent to which this organizational change helped or created challenges in achieving its cyber diplomacy goals. The report is a useful overview of objectives, projects, organizational responsibilities, and operational challenges. It makes a brief reference to a Strategic Planning and Communications Unit responsible for an array of planning, public diplomacy, media, and legislative affairs activities. Challenges include clarification of roles and hiring staff, communication within State on issues relevant to almost all aspects of diplomacy, lack of an agreed definition of cyber diplomacy, and the diverse ways governments, multilateral actors, civil society, and the private sector organize to deal with cyber issues.   

Recent Items of Interest

Matt Armstrong, “Fulbright’s ‘Knee-capping’ of US Global Engagement, Part 2,”  December 13, 2023, Arming for the War We’re In.

J. Brian Atwood, “Military Technology Is Outpacing Our Diplomatic Capacity.”  January 2, 2024, The Hill.

“Professor Robert Banks on the USC Master of Public Diplomacy Program,”  November 7, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

“Chair Cardin Applauds Passage of State Department Authorization Act and Other Priorities [including US public diplomacy initiatives] in Annual Defense Bill,”  December 13, 2023, Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Deborah Cohn, “Transcending Borders With American Studies,”  December 11, 2023, Salzburg Global Seminar; “Fewer U.S. College Students Are Studying a Foreign Language—and That Spells Trouble For National Security,” November 16, 2023, The Conversation.

Robert Darnton, “The Dream of a Universal Library,” December 21, 2023, The New York Review.

Kim Andrew Elliott, “‘Radio Free Everywhere’ Defeats the Purpose of the Voice of America,” January 5, 2024, The Hill.

“The Framework to Counter Foreign State Information Manipulation: Fact Sheet,”  January 18, 2024, US Department of State.

Fred P. Hochberg, “America’s Global ‘Soft Power’ Strategy is Aging Poorly—Especially Compared to China’s,”  January 13, 2024, The Hill.

Gordon Humphrey, “Promoting Democracy to a Global Public,” December 27, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Fred Kaplan, “Nostalgia for Cold War Diplomacy is a Trap,”  January 5, 2024; “Jazz Played a Unique Role in Cold War Diplomacy. What Can the U.S. Learn From That in 2024,”  December 28, 2023, Slate.

Matthew Lee, “US to Spend $700M on New Embassy in Ireland, Breaks Ground on New Embassy in Saudi Arabia,”  December 12, 2023, AP.

Jim Malone, “A Eulogy for Andre De Nesnera,”  January 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America; 

C. Raja Mohan, “Is There Such a Thing as a Global South?”  December 9, 2023, Foreign Policy.

Jan-Werner Muller, “The Myth of Social Media and Populism: Why the Moral Panic is Misplaced,”  January 3, 2024, Foreign Policy.

Steven Lee Myers, “State Dept.’s Fight Against Disinformation Comes Under Attack,”  December 14, 2023, The New York Times.

“Senate Approves USAGM Board,”  December 7, 2023, VOA News.

P. W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, “Gaza and the Future of Information Warfare,”  December 5, 2023, Foreign Affairs.

Tara Sonenshine, “More Than 100 Days Later, Where Does the War in Gaza Stand?”  January 18, 2024, The Hill.

Bill Wanlund, “Hearts vs. Minds: Asymmetric Public Diplomacy in Gaza,”  January 4, 2024, Public Diplomacy Council of America; 

Earl Anthony Wayne, “2023: Shaping an Inflection Point or Struggling to Hang On,”  December 14, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

R. S. Zaharna, “Recognizing 2023 ISA Distinguished Scholars: Eytan Gilboa and Nicholas J. Cull,” CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Philip Zelikow, “The Atrophy of American Statecraft,”  Foreign Affairs, January/February 2024, 56-72.

Gem from the Past

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Future of Power, (Public Affairs, 2011). As academics in an emerging discourse look for ways to refashion Joseph Nye’s (Harvard University) ideas about soft power in the context of today’s challenges—while acknowledging their debt to his pioneering scholarship—it is well to keep in mind how relevant his body of work remains. Fourteen years ago, Nye synthesized his thinking in numerous earlier publications on the meaning, types, and uses of power. Hard power and soft power. Their direct and inverse relationships. Resource power and behavioral outcomes. Categories of relational power. Military and economic power. Cyber power. Smart power. And twenty-first century power shifts among states and from states to nonstate actors. The Future of Power was written for the general reader, as were most of his earlier works, but in its extensive, and essential, endnotes he provided “a careful analytical structure” for his theoretical claims and responses to his critics. 

Fast forward to today. Professor Nye has just published A Life in the American Century (Polity, 2024), an account of his journey as a Harvard professor, public intellectual, and practitioner in the State Department, Defense Department and intelligence community. It is the memoir of one of the most influential and accomplished scholars of our generation.  

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Issue #120

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2024)

Diplomacy’s Public Dimension Archive, Institute for Public Diplomacy & Global Communication, George Washington University

Matthew K. Asada, An Inter-Event Comparison of Two Historical Global Mega Events: FIFA 2022 and Expo 2020,  CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, October 2023. In this innovative study, Matthew Asada, a US Foreign Service officer on detail at CPD, compares the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Doha, Qatar and Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). His analysis compares their bidding narratives, how the events responded to external stimuli, the handling of the mega events, and their innovations. He develops his comparison in the context of geopolitics, the COVID-19 pandemic, cultural differences, and the whole of country focus of Qatar and the UAE on the events “as part of their public diplomacy strategies.” The article also provides a framework for future inter-event comparisons within a region and/or during a given period of time. Asada draws on extensive experience with World’s Fairs as a career diplomat and his access to serving practitioners enhanced by his status as an “insider.” He credits opportunities for reflection and in-depth research to time spent as a visiting senior fellow at USC. Photos and endnotes add to the value of this issue of CPD Perspectives.

