Category: Bruce Gregory’s Resource List

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

Phillip Arceneaux, “Information Intervention: A Taxonomy & Typology for Government Communication,” Journal of Public Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 1, 5-35. Arceneaux (Miami University) tackles the enormous task of sorting out definitions, terms, and types of core behavior in government communication. He settles on a typology of four methods of “Information Intervention” – public diplomacy (PD), public affairs (PA), psychological operations (PSYOP), and propaganda. They are meant to categorize “who communicates with what audience, in what manner, with what intent, and with what desired outcomes.” He classifies methods in a taxonomy: PD and PA as “information politics,” PSYOP and propaganda as “information operations.” His research is grounded in semi-structured in-depth interviews with 18 leading diplomacy and communication scholars. Their views are summarized in multiple categories: actors, manner of communication, target audience, method for content creation, model of communication flow, end goal intent, and policy outcome. Arceneaux’s paper is a thoughtful and well-organized analysis. He prompts many questions and opens the door to further inquiry – by practitioners and scholars – as actors multiply, transnational issues become more complex, boundaries both blur and remain necessary, and diplomacy becomes more whole of government and whole of society. 

Paul C. Avey, et al., “Does Social Science Inform Foreign Policy? Evidence from a Survey of US National Security, Trade, and Development Officials,”  International Studies Quarterly, (2021) 0, 1-19. A large gap disconnects academic research from foreign affairs practice. Scholars and practitioners have made great progress in bridging the gap. Both propositions have highly regarded defenders. Avey (Virginia Tech), Michael C. Desch (University of Notre Dame), Eric Parajon (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Susan Peterson (William & Mary), Ryan Powers (University of Georgia), and Michael J. Tierney (William & Mary) put the issue to practitioners in a large, well-constructed survey of when and how they use academic research in their work and how they view academics. A brief summary cannot do justice to their closely reasoned findings. On the upside, practitioners frequently engage with academic ideas. Academic knowledge can influence their views. Practitioners seek scholarly expertise and are not averse to quantitative methods. Practitioners are more receptive to books and articles than commentary on social media. On the downside, scholars are not providing the kind of policy analysis practitioners want. Much academic work is perceived as too abstract and not timely. Research on policy analysis and prescriptions has steadily declined since 1980. Practitioners value scholarly consensus, but IR is a contentious field. The authors recommend academics make clear and persuasive arguments for why scholarly research matters, more articles and short form pieces for busy practitioners, timely research clearly presented, and greater attention to demonstrating the value of academic research when teaching future (and mid-career) practitioners.  

Caitlin Byrne, “Truth, Lies, and Diplomacy,” Griffith Review 67, August 25, 2020. Byrne (scholar, former diplomat, and director of the Griffith Asia Institute) reflects on the meaning of trust in diplomacy’s private and public dimensions. She considers the challenges of diplomacy in the digital era, the “much needed ‘democratization’ of diplomacy,” difficulties faced by Australia as a middle power, and concerns created by authoritarian leaders feeding distrust about diplomacy and its practitioners. A brief, thought-provoking meditation by one of Australia’s best scholar-practitioners.  

Nicholas J. Cull and Michael K. Hawes, eds., Canada’s Public Diplomacy, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). In his memoir thirty years ago, Canada’s prescient former ambassador to the United States Allan Gotlieb wrote that the “new diplomacy . . . is largely public diplomacy and requires different skills, techniques, and attitudes” (I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Ambassador: The Education of a Canadian Diplomat in Washington, 1990). In a pioneering speech at the US Institute of Peace in 1997, Canada’s deputy foreign minister Gordon Smith spoke to “The Challenge of Virtual Diplomacy.” In recent years, influential books and articles by Canada’s diplomats and scholars, including notably Daryl Copeland, Evan Potter, Janice Stein, and Andrew Cooper, have done much to shape study and practice in diplomacy’s public dimension. US practitioners and scholars have a lot to learn from their neighbors to the north. In Canada’s Public Diplomacy, Cull (University of Southern California) and Hawes (Fulbright Canada and Queen’s University) have compiled essays by experts on Canada’s public diplomacy past and present, current debates about “revitalizing” its global engagement, and issues in the use of digital tools, cultural diplomacy, international broadcasting, and other domains. Happily, the paperback edition is affordably priced at under $20. In addition to Cull and Hawes, contributors include Andrew Cooper (University of Waterloo), Daryl Copeland (University of Montreal), Bernard Duhaime and Camille Labadie (Université du Québec à Montréal), Mark Kristmanson (formerly National Capital Commission), Evan Potter (University of Ottawa), Sarah K. E. Smith (Carleton University), Stefanie von Hlatky (Queen’s University), and Ira Wagman (Carleton University). 