Jessica Brandt, Bret Schafer, and Rachael Dean Wilson, A Strategy for US Public Diplomacy in the Age of Disinformation, G | M | F, Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), September 28, 2023. In this 9-page paper, the ASD team at the German Marshall Fund identifies practical ideas for harnessing truthful information to contest Russia, China, and other autocratic regimes in the information domain. They restrict their focus to “US international broadcasting and other strategic communication activities” — leaving recommendations to improve exchanges, cultural diplomacy, and other parts of the whole “public diplomacy puzzle” for another day. Key judgments include: (1) increase US government media efforts in Latin America, a region where Russian and Chinese state media efforts are growing substantially and US investment is a low priority; (2) emphasize narratives that attract younger populations — US innovation and entrepreneurship, technology and science, and support for freedom of choice, movement, and expression; (3) address shortcomings in American government and society directly, honestly and constructively; (4) avoid “whataboutism” responses that create false equivalencies and draw attention to content that would go largely unnoticed; (5) substantially upgrade listening and audience analysis tools, market research, and advanced social media analytics for tailored use in individual countries and regions; (6) improve and expand content sharing mechanisms such as social media content with whole of government inputs and creative engagement with the private sector; and (7) situate public diplomacy in a broader information strategy that leverages advanced cyber capabilities and the strength of financial markets to impose costs on state sponsored information manipulation campaigns. 

Jihad Fakhreddine, “Performance of Congress-Financed Alhurra TV: Do Viewership Numbers and American Taxpayer Money Spent Add Up?”  November 1, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Jihad Fakhreddine is a former research director for Gallup’s opinion research operations in the Middle East and North Africa. In this capacity he directed national media surveys for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, since renamed the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Using longitudinal data and informed analysis, he raises important questions. First, how is it that USAGM increased its global weekly reach by an impressive 47%, from a weekly audience of 278 million to 410 million, between 2017 and 2022 when during the same period its annual budget increased only 4.5%, from $794 million to $830 million? Second, why did the audience share for USAGM’s Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) experience a “freefall” decline compared with USAGM’s other networks? His probing assessment is based in part on comparison of MBN’s weekly audience data, presented by USAGM in its reports as absolute figures, with percentages of the growing total Arab adult population. Third, why despite an expensive overhaul of Alhurra in 2017-2018 did its audiences continue to decline? Congress, he argues, should base funding decisions on the performance of individual networks versus total USAGM performance and “returns to the marginal increases in the budget.”

Allie Funk, Adrian Shahbaz, and Kian Vesteinsson, Freedom on the Net 2023: The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence, Freedom House, October 2023. The Freedom House team documents an increase in attacks on free expression and a now 13-year decline in internet freedom. Their report also points to how AI has made online disinformation campaigns more sophisticated and enhanced online censorship. To combat these trends, they call for adaptation of lessons learned from past internet governance experiences to uses of AI technologies and less reliance on self-regulation by private companies. The 45-page report explores these findings in detail, contains graphics, and explains its research methodology.

Robert M. Gates, “The Dysfunctional Superpower,”  Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2023, 30-44. In an essay written before the Israel/Hamas War, Robert Gates (former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director) contends the United States “now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever.” Allied adversaries—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. Powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. China’s rise in all elements of power. Threats that are compounded by political dysfunction at home and lack of concern by many Americans. Gates assesses each threat and offers his agenda for “meeting the moment.” First, address the breakdown of decades-long bipartisan agreement on US global leadership. Second, convey through “a drumbeat of repetition” to American voters and the world the “message” that US military power, US alliances, and international institutions the US designed are essential to deterring aggression. Third, embrace a strategy that incorporates all instruments of national power for “dealing with the entire world.” Fourth, strengthen the US nuclear deterrent, greatly expand the US Navy, and change the way Congress appropriates military funds and the Defense Department’s sclerotic acquisition process. Gates devotes a paragraph, in keeping with his recent writings, to strengthening public diplomacy through adoption of a global strategy, spending more money, and the integration and synchronization of many “disparate communications activities.” His thinking is consistent with an American way of diplomacy that for centuries has been characterized by the prioritization of hard power and episodic attention to public diplomacy when confronted by threats and fear.

Carol A. Hess, Aaron Copland in Latin America: Music and Cultural Politics,  (University of Illinois Press, 2023). This book is a masterpiece. Hess (University of California, Davis) provides a beautifully written and deeply researched account of Aaron Copland’s four State Department-sponsored trips to Latin America between 1943 and 1963. Her narrative explores Copland’s concerts, talks, and media interviews; his spotlight on Latin America’s classical music composers; and his commitment to engaging Latin Americans in rural and urban settings. She also puts Copland’s cultural diplomacy in context. The Good Neighbor Policy. The geopolitics of World War II and the Cold War. The FBI’s investigation and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s interrogation of Copland in Congressional hearings. Historical and cultural perspectives of Latin American composers and critics. The origins and evolution of US cultural diplomacy. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Hess mines a broad range of primary sources. She views Copland through the lens of a musicologist and recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships. Her book combines a nuanced scholarship that develops broad themes with vivid portrayals of Copland as a composer and cultural diplomacy practitioner. She also “takes the reader behind the scenes” to examine the hard day-to-day work of cultural diplomacy. Chapters can be read at Oxford Academic, Illinois Scholarship Online. See also Jeffrey Day, “Music Diplomacy: Professor Traces Impact of State Department and Aaron Copland’s Latin American Outreach,”  October 24, 2023, UCDavis. (Suggested by Robert Ogburn).