Joel Ehrendreich, “State U – A Proposal for Professional Diplomatic Education and Outreach for America,” The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2021. Ehrendreich, a senior Foreign Service Officer, argues the State Department should implement professional diplomatic education (PDE) for the same reasons the US military has long prioritized professional military education (PME). It’s not a new idea. Ambassador (ret.) Ronald Neumann and a team at the Stimson Center made a strong case for PDE a decade ago. (Forging a 21st-Century Diplomatic Service for the the United States through Professional Education and Training,2011). But Ehrendreich helpfully puts the argument in a new context. First, the view that State’s officers need more than entry-level orientation, language training, and area studies is gaining traction. To compete in today’s world, they need a culture of learning. Second, posting hundreds of FSOs around the United States for a year of PDE would help to build a stronger domestic constituency and gain support for policies and resources. Third, PDE at scale would contribute to strengthening collaborative relations with American cities and states that are becoming active participants in global diplomacy. His article addresses the cost and training float issues that have long blocked PDE and suggests the possibility of greater receptivity in the current Congress. As in the past, the goal is compelling, but a viable roadmap remains obscure.  

Benjamin Goldsmith, Yusaku Horiuchi, and Kelly Matush, “Does Public Diplomacy Sway Foreign Public Opinion? Identifying the Effect of High-Level Visits,” American Political Science Review, published online by Cambridge University Press, June 7, 2021. Based on empirical analysis of visits from leaders in nine countries and surveys of public opinion in 38 host countries, Goldsmith (Australian National University), Horiuchi (Dartmouth College), and Matush (Florida State University) make several claims. (1) There is a “substantial positive shift in approval of the leadership of a visiting country after a high-level visit, relative to the comparable previsit period.” (2) Public diplomacy activities drive “relatively long lasting” effects in public opinion. These effects disappear in visits without evidence of public diplomacy. (3) In most cases, “military capability differentials between visiting and host countries do not appear to confer an advantage in the influence of public diplomacy.” (4) Their evidence “challenges the perspective that public diplomacy can be easily dismissed as a mere performance. High-level visits have a significant, positive influence on foreign public opinion, and a variety of countries have access to this tool.” Scholars will find this analysis of two extensive data sets of interest for its methodology and research implications. Practitioners should welcome this rare article on diplomatic practice in one of America’s leading political science journals.  

Charles King, “The Fulbright Paradox: Race and the Road to a New American Internationalism,”  Foreign Affairs, July/August 2021, 92-106. King (Georgetown University) sets three goals in this finely crafted essay. First, he portrays two sides of J. William Fulbright. The Rhodes scholar, internationalist, and Democratic Senator who supported the UN, challenged McCarthyism, worked to end the Vietnam war, and founded the eponymous Fulbright scholarships. And Fulbright the “racist” who opposed integration in public schools and voted against 1960s civil rights legislation. Evidence of his years defending racial apartheid is not overcome by his claims later in life, partly true, that these actions were tactical requirements for an Arkansas politician. Second, King argues Fulbright is a clarifying case. He convincingly shows that Fulbright was “representative of a certain species of midcentury internationalist: white, male, patrician in style if not background, and schooled in both the superiority of Anglo-Saxon civilization and the obligations of noblesse.” His combination of open-mindedness abroad and bigotry at home aligns with the broad conviction of many Americans that great power statecraft requires a divide between domestic politics and foreign policy. Fulbright’s vision and myopia are the story of America’s 20th century rise to power. Third, Fulbright remains deeply relevant today. “What price does a racially ordered polity pay for its global role?” 

Carter Malkasian, The American War in Afghanistan: A History, (Oxford University Press, 2021). Carter Malkasian is a gifted scholar-practitioner, fluent Pashto speaker, advisor to former Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford, former State Department political officer in Afghanistan, and widely acclaimed expert on America’s longest war. His book arrives just in time to provide bedrock for the coming tidal wave of assessments. Malkasian gives us a rich blend of broad themes and granular detail – drawing on a wealth of primary sources, secondary accounts, and personal insights. His story is about war and diplomacy from the perspectives of leaders (tribal and national), warriors (uniformed, paramilitary, and guerrilla) and diplomats (civilian and military). He supports many conventional explanations. Tribal infighting as a constant source of instability. Pakistan’s role in undermining peace. The Afghan government’s corruption and mistreatment of its people. The Iraq war, a US strategic blunder that distracted attention and swallowed resources. US refusal to talk with the Taliban until 2010. Afghans alienated by airstrikes, drones, and night raids. Obama’s surge deadline. But his central theme is the Taliban prevailed because they were “closely tied to what it meant to be Afghan . . . they fought for Islam and resistance to occupation, values enshrined in Afghan identity . . . the very presence of Americans in Afghanistan trod on what it meant to be Afghan.” Malkasian finds much good in the experience: thousands of Afghan men and women trying to build a better country, the valor and heroism of soldiers and civilians. America’s and NATO’s intervention did “noble work” in education, political freedoms, and on behalf of oppressed women. Osama bin Ladin was killed and there were no further terrorist attacks on the homeland. But Islamic rule dominated in rural areas and ultimately prevailed. In the end, the good may not outweigh the violence, death, and injury. “We should stand back and ask: in the name of stopping terrorism for our own sake, did we liberate, or oppress, the Afghan people?” 