Lonnie R. Johnson, “Remembering Fulbright: The Senator, The Program, and Public Diplomacy,”Video presentation (1 hour), October 2, 2023, First Monday Forum, Public Diplomacy Council of America. Johnson (former executive director of Austria’s binational Fulbright Commission) uses carefully curated images and evidence from his book research to portray the many sides of Senator J. William Fulbright. In this captivating presentation, Johnson discusses Fulbright’s memories of World War II, his experiences as a Rhodes scholar, his opposition to America’s war in Vietnam, and his establishment of the Fulbright exchange program. Importantly, Johnson addresses hard questions stemming from Fulbright’s opposition to civil rights legislation throughout his career as a Democratic Senator from Arkansas. In his presentation, and in an open letter, Johnson provides a reasoned and detailed critique of the systematic “erasure of Fulbright from the historical record” and adoption of a new Fulbright “brand narrative” by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Paul Webster Hare, Juan Luis Manfredi-Sánchez, and Kenneth Weisbrode, eds., The Palgrave Handbook of Diplomatic Reform and Innovation,  (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). In this handbook (775 pages), Hare (Boston University), Manfredi-Sánchez (Georgetown University and University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain), and Weisbrode (Bilkent University, Turkey) have compiled 36 chapters written by 40 diplomacy scholars and practitioners from across the globe. Their central premise is that diplomacy today is neglected and often dysfunctional. Many of its methods, key institutions, and conventions established decades ago have not kept pace with technologies and transformational challenges. Their goal is critical examination of ways to change and improve diplomatic practices. Topics are diverse: the limits of diplomatic imagination, knowledge diplomacy, digitalization, artificial intelligence, disinformation, challenges to innovation, regional diplomacy, city diplomacy, health diplomacy, humanitarian diplomacy, science diplomacy, an array of country case studies, and more. This handbook is institutionally priced and beyond reach for most individual purchasers. But online abstracts illuminate chapter contents and constitute a starting point for researchers and interested practitioners. 

Allison M. Prasch, The World Is Our Stage: The Global Rhetorical Presidency and the Cold War, (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Prasch (University of Wisconsin, Madison) looks at how the travel abroad of US presidents contributed to the projection of power and ideas during the Cold War. Her deeply researched book examines “five foundational moments” in the “rhetorical presidency:” Truman at Potsdam, Eisenhower’s “Goodwill Tours,” Kennedy in West Berlin, Nixon in the People’s Republic of China, and Reagan in Normandy. For an informed and positive review, see Nicholas J. Cull, “A Review of the World Is Our Stage: The Rhetorical Presidency and the Cold War,”  November 10, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. As Prasch is aware, and as Cull points out, the travel of earlier US presidents also contributed to American diplomacy’s public dimension. Theodore Roosevelt in Panama. Woodrow Wilson at Versailles. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 22 foreign trips. 

Prasch’s book prompts the thought that nineteenth century roots of the “rhetorical presidency” can be found in the two-and-a-half-year world tour of President Ulysses S. Grant shortly after he left office in 1877. Accompanied by his wife Julia and New York Herald journalist John Russell Young, the “Hero of Appomattox” was greeted by cheering crowds and feted by world leaders in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, India, China, and Japan. Young wrote detailed accounts of Grant’s meetings with Britain’s Queen Victoria, Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, Belgium’s King Leopold II, Russia’s Czar Peter Alexander, Pope Leo XIII and other luminaries who received him as “President Grant.” He participated in civic gatherings and July 4 festivities at US missions. Young’s articles were read enthusiastically in the US and abroad. Recognizing their political value, President Rutherford B. Hayes authorized the warship USS Vandalia to take Grant’s party to stops in the Mediterranean and Egypt and the USS Richmond to do the same in Asia.  

Dina Smeltz and Craig Kafura, Americans Grow Less Enthusiastic About Active US Engagement Abroad, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, October 2023. The Chicago Council’s Smeltz (a former opinion research analyst for USIA and the State Department) and Kafura report that while six in ten Americans still support an active role in world affairs, this 57% reflects a decline from 70% in 2018. Their study also finds that for the first time a slim majority of Republicans (53%) say the US should stay out of world affairs. Graphics display trends in support for global engagement by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents from 1974 to the present. Despite these findings, the Council’s survey states that a majority (70%) are confident in the US ability “to manage global problems.

Albert Triwibowo, “The Prospect and Limitations of Digital Diplomacy: The Case of Indonesia,” The Hague Journal of Public Diplomacy, online publication September 18, 2023. In this article on the digitalized diplomacy of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Triwibowo (Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia) contributes to the literature on diplomacy practitioners in Asia. His qualitative study draws on interviews with diplomats, officials, scholars, and Indonesian citizens. The article develops four themes. It opens with a brief literature-based discussion of digitalized diplomacy and varieties of experiences in other countries. A second section explores Indonesia’s diplomacy between 2020 and 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. A third section analyzes strengths and limitations of Indonesia’s digital activities, including a tendency to prioritize information sharing, emphasize domestic publics and issues, and avoid using technologies to advance tailored, evidence-based, and narrative-based diplomatic strategies. In his conclusion, Triwibowo suggests ways in which Indonesia and other countries can achieve change in leveraging digital technologies to diplomatic advantage.

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy and DEIA Promotion: Tellling America’s Story to the World (2023), November 21, 2023. In this field-oriented 28-page special report, co-authored by the Commission’s executive director Vivian Walker and senior advisor Deneyse Kirkpatrick, the Commission examines “the integration of principles of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)” in the US government’s public diplomacy outreach and program activities. Its findings are based on 36 focus group discussions conducted by Walker and Kirkpatrick with 18 US missions in all six of the Department’s geographic regions during February-May, 2023. Their nine recommendations are grouped in three categories: resources and capacity building; program content, process, and evaluation; training and mentoring. The authors identify challenges born of resource-driven choices and social and institutional barriers. They conclude, however, that “Overall, there is a very good story to tell about DEIA in the field.” The report is well written, effectively organized, and contains excellent graphics.  

US Department of State, Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Strategy FY2024-2025: Empowering Diplomacy Through Responsible AI, October 2023. State’s “first-ever” AI strategy is a vision statement that identifies four goals, nine objectives, and an organizational structure. Its goals: (1) integrate AI into a sustainable and secure AI-enabling infrastructure; (2) foster a culture that embraces AI technology and provides AI training and support services; (3) establish an enterprise capacity that ensures AI is applied responsibly, manages algorithmic risk, and assesses data quality; and (4) become an active innovator in applied AI. State’s organizational structure includes an Enterprise Governance Board, an AI steering committee, and a Responsible AI official. See also the Department’s fact sheet. As with most Department (and NSC) strategy documents, it does not provide a roadmap and criteria for making cost/benefit decisions.

Recent Items of Interest

Maria Abi-Habib, Michael Crowley, and Edward Wong, “More Than 500 U.S. Officials Sign Letter Protesting Biden’s Israel Policy,”  November 14, 2023, The New York Times; Michael Birnbaum and John Hudson, “Blinken Confronts State Dept. Dissent Over Biden’s Gaza Policy,”  November 14, 2023, The Washington Post.

Sohaela Amiri, “The Future of Noncoercive Statecraft and International Security,”  October 27, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Nick Anderson, “With Surge from India, International Students Flock to United States,”  November 13, 2023, The Washington Post.

Matt Armstrong, “The Fulbright Paradox: How the ‘Relic of the Second Zulu War’ Continues to Undermine National Security, Part I,”  November 10, 2023 (see comments and replies in the thread; “Analyzing ‘Information Campaigns’ Through an Anachronistic Lens,”  October 24, 2023, Arming for the War We’re In.

Matthew Asada, “CPD Issue – October 2023,”  LA Monthly: Dispatches from USC’s Public Diplomat in Residence.

Babak Bahador, “Media Tip Sheet: The Role of Media and Images in the Israel-Hamas War,”  October 20, 2023.

David Ellwood, “The Future of UK Soft Power: An Endless Agony in London,”  October 3, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Paul Farhi, “GOP Senators Blast Voice of America for Hamas ‘Militants’ Terminology,” November 29, 2023, The Washington Post.

Loren Hurst, “Driving Public Diplomacy Innovation With Focused Coordination,” November 30, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Jeff Jager, “American Foreign Policy Decision-Making at the Agency Level: The Department of State as Exemplar?” November 13, 2023, fp21.

Robert Kagen, “A Trump Dictatorship Is Increasingly Inevitable. We Should Stop Pretending,” November 30, 2023, The Washington Post.

Laura Kelly, “Divisions Over US Support for Israel Deepen at State Department,”  November 9, 2023, The Hill.

Ariella Marsden, “Israel Shuts Down Public Diplomacy Ministry, Budget Heads to South,”  October 22, 2023, The Jerusalem Post; Carrie Keller-Lynn and Amy Spiro, “Cabinet Votes to Shutter Denuded Public Diplomacy Ministry, Send Budget to South,”  October 22, October 2023; Amy Spiro, “Public Diplomacy Minister Quits Post Amid War, Citing ‘Waste of Public Funds,’”  October 13, 2023, The Times of Israel.

Steven Lee Myers, “U.S. Tries New Tack on Russian Disinformation: Pre-Empting It,”  October 26, 2023, The New York Times.

Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel, “In a Worldwide War of Words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas,”  November 3, 2023, The New York Times.

Ivan Nechepurenko, “Russia Detains a U.S. [RFE/RL] Journalist,”  October 19, 2023, The New York Times.

Hans Nichols, “Scoop: Internal State Dept. Memo Blasts Biden, U.S. Policy on Israel-Hamas War,” November 13, 2023, Axios.

Office of Inspector General, US Department of State,  US Agency for Global Media’s Major Management and Performance Challenges Fiscal Year 2023, November 2023.

Farah Pandith, “The U.S. Faces a Public Relations Crisis in the Arab and Muslim World,”  October 27, 2023, Council on Foreign Relations.

Pamela Paul, “A Chill Has Been Cast Over the Book World,”  October 18, 2023, The New York Times.

Anna Popkova, “The Public Diplomacy of Political Dissent,”  October 30, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Zach Przystrup, “How 75 Years of the Fulbright Program Bolsters the ‘Special Relationship’ Between the US and the UK,” November 27, 2023, The Baltimore Sun.

Tara D.Sonenshine, “Media Is Meant To Inform, But Is It Stoking the Flames of War in the Middle East?”  November 9, 2023, The Hill.

Zed Tarar, “Analysis| What the Tech Industry Gets Wrong About the Risks of AI,”  October 25, 2023, The Diplomatic Pouch

Matias Tarnopolsky, “Cultural Diplomacy May Seem Pointless. That Won’t Stop Me,”  November 16, 2023, The New York Times.

Chris Teal, Interview With Visiting Professor and IPDGC Public Diplomacy Fellow, 2022-2024 [9-minute video], Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University.