Ilan Manor & Geraldine Asiwome Adiku, “From ‘traitors’ to ‘saviours’: A longitudinal analysis of Ethiopian, Kenyan and Rwandan embassies’ practice of digital diaspora diplomacy,” South African Journal of International Affairs, published online July 21, 2021. Manor (University of Tel Aviv) and Adiku (University of Ghana) turn much needed attention to the diplomacy of African countries. In this paper they explore how embassies of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda use social media to engage in relationship building, community strengthening, and relationship leveraging with diasporas. Their digital strategies reflect their evolving view that diasporas are sources of socio-economic benefit rather than communities that abandoned their homeland. The authors analyzed Facebook posts of nine embassies in 2016 and eight embassies in 2020. Their conclusions address how their digital practices changed between 2016 and 2020, the implications of their digital strategies, and strengths and limitations of the paper’s methodology and research. 

Yascha Mounk, “Democracy on the Defense: Turning Back the Authoritarian Tide,” Foreign Affairs, March/ April, 2021, 163-173. Mounk (Johns Hopkins University) argues US democratization practitioners need to rethink the idea of “democracy promotion.” Given the likely prospect that the future will be less democratic in many countries, the goal should not be to promote democracy where it does not exist, but “to protect democracy in those countries where it is now seriously at risk” and shift strategies and resources accordingly. Specifics in his change agenda: restart Radio Free Europe’s broadcasts in Poland, launch a new VOA Hindi service, shift NED’s resources to countries that stifle civil society and repress NGOs, implement targeted economic sanctions against autocratic officials, pass legislation to prohibit corporations from punishing employees critical of autocratic regimes, and pursue the hard work of deciding whether non-democracies can continue as members of NATO and the EU. 

John Mueller, “Public Opinion on War and Terror: Manipulated or Manipulating?” White Paper, Cato Institute, August 10, 2021. Mueller (Ohio State University) analyzes public opinion trend data on three events related to threats and fear: the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the 2003 Iraq War, and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq in 2014. He argues that publics in general “are not very manipulable” on such salient issues. When publics clearly embrace a fear or idea, leaders, elites, and the media often find their messages “have struck a responsive chord rather than that the public has been manipulated.” His paper summarizes a broad range of literature on the role of publics, elites, and the media in opinion formation.  

Jessica T. Mathews, “Losing No Time,” The New York Review, May 27, 2021, 10-12 and “Present at the Re-creation: U.S. Foreign Policy Must Be Remade, Not Restored,” Foreign Affairs, March/ April, 2021 10-16. From time to time in her brilliant career, Jessica Mathews (Carnegie Endowment) has written summary accounts of transitional moments. Recall her prescience on the rise of non-state actors (“Power Shift,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 1997). In these articles, she challenges what President Biden calls “the power of our example.” The US and the world have changed too much. Others look at America and see the 2003 Iraq war, the 2008 financial crisis, an ineffectual war in Afghanistan, an inequitable health care system, and Trump-era chaos that may not be a one-off. There is more in her bill of particulars. America confronts a strategic choice: either (1) try to restore US leadership across the broad spectrum of issues and frame problem solving around a coalition of democracies, or (2) pursue a more limited definition of interests and recognize that non-democracies are crucial to addressing major issues. Mathews fears the US may overreach by looking too much to the past and trying to do more than what America’s “resources, will, and reputation can currently support.” Given the hand dealt, she finds Biden on many issues at home and abroad has “gotten off to an exceedingly fast start.” However, on immigration, defense spending, rethinking nuclear modernization, ambiguity on Taiwan’s defense, and a global “Summit for Democracy” there has been silence or confusing signals. For Mathews, a sound relationship with China, assertive relations with Russia, a win-win economic growth agenda, strong climate and COVID policies, and recapturing the confidence of allies and friends will be enough. No need to overreach in promoting democracy and a new foreign policy consensus, or putting the US “back at the head of the table.” 