Bill Wanlund, “Fixing a Communications Deficit,” November 25, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Dan Whitman, “Training Ukrainians To Manage International Conflict,” November 3, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Gem from the Past

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” first published in Horizon, London, 1946. Word choices are hard in diplomacy, because intent and context create meaning and because words both evaluate and describe. They do “propaganda;” we do “public diplomacy.” “Disinformation” is used to describe intentional lies and misused to describe selective rhetoric intended to persuade. “Systemic” can be a misleading synonym for “persistent.” “Collateral damage” is an abstraction. Word choices have political consequences. Lawmakers attack government media for avoiding and using the label “terrorists.” Exaggerations gain attention in a world of information abundance. Euphemisms are favored by the risk averse. The mission of exchanges is “mutual understanding.” The mission of government journalists is to “support freedom and democracy.” 

Orwell’s powerful essay, cited previously on this list in 2012, continues to provide helpful guidance. Language, he argued, is not a “natural growth.” It is an instrument we shape for purposes. English is full of bad habits which “spread by imitation.” Bad habits “can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.” Orwell’s concerns included particularly the reflexive use of words that have “no agreed definition” and that have evolved to become general framing terms for a positive good or an object of disagreement (e.g., “terrorist,” “communist,” “fascist”). “The invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases,” he wrote, “can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them.”

 An archive ofDiplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Issue #119

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Isaac Antwi-Boasiako, “African Governments’ Foreign Publics Engagement: Public Diplomacy in African Perspective,”  South African Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 1, December 2022. In this article, Antwi-Boasiako (Technological University Dublin) looks at Africa’s public diplomacy through a continental lens. He discusses ways in which African governments use public diplomacy to attract foreign aid, tourism, and investments in nation-building and development. He examines diaspora engagement, the roles of public relations consultants, and tools such as nation branding, cultural diplomacy, media relations, and digital communication. And he assesses challenges facing African countries: insufficient opinion research, lack of human and financial resources, the absence of government media platforms, and social media accounts that exist as “noticeboards” rather than means for dialogic communication. Antwi-Boasiako sets the stage for additional scholarship and evidence-based research on the public diplomacy of individual African actors and public diplomacy’s relevance to nation building and development. By implication his thinking is foundational also to Africa’s understudied diplomatic engagement with foreign publics in the context of conflict mitigation and climate, health, migration, and other transnational challenges. His article is a welcome contribution to a western dominant and rising Asian public diplomacy literature.  

Federica Bicchi and Marianna Lovato, “Diplomats as Skillful Bricoleurs of the Digital Age: EU Foreign Policy Communications from the COREU to WhatsApp,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Online publication, August 21, 2023. Bicchi (London School of Economics and Political Science) and Lovato (University College Dublin) rely on practice theory to assess the effects of digitalization on time, space, and confidentiality in blended diplomacy (physical, digital, and analog; simultaneous online and offline). They set their analysis in the context of face-to-face communication and digital technologies in EU diplomacy: the rise and decline of COREU, (CORrespondence EUropéenne, a secure cyphered communications node in each member state’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs), email, and texting. They argue that EU diplomats tend to operate as skilled bricoleurs who interact creatively with digital tools. That is, they embrace the medium most appropriate to a particular function and their socio-cognitive needs. They tolerate limited losses in security in order to embrace advances in speed. Diplomacy in the digital age, the authors argue, is shaped primarily by the agency and innovation of practitioners rather than technological determinism or institutional reluctance to change. Digitalization is constructively changing the center/periphery divide. But it also has adverse effects stemming from wealth divides (digital tools are expensive) and gender divides (expectations that female diplomats with home care responsibilities should be “logged in” most of the time). Bicchi and Lovato conclude that increasing reliance on technologies means face to face communication is no longer the primary way diplomacy is carried out. The next stage of digitalization (big data, AI, ChatGPT) will surely influence diplomatic practices, they contend, but it will not mean the end of written diplomacy. The full article is accessible online.

Nicole Dungca and Claire Healy, “Revealing the Smithsonian’s ‘Racial Brain Collection,’”  and Claire Healy, Nicole Dungca, and Ren Galeno, “Searching for Maura,” August 14, 2023, The Washington Post.These articles are primarily concerned with the racist practices and body parts trade of the Smithsonian’s physical anthropology division in the late 19th and early 20th century. An important sub-theme is the US government’s decision to bring Indigenous Filipinos to be displayed for educational and entertainment purposes at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. Smithsonian curator Aleš Hrdlička used this as an opportunity to collect brains from those who died while being transported from the newly acquired US territory. “Searching for Maura” is an illustrated story of an Igorot woman brought to the US for display in the fair’s “Philippine Exposition.” The harsh conditions of her transport. Her death a few days before the fair began. The popularity of the 47-acre Philippine Exposition and the Igorot Village.  News coverage stereotypes. Their exploitation for visiting crowds. And Hrdlička’s use of the remains of those who died for research purposes. The literature on international exhibitions focuses largely on their public diplomacy value, their strengths and limitations, funding challenges, and their regulation under international treaties. Issues raised by the St. Louis World’s Fair are an under-researched part of the literature. See also “1.1-1904-Worlds-Fair-Exhibition-of-the-Igorot-Filipino-People,” Asian American Education Project.

Philip S. Kosnett, ed., Boots and Suits: Historical Cases and Contemporary Lessons in Military Diplomacy,  (Marine Corps University, 2023). This compendium, edited by retired Foreign Service officer and former US ambassador to Kosovo Philip Kosnett, consists of fourteen case studies on the US military’s role as a diplomatic actor. Topics include military diplomacy in the 19th and 20th centuries, conflict and collaboration between soldiers and diplomats, activities of political-military advisors and military attachés, and civil-military operations. Twenty-first century cases focus on hybrid warfare, counterterrorism, provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the role of military diplomacy in US relations with Turkey and China. Boots and Suits does not provide a systematic conceptual analysis of military diplomacy. Rather its value derives from an abundance of evidence-based insights on the practice of military diplomacy. The 440-page book is accessible online. See also the excellent review by Robin Holzhauer in The Foreign Service Journal, September 2023, 82-84.

Andrew Little and Anne Meng, “Measuring Democratic Backsliding,” revised August 13, 2023, available at SSRN, and forthcoming in PS: Political Science and Politics. Little (University of California, Berkeley) and Meng (University of Virginia) challenge reliance on democracy decline indicators based on the “subjective” judgment of expert coders. They point to annual reports by think tanks such as Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), numerous academic papers, and a conventional media narrative that democracy is in recession worldwide. Little and Meng call for empirical studies that examine “objective” indicators such as whether incumbents who lose accept defeats in an election and whether ruling parties violate term limits. Their study examines the role of coder bias and leaders engaged in “subtle undemocratic action.” They recognize the difficulties in defining and measuring democracy, and they cautiously conclude they “cannot rule out that the world is experiencing major democratic backsliding.” However, they argue that empirical evidence does not support the claim that it is.

Ilan Manor, “Domestic Digital Diplomacy: Digital Disruption at the Macro and Micro Levels,”  The Hague Journal of Public Diplomacy, Online publication, August 3, 2023. For Manor (Ben Gurion University of the Negev), the phrase domestic digital diplomacy describes how diplomats use social media and other digital technologies to communicate with their own nation’s citizens. He focuses in this article on domestic digital disruption as a dynamic technology-induced turbulence at and between two levels: a macro level in societal and national domains and a micro level in diplomats’ working routines. Because research has emphasized the micro level, he turns his attention to how disruption at the macro level influences working routines and how it can have societal level consequences. He argues persuasively that digital disruption exists not just in the diplomacy of ministries of foreign affairs but in how government ministries as a whole conduct external and domestic facing diplomatic activities to domestic audiences. The article is grounded in a case study of how the UK’s foreign office (FCO) used Twitter to circulate images to the British people with intent to illuminate an uncertain post-Brexit future. It divides into four parts: a literature review of the semiotic approach to image analysis and how images can serve as “memory carriers,” a statement of his research question and hypothesis, analysis of images used by the FCO, and discussion of the importance of domestic digital diplomacy to an understanding of digital disruption.

Ilan Manor and Elad Segev, “Follow To Be Followed: The Centrality of MFAs in Twitter Networks,”  Policy & Internet, 2023: 1-26. Manor (Ben Gurion University of the Negev) and Segev (Tel Aviv University) address three research questions based on network analyses conducted between 2014 and 2016. Why do some ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) attract more peers to Twitter than others? Why do some MFAs follow more of their peers compared to others?  And what factors relate to increases in the number of peers an MFA attracts?  They conclude digital reciprocity is a key factor — followed by regional proximity, technological proficiency, and national media environments — in explaining why some MFAs do better than others in gaining scarce attention in a world of information abundance. What Joseph Nye calls the “paradox of plenty.”  

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Intelligence Strategy 2023, August 2023. The US Intelligence Community (IC) outlines six goals in its 2023 strategy document. (1) Position the IC for intense strategic competition. (2) Recruit, develop, and retain a talented and diverse workforce that operates as a united community. (3) Deliver interoperable and innovative solutions at scale. (4) Diversify, expand, and strengthen alliances and partnerships. (5) Expand IC capabilities and expertise on transnational and transboundary challenges. (6) Enhance the resilience of the United States, its allies, and its partners. The document leads as usual with geopolitics, but it gives ample space to transnational issues, the rising power of non-state entities, and open-source intelligence. See also “The Lawfare Podcast: The National Intelligence Strategy with Michael Collins of the National Intelligence Council,” September 1, 2023.

Sanjana Patel, “Does UNGA Matter? Examining the Research for Face-to-Face Diplomacy,” September 21, 2023, fp21. Diplomats have long maintained that face-to-face dialogue — what Edward R. Murrow called “the last three feet” bridged by personal conversation — has unique value in diplomatic practice. Patel (University of Pennsylvania and an fp21 researcher) examines evidence for this proposition in social psychology, political science, and other disciplines. Her brief article discusses the impact of face-to-face meetings on individuals, face-to-face diplomacy and public opinion, the economic impacts of face-to-face diplomacy, and whether digital formats are more or less effective. She concludes that academic literature provides a neurobiological foundation for face-to-face diplomacy and demonstrates a variety of benefits. The literature is less supportive of alternative propositions: for example, that personal relationships are merely symbolic or that they represent underlying power structures. Her research also indicates, however, that effects of face-to-face diplomacy are not huge, and they cannot overcome flawed policies or intractable differences — views long held by most public diplomacy practitioners.

Christopher Paul, Willam Marcellino, Michael Skerker, Jeremy Davis, and Bradley J. Strawser, Planning Ethical Influence Operations: A Framework for Defense Information Professionals, RAND, 2023. Military scholars and practitioners in information operations often develop concepts with relevance for diplomacy. A principles-based framework for determining whether influence operations are ethically permissible, developed by Christopher Paul and his colleagues at RAND, is a prime example. They argue their framework is needed for three reasons: concerns about manipulation, disinformation, and propaganda as threats to individual autonomy; insufficient attention to ethical concerns in planning military influence operations; and a need to separate ethics of influence from ethics of force. Based on their review of relevant scholarship and research on ethics in war, they argue practitioners should follow principals of necessity, effectiveness, and proportionality. They discuss these principles in a framework with five criteria. “Military influence efforts should (1) seek legitimate military outcomes, (2) be necessary to attain those outcomes, (3) employ means that are not harmful (or harm only those liable to harm), (4) have high likelihoods of success, and (5) should not generate second-order effects beyond what is intended.” Their study develops the meaning of these criteria and recommends ways for military practitioners to implement them in planning and operations. A pdf file of the report can be downloaded.  