James Pamment, “Does Public Diplomacy Need a Theory of Disruption? The Role of Nonstate Actors in Counter-branding the Swedish COVID-19 Response,” Journal of Public Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 1, 80-110. Pamment (Lund University), one of diplomacy’s consistently imaginative theorists, has two aims in this article. First, he offers thoughts on how public diplomacy research can move beyond a dominant two-actor model – where (Actor A) in one country targets groups in another country (Actor B) – to embrace a theory of how third-party actors (trolls, advocacy groups, hostile countries) disrupt communication in the two-actor model. Second, he asks whether it is prudent or possible to distinguish between the “legitimate PD of Actor A and disruptive communications that are similar to PD but differ in intent, modus, and the legitimacy of the techniques used.” Pamment takes due note that models simplify, need to be updated, and have limitations. He theorizes his disruption concept and tests its promise in a closely reasoned case study: the disruptive activities of the interest group, Media Watchdogs of Sweden.  

Jonathan Rauch, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth, (Brookings Institution Press, 2021). In the abundance of recent books about disinformation and truth, Rauch (Brookings, The Atlantic) has written one of the best. He defines the “Constitution of Knowledge” as rules, norms, institutions, and social understandings. They constitute a liberal epistemic operating system adhered to by a reality-based community. The book’s first half is a summary of history and theory: the reasons humans make cognitive mistakes, defend tribal truths, and resort to creed wars. He argues two core rules are essential to organized social persuasion. First, assume all statements are fallible and no one gets the final say. Statements become knowledge only when they stand up to challenge. Second, no one has authority by virtue of personal or tribal privilege. Knowledge is not what “I” know; it is what “we” know. The second half of the book is an agile dive into disinformation technology, troll epistemology, cancel despotism, and the challenge of making the online world truth-friendly. Rauch systematically summarizes an enormous literature. His prose is clear, witty, and laden with telling examples. Best of all, he avoids getting mired in lament. His book is a confident guide to the past, present, and reasons for cautious optimism about what might be. Let’s hope he is right. 

Ferial Ara Saeed, “A State Department for the Digital Age,” War on the Rocks, June 21, 2021. Should State keep cyber security and emerging technology issues in the domain of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security where former Secretary Mike Pompeo put them just before leaving office? Saeed (Telegraph Strategies, LLC and former State Department diplomat) says no. Cyberspace is now as critical a diplomacy arena as the physical world; it embraces issues beyond cyber security. Emerging technologies (e.g., AI, the Internet of Things, 5G) hold vast economic, political, and military potential. State has a “balkanized technology landscape, which stretches across more than a dozen regional and functional bureaus.” Her solution: consolidate all technology issues within a new undersecretary position led by an appointee with broad expertise who would report to the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources – a move likely to command more consistent attention at the top than reporting to the Secretary. Consolidation, she argues, would improve coordination, decision-making, and develop a cadre of tech-savvy cyber diplomats. Cyber and emerging technology issues require bureaus comparable to what regional bureaus and desk officers provide for geopolitical issues. Her solution is debatable. Reorganizations are seldom the answer. But her concern is important – and symptomatic of a larger question. How should foreign ministries manage, communicate, and represent the nation on large complex transnational issues in whole of government diplomacy? Create more expertise within? Or recruit, train, and educate diplomats who will leverage expertise elsewhere in government and society to diplomatic advantage? 

Anne-Marie Slaughter and Gordon LaForge, “Opening Up the Order: A More Inclusive International System,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021.  Slaughter (New America) and LaFarge (Princeton University) argue that 21st-century threats and challenges (climate change, pandemic disease, cyber-conflict, and inequality) call for existing institutions of the state-based order and harnessed networks of new actors outside the state: global and regional institutions, cities, firms, universities, movements, and NGOs. They call for a rationalized structure of fewer but bigger “impact hubs” – nodes in global networks with clear metrics and incentives for participation, competition, and investment. Their imagined, but difficult to realize, goal is to marry the formal pedigree and sovereign representation of (often paralyzed and ineffective) states with nimble, innovative, and effective (but often shadowy and unaccountable) actors from every sector of society. Network theory demonstrates the value of strong and weak ties. Small groups of impact hubs to get things done; large groups to maximize the flow of information and innovation. 