Rosemary Salomone, The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language, (Oxford University Press, 2021). Salomone (St. John’s University School of Law) travels in many instructive directions in this exploration of the advantages and downsides of English as today’s global common language. Benefits include communication advantages for tourists, political leaders, diplomats, and academic researchers; commodification for economic value; and its use as a source of soft power. Downsides include (1) its generation of intense legal and political conflicts as value-added dynamics compete with pride in national languages; (2) societal stratification as English language proficiency competes with traditional languages in India, South Africa, Morocco, Rwanda, and other countries; (3) control of language in colonialism, and (4) deprivation for citizens in anglophone countries of the economic, cultural, and political benefits of multilingual proficiency. Her book is populated by an abundance of historical trends, evidence-based claims, and diverse narratives (e.g., controversies over China’s Confucius Institutes, the rise of English as the language of protesters for international audiences, and contrasting official language policies of the UN and EU). See also David Priess, “Chatter: Geopolitics and the Rise of the English Language with Rosemary Salomone,” Lawfare podcast, August 31, 2023.

Giles Scott-Smith, “Beyond the ‘Tissue of Clichés’?: The Purposes of the Fulbright Program and New Pathways of Analysis,” All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace, 11(2), 2022: 177-192.  Scott-Smith (Leiden University) brings years of deeply researched scholarship to this insightful article on how evaluative perspectives and social science concepts advance critical thinking on the functions of exchange programs. He surveys the Fulbright literature to assess how its purposes have been framed in the context of US global influence, the production and dissemination of knowledge, and liberal internationalism. He then discusses analytical approaches in the social sciences that offer innovative ways to conceptualize exchanges in international interactions: “geographies of exchange” (management scholar Chay Brooks), “brain circulation” (geography professor Heike Jöns), “centers of calculation” (philosopher and anthropologist Bruno Latour), “enlightened nationalism” (political scientist Calvert Jones), and “parapublics” (international relations scholar Ulrich Krotz). Scott-Smith concludes that interpersonal relations are at the core of the Fulbright program’s method, but moving beyond the “tissue of clichés” requires “situating these relations within economies of exchange that reveal the wider power relations at work.” Beyond the “soaring rhetoric of the Fulbright-Hays Act and Fulbright ideology as a whole,” he argues, there is a field of research that needs to be pursued. 

Efe Sevin, “The Humanistic Turn in Public Diplomacy,” in Robert E. Brown, Burton St. John III, and Jenny Zhengye Hou, eds., The Global Foundations of Public Relations: Humanism, China, and the West, (Routledge, 2022), pp. 162-181. Sevin (Towson University) explores the “turbulent history” of public diplomacy as a term and category of practice and academic study. His objective is to evaluate whether “the humanistic turn in public relations and public relations of everything (PRe) idea” might provide an intellectual home. Sevin’s inquiry is grounded in a deeply researched literature review. He examines debates on whether public diplomacy is a bounded field with multidisciplinary characteristics. Importantly, he demonstrates how practitioners have shaped its evolution. He explains Robert E. Brown’s idea that public relations is ubiquitous — an activity engaged in by everyone as an act of self-creation, self-expression, and self-protection. And he explores “parallels between public relations and public diplomacy.” Sevin concludes that public diplomacy is too “multi-faceted” to be situated in a single discipline or institution. He finds both promise and difficulty in “the humanistic turn” in public relations. Its promise lies in a holistic framework that emphasizes emotional, aesthetic, performative, and social aspects of public relations, and is not limited by singular methods and circumstances. At the same time, he is sensitive to conceptual overreach. “If public relations is in everything, including public diplomacy, then nothing really is public diplomacy.” His analysis is an imaginative contribution to debates on boundaries in diplomacy’s public dimension and the problem of limits in diplomacy’s ascending societization. 

Zed Tarar, “Analysis | Harnessing AI for Diplomacy: Five Tools to Make Your Work Easier”  August 28, 2023, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University.  US diplomat Zed Tarar, currently on assignment in London, continues his thoughtful series at the intersection of technology and diplomacy with this first of three articles on AI. After extensive personal testing, he offers five tools that have significant potential for diplomacy practitioners. (1) UpWord.ai enables research by helping users summarize large texts. (2) Translations powered by GPT-4 do not replace skilled linguists, but it frequently outperforms Google Translate. (3) Transcriptions by OpenAI’s Whisper of large quantities of audio and video at machine speed and “acceptable levels of accuracy.” (4) Personal AI, meaning tools such as chatbot, PI that give constructive feedback to ideas and arguments through voice interaction. (5) Grammerly does a “fair job” of improving written text.

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Public Diplomacy,”Transcript of Panel Discussion, June 2023. In this Commission meeting, executive director Vivian Walker and Commission members hosted a virtual panel of experts to discuss AI and the future of public diplomacy: Alexander Hunt (Public Affairs Officer, US Embassy Guinea), Jessica Brandt (Brookings Institution), and Ilan Manor (Ben Gurion University of the Negev). They agreed, with qualifications, that AI can be “a force for good” in public diplomacy despite the risks, and they explored its potential for a broad range of planning, operational, and assessment activities. Among their conclusions: machine tools can perform work that expands time for practitioners to engage publics; AI can amplify not replace human activity; and practitioners must be vigilant about AI’s capacity to generate biased, inaccurate, and inappropriate content. See also Vivian S. Walker, “AI and the Future of Public Diplomacy,”  August 22, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Recent Items of Interest

Matthew Algeo, “The Diplomat Who Started a (Culture) War,”  September 2023, The Foreign Service Journal.

Matt Armstrong, “What’s Up With the Advisory Commission, and Personal Stuff,”  September, 7, 2020, Arming for the War We’re In.