Gregory M. Tomlin, “The Case for an Information Warfighting Function,” Military Review, September-October, 2021, 90-99. Although former Defense Secretary James Mattis established “information” as the US military’s seventh joint function and codified this decision in Joint Operations doctrine, the US Army continues to treat information as an outlier. Tomlin (Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, The Pentagon and author of Murrow’s Cold War: Public Diplomacy for the Kennedy Administration) calls for the Army “to fund and integrate information efforts more deliberately into the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war.” His article begins with a critique of US decisions during and following the demise of USIA, Russian disinformation campaigns, and China’s disinformation during the COVID pandemic. It then makes a considered case for deeper development of doctrine, military education, and commitment to “information” as an instrument that can limit the need to deploy soldiers in combat and advance national security goals. 

Jake Werner, “Does America Really Support Democracy—Or Just Other Rich Democracies,”  July 9, 2021, Foreign Affairs. We are at an inflection point, President Biden declared, between democracy and autocracy as the best way to meet global challenges. Jake Werner (Boston University) argues this binary obscures a deeper divide between rich and poor. The US asserts leadership of the world’s democracies, but it actually fails many democracies and semi-democratic regimes in the global South on the COVID-19 pandemic, global trade rules, climate change and economic development.  

Geoffrey Wiseman, “What Do Diplomats Do Between Cocktail Parties.” CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. In this brief review, Wiseman (Professor and Endowed Chair in Applied Diplomacy at DePaul University’s Grace School of Applied Diplomacy) describes Australian diplomat Sue Boyd’s memoir Not Always Diplomatic: An Australian Woman’s Journey Through International Affairs (2020) as “a little gem.” His assessment makes several excellent points. Boyd’s successful career in the once overwhelmingly male-dominated Australian foreign service illuminates countless ways in which diplomats, especially at the ambassadorial level, are agents of soft power and public diplomacy. She demonstrates how the best diplomatic memoirs contribute to a better understanding of diplomacy, the foreign policy process, and the advisory role of diplomats. Her odyssey shows again the value of inter-cultural competence and networking skills. Scholars and practitioners need more memoirs that bridge conceptual and operational gaps and drive home the reality that public diplomacy is now mainstream.  

Constanza Castro Zúñiga, Mojib Ghaznawi, and Caroline Kim, “The Crisis in the State Department: We Are Losing Our Best and Need to Ask Why,” Harvard Kennedy School, July 2021. The authors are graduate students and future foreign service officers studying as Rangel Fellows at Harvard University. Their report was written for the American Foreign Service Association, published by Georgetown University’sInstitute for the Study of Diplomacy, and overseen by Ambassador (ret.) Nicholas Burns. The authors surveyed 2,853 Foreign Service Officers and Foreign Service Specialists. Their key finding: 31.42% (797) “are considering leaving the Foreign Service and actively looking for job.” This is more than double the number who left in 2016. The Department’s biggest problem is retention, not recruitment. Based on their survey, the report makes four recommendations: “1. Make the Foreign Service more family-friendly. 2. Reform the assignments process. 3. Accelerate the pace of promotions. 4. Empower institutional structures to better address bias.” See also Amy Mackinnon, “Study Finds Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. Diplomats Eyeing the Exit Door,”Foreign Policy, July 2, 2021 and “New Research Highlights Retention Issues at the State Department,”  Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, July 2, 2021. 

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest 

Matt Armstrong, “The Irony of Misinformation and USIA,” August 3, 2021, MountainRunner.us 

Gerry Diaz Bartolome, “The Hybrid Future of Diplomacy,” July 6, 2021, The Washington Diplomat. 

Rebecca Beitsch, “Trump Appointee Erred in Firing Voice of America Whistleblowers: Watchdog,”  July 8, 2021, The Hill; Ken Bredemeier, “US Government Media Whistleblowers Cleared of Wrongdoing,”  July 8, 2021, VOANews.  

Hal Brands, “Biden’s Off to a Small Start in Rallying the World’s Democracies,”  August 2, 2021, Bloomberg Opinion. 

Jessica Brandt, “How Democracies Can Win the Information Contest Without Undercutting Their Values,”  August 2, 2021, Carnegie Endowment. Sarah Chayes, “The Ides of August,” August 16, 2021, SarahChayes,org. 

Robert Downes, “U.S. Diplomats Preach Ideals Their Country Flouts. Is That Hypocrisy?” August 1, 2021, The Diplomatic Diary. 

Ronan Farrow, “Can Biden Reverse Trump’s Damage to the State Department,”  June 17, 2021, The New Yorker.“Exit Interview with Carl Gershman, Founding President of the National Endowment for Democracy,” July 21, 2021 (one hour YouTube), Center for Strategic and International Studies.  

David Folkenflik, “A Report Clears Federal Officials Who Were Suspended by a Trump Appointee Over VOA,”  July 10, 2021, NPR. “Foreign Service Statistics,” Online FS Resources, American Foreign Service Association. 

Ronald E. Hawkins, Jr., “Effective U.S. Public Diplomacy Needs State and Defense Working Harder Together,”  July 13, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Jory Heckman, “Former State Department Leaders Urged Congress to Address Chronic Foreign Service Workforce Challenges,”  July 21, 2021, Federal News Network. 

Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, “It’s Time to De-emphasize Religion in US Foreign Policy,”  July 19, 2021, The Hill. Tom Hushek, “He Founded a School in South Sudan at 26, and U.S. Bet on Him,”  June 20, 2021, Diplomatic Diary. 

Emily Kachinski and Jennifer Soler, “The Decline of U.S. Soft Power: 5 Strategies to Improve It,”  August 4, 2021, American Security Project. 

Shay Khatiri, “It’s Time to Bring Back USIA,”  July 21, 2021, The Bulwark. 

Fernando León-García, “‘Borderless Professors’ Are the Future of Global Awareness and Soft Diplomacy,”  July 21, 2021, The Hill. 

James M. Lindsay and Leila Marhmati, “TWE Remembers: The Fulbright Program,” July 30, 2021, Council on Foreign Relations. 

Ilan Manor, Alicia Fjällhed, and Tania Gomez Zapata, “Has the Advent of Stratcomms Removed the ‘Public’ From Public Diplomacy,” July 15, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Deborah McCarthy, “The General and the Ambassador Podcast Series,”  American Academy of Diplomacy and UNC Global, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 

Sherry Lee Mueller, “Uncle Sam Wants You – To Understand Your Role in the World,” July 4, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Paul Musgrave, “Olympic Medals No Longer Show Off Nations’ Cultural Power. That’s Good,”  July 30, 2021, The Washington Post;“You Shouldn’t Have to Pay for That IR Master’s,”  July 29, 2021 and “Political Science Has Its Own Lab Leaks,” July 3, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Lynne O’Donnell, “The Taliban Are Winning the War of Words in Afghanistan,”  June 21, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Doyinsola Oladipo, “Classes Starting, But International Students Failing To Get U.S. Visas,”  August 23, 2021, Reuters. “Our View – Public Diplomacy and Afghanistan,” August 19, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council & Public Diplomacy Association of America. 

Daniel F. Runde, “The World Is a Freer Place Thanks to Carl Gershman,”  July 7, 2021, The Hill. “Sharing Wisdom (And Curricula!) About Teaching Diplomacy, International Affairs, and Other Associated Topics,” July 2021, American Foreign Service Association. 

Louis Savoia, “Foreign Policy Reporters See Return to Normal Under Biden,”  August 8, 2021, Diplomatic Diary, Washington International Diplomatic Academy. 

Ben Smith, “Afghans Working for U.S. Government Broadcasters Fear Taliban Backlash,”  August 15, 2021, The New York Times. 

Nahal Toosi, “Blnken to Diplomats: It’s OK To Admit U.S. Flaws When Promoting Rights,” July 17, 2021, Politico. 

James Traub, “The World’s Oldest Democracy Is One of Its Worst,” July 6, 2021, Foreign Policy. US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Innovative Public Diplomacy Responses to China’s Influence Strategies,” Meeting Minutes and Transcript, June 17, 2021. “VOA’s Bangla Service Ends Radio Broadcasts [after 63 years], Expands TV and Social Media Coverage,” July 2021, Voice of America. 

Stephen M. Walt, “The Geopolitics of Empathy: How Our Understanding – or Misunderstanding – of Other Countries’ Perspectives Shapes Global Order,” June 27, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Gem From The Past 

Costas M. Constantinou, Pauline Kerr, and Paul Sharp, eds., The Sage Handbook of Diplomacy, (Sage Publications, 2016). Five years ago, Constantinou (University of Cyprus), Kerr (Australian National University) and Sharp (University of Minnesota Duluth) compiled 53 essays that aimed to provide ‘sustained reflections on what it means to practice diplomacy.’ They had three audiences in mind: (1) national diplomatic services, government organizations, and NGOs; (2) students and researchers; and (3) interested readers who know or suspect that diplomacy matters. With the advantage of hindsight, they clearly met their goals. Accelerating trends since 2016 have changed diplomacy’s context, but these chapters by leading scholars with a practitioner orientation continue to illuminate. To list just a few. Brian Hocking on boundaries in diplomacy and foreign policy. Iver B. Neumann on diplomacy and the arts. Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman on the diplomatic corps. Donna Marie Oglesby on diplomatic language. Sam Okoth Opondo on diplomacy and the colonial encounter. Yolanda Kemp Spies on middle power diplomacy. Michele Acuto on city diplomacy. Saleem H. Ali and Helena Voinov Vladich on environmental diplomacy. Stuart Murray on sports diplomacy. Daryl Copeland on science diplomacy. With apologies to those not listed due to space limitations. A full list is online. Each chapter contains references, blocks of summary key points, and thought-provoking content. The Handbook remains an important resource for teachers, students, practitioners – and the current wave of change agents looking to transform foreign ministries and diplomatic practice. 