Julian E. Barnes, “Russia Pushes Long-term Influence Operations Aimed at the U.S. and Europe,”  August, 25, 2023, The New York Times.

Martha Bayles, “The Spirits I have Summoned, I Cannot Banish Now! The Future of A.I. in Hollywood—and Beyond,”  Summer 2023, Claremont Review of Books.

Antony J. Blinken, “The Power and Purpose of American Diplomacy in a New Era,” September 13, 2023, Remarks to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Max Boot, “In Vietnam, Biden Discovers the Limits of Democracy Promotion,”  September 10, 2023, The Washington Post.

William J. Burns, “American Diplomacy with William J. Burns,” Podcast with James M. Lindsay (30 minutes), Council on Foreign Relations.

FP Contributors, “Is Soft Power Making a Comeback?”  September 24, 2023, Foreign Policy.

Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware, “American Hatred Goes Global: How the United States Became a Leading Exporter of White Supremacist Terrorism,”  September 19, 2023, Foreign Affairs.

Ash Jain, “The Scrambled Spectrum of U.S. Foreign-Policy Thinking,”  September 27, 2023, Foreign Policy.

David J. Kramer, “Presidential Centers Affirm That ‘Democracy Holds Us Together,’”  September 7, 2023, George W. Bush Institute.

Philip Kosnett and Michael Keating, “A Corps of Battlefield Diplomats for the Next Hot War,”  September 8, 2023, Center for European Policy Analysis.

Raja Krishnamoorthi, “The U.S. Cannot Afford to Lose the Soft-Power Race With China,”  September 29, 2023, Foreign Policy.

Carol Lee, Courtney Kube, and Peter Nicholas, “White House Told U.S. Ambassador to Japan to Stop Taunting China on Social Media,”  September 20, 2023, NBC News.

Christina Lu and Clara Gutman-Argemi, “Biden Puts U.S.-China Science Partnership on Life Support,”  August 24, 2023, Foreign Policy.

Jason Miller, “New Top-secret Cloud Strategy Underpins State Dept. Bureau’s Modernization Efforts,”  August 28, 2023, Federal News Network.

Suzanne Nossel, “Cultural Decoupling From China Is Not the Answer,”  September 26, 2023, Foreign Policy.

Ben O’Loughlin, “On Strategic Ontologies,” July 2023, PDx Podcast with Will Youmans (21 minutes), GWU, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.

Jimmy Quinn, “House GOP Bill Seeks Targeted Cuts to Voice of America over Mismanagement Allegations,”  September 18, 2023, National Review.

“Reassessing Obama’s Biggest Mistake: How Much Was His Red Line in Syria to Blame for America’s Lost Credibility,”  August 22, 2023, The Economist.

Liam Scott, “Indonesian Officials Harass White House Pool Reporter [VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara] After Harris-Widodo Meeting,” September 6, 2023. VOA News.

Maria Sherman, “Quincy Jones is State Department’s First Peace Through Music Award As Part of New Diplomacy Push,”  September 27, 2023, ABC News.

Tara D. Sonenshine, “The Battle Over Borders and Why They Remain Important Today,”  September 28, 2023; “Despite Threat of Shutdown, Congress Cannot Afford to Give Up On Ukraine,”  September 21, 2023, The Hill.

Ian Thomas and Nikki Locke, “Taking a Cultural Relations Approach to Sustainable Development: British Council Case Study,”  September 7, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

W. Robert Pearson, “Secret Baseball in China,”  August 2023, American Diplomacy.

Shearon Roberts, “Black Women Elected Officials: Advancing Equity Through City and Nation-State Public Diplomacy,”  May 2023, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

David Satterfield, ”The Role of US Diplomacy in a Changing World,”  August 2023, American Diplomacy.

Joseph Stieb, “Two Cheers for the Cold War Liberals,”  September 15, 2023, War on the Rocks.

Tracy Wilkinson, “State Department Visits L.A., Other Cities to Drum Up Biden’s Efforts Abroad,”  September 26, 2023, Los Angeles Times.

Zachary Woolfe, “John Cage Shock: When Japan Fell for Cage and Vice Versa,”  September 23, 2023, The New York Times.

Gem from the Past

Brian Hocking, “(Mis)Leading Propositions About 21st Century Diplomacy,” Crossroads: The Macedonian Foreign Policy Journal, April-October, 2012, 73-86. As scholars and practitioners wrestle with diplomacy’s ambiguous boundaries and an explosion of diplomatic actors and “adjectival diplomacies,” this 2012 article by the distinguished British diplomacy scholar Brian Hocking has enduring value. His argument is grounded in concerns that debates about diplomacy in an era of profound change obscure its “fundamental character” and that some propositions about diplomacy mislead. 

First, much of the discourse on modalities of diplomacy in an era of rapid change confuses ongoing essential functions of diplomacy process with structures and methods adopted in a given period of time. 

Second, preoccupation with “newness” in diplomacy’s actors, hybrid forms, and post-modern characteristics emphasizes discontinuities at the expense of continuities. 

Third, unclear boundaries and an “expansive” approach to diplomatic agency risk “emptying diplomacy of much of its meaning and employing it as a synonym for broad patterns of global interaction.” 

Fourth, emphasis on decentered networks obscures their reality as multidimensional phenomena with varieties of organizational designs that are context-contingent and that blend hierarchical and network forms.

Fifth, we must move from a perspective that privileges the role of foreign ministries to one that focuses on their value added in national diplomatic systems.

Sixth, there is a compelling case for the continuing importance of traditional “generalist” diplomatic skills in shifting patterns of global, regional, and local power; increasingly complex policy networks; and radical changes in diplomacy’s practices and institutions. 

An archive ofDiplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.