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,  the Public Diplomacy Council,  and MountainRunner.us. 

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

Amanda Bennett, Nicholas Cull, and Richard A. Stengel, “What Should the US Do to Protect Global Media Freedoms?”  2021 Walter Roberts Annual Lecture, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University, April 8, 2021. This year’s Roberts lecture took the form of a conversation with former VOA director Bennett, USC professor Cull, and former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Stengel. The lively discussion, followed by audience questions, was moderated by David Ensor, also a former VOA director and now head of the Project for Media and National Security at GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs. Panelists addressed a range of issues relating to protecting global media freedoms and the role of US international broadcasting services in meeting the challenge. The virtual program can be viewed at the linked video (90 minutes).

 Donald M. Bishop, “Propagandized Adversary Populations in a War of Ideas,” Journal of Advanced Military Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, Spring 2021, 128-148. Bishop (Marine Corps University) draws on lessons from the propaganda of Axis powers and the Soviet Union in the 20th century’s hot and cold wars to inform US strategy intended to counter propaganda’s effects today. He examines two propositions about the past. (1) Both World Wars were longer and more brutal due to prewar and wartime mobilization of combatant nation populations. (2) A major limitation of propagandizing one’s citizens is that leaders become “locked in by their propaganda.” He argues there are parallels today. Social media is new; the basic patterns of propaganda are the same. He supports his claim with case studies of Russia, China, and North Korea. The US national security community and military commands, Bishop concludes, should focus more on “informational factors,” propagandized adversary populations, operationally useful knowledge about nations of concern, and whole of government and whole of society strategies. 

John Dickson, History Shock: When History Collides with Foreign Relations, (University Press of Kansas, 2021). The phrase “must read” is rarely used on this list. Retired Foreign Service Officer John Dickson’s superbly written narrative of insights gained during press and cultural assignments in North and South America, Africa, and the Caribbean is a masterpiece. “History shock” is the surprise that occurs when confronting competing and differently constructed understandings of shared history. Dickson’s stories are much more than descriptions of a career diplomat’s life abroad. They are examples, filled with prescriptive meaning, that demonstrate why differently imagined realities of how the US has projected power matter. His cases fall into three overlapping categories: conflicting versions of history, total ignorance of one’s own and another country’s history, and misunderstandings of different histories. Different US and Mexican memories of the 1846-1848 “War of North American Intervention.” Nigerian views of US civil rights history through the prism of Malcolm X and Black consciousness. Haitian memories of long withheld US recognition of its independence in 1804 due to issues of slavery and US occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. Competing Cuban and US histories driven by domestic US politics and lack of knowledge of Cuba’s pre-1959 history. Other cases are drawn from his tours in Canada, Peru, South Africa, and Washington. Dickson concludes with a penetrating analysis of why historical illiteracy gets in the way of effective diplomacy – and suggestions for ways to improve Foreign Service recruitment, training, institutional memory, and continuity in assignments. This book is a “must read” for diplomats at all levels, Foreign Service change agents, practice theory scholars, and anyone interested in America’s future role in the world. (Recommended by Larry Schwartz) 

John Fer, “How the 1619 Project Can Help Public Diplomacy,” The Foreign Service Journal, May 2021.Career Foreign Service Officer John Fer examines the debate surrounding The New York Times’ 1619 project on American slavery and ways today’s national reckoning on racial justice issues can and should be treated in US public diplomacy. He weaves into his assessment related questions on media integrity, freedom of speech, and the press. Missing in this otherwise excellent article is mention of the public diplomacy implications of another reckoning: the dispossession of Native Americans driven by national policy and the politics and economics of White supremacy. 

Emily O. Goldman, “Cyber Diplomacy for Strategic Competition,” The Foreign Service Journal, June 2021. Goldman (US Cyber Command) defines cyber diplomacy as the use of diplomatic tools to address security, economic, and human rights issues arising in and through cyberspace. She argues US cyber diplomacy needs new thinking and better performance. Two recommendations lead to her change agenda. First, the State Department needs more than reactive advocacy of “cyber deterrence;” its future strategy requires a “competitive mindset” and mobilization of partners to preemptively contest adversary cyber misbehavior. Second, the US is not positioned to construct cyber norms through political discussions alone; it must engage in “norm-construction competition.” She also endorses a strongly integrated organizational focal point for cyber issues in the Department. Ryan Dukeman at the fp21 network shares Goldman’s concerns about State’s inadequate approach to cyber diplomacy issues, but suggests she undervalues the efforts of the Coordinator for Cyber Issues and the proposed Bureau for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technology. 

Jennifer Hubbert, “Scaling Paradiplomacy: An Anthropological Examination of City-to-City Relations,”CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, December 2020. Hubbert (Lewis & Clark College) contributes to the growing field of subnational diplomacy in this exploration of cities as diplomatic actors. By paradiplomacy, she means “parallel diplomacy,” a term used in the context of city-to-city engagements. She argues that anthropology is well-suited to illuminate a research area largely influenced by urban studies, international relations, political science, and public diplomacy. Her objectives are (1) to assess relations between paradiplomatic actors who represent cities to broader institutions, practices, and structures of power, and (2) to think broadly about paradiplomatic actors other than elected and appointed city officials. Her paper is drawn from two years of research on Portland, Oregon’s engagement on sustainability and economic development issues with cities in China and Japan. Hubbert used interviews and anthropological methods of immersion and participant observation to explore paradiplomatic practices in sister city board meetings, ceremonial events, Chinese museums, urban development agency meetings, cultural exchange presentations at universities, entrepreneur meet and greets, trade missions, foreign affairs offices in China, and other forums. As with most research on multilevel diplomatic actors, the challenge is to distinguish between diplomacy that serves the public interest, public-private partnerships, and cross-border connections that serve private interests. 

Louis Menand, The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2021).  Menand (Harvard University, New Yorker staff writer, and author of The Metaphysical Club) has written a towering (850 pages) history of the personalities, art, and ideas that dominated cultural change in the United States and Europe during the first two decades of the Cold War. This is a book to pick up, learn from a riveting few pages, put down, and repeat. Writers: Lionel Trilling, Hannah Arendt, George Orwell, Jack Kerouac, Susan Sontag, Simone de Beauvoir. Artists: Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol. Poets: Alan Ginsberg, Ezra Pound. Dancers: Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham. Philosophers: Isaiah Berlin, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, John Dewey. Music: John Cage, the Beatles, Elvis Presley. And many more. This is not a book about the cultural Cold War, although there are interesting cameos on USIA, the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom, the Venice Biennale, and the Family of Man exhibit. Menand writes with flair – the coterminous Cold War and decolonization are “the duck or rabbit of postwar world history.” His goal is to tell stories on a grand scale in three dimensions. The underlying social forces that created the conditions for certain kinds of art and ideas. What was happening “on the street” when “X ran into Y, which led to Z.” And what was going on in people’s heads. A brilliant book by a captivating writer. 

Jonathan McClory, lead author, Katherine Brown, and Jay Wang, contributors, “Socially Distanced Diplomacy: The Future of Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in a Fragile World,” May 2021, Sanctuary Counsel and USC Center on Public Diplomacy. In this 53-page report, McClory (Sanctuary Counsel), Brown (Global Ties US), and Wang (USC Center on Public Diplomacy) begin with two questions. What is the future of the global balance of soft power? Are public diplomacy’s traditional strategies and tactics still viable? Their report is based on seven virtual roundtable discussions with policymakers, diplomats, and researchers. It begins with a summary of trends shaping a new strategic assessment and how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered perceptions and reputations of major powers. The balance of the report, influenced by Anglo-American perspectives, offers a blueprint for the future. Its chapter on imagining a post-pandemic future for public diplomacy focuses on “the primacy of listening,” more inclusive and diverse target audiences, strengthened public-private partnerships, a hybrid approach to digital and in-person public diplomacy, and a strategy that builds alliances, treats soft power as both reputational and national security, and increases funding for public diplomacy accordingly. 

Sarah E. Mendelson, “New Thinking on Democracy at Home and Abroad,” American Ambassadors Live! April 2021. Mendelson (Carnegie Mellon University) draws on her work as a scholar and democratization practitioner at the UN and USAID in this assessment of the “why” and “how” of the Biden administration’s commitment to a Summit for Democracy. She calls for a zero-based “interagency review of US methods, modalities, and budgets supporting democracy and human rights” – and offers suggestions for new approaches to advancing democracy at home and abroad. 

National Intelligence Council, Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World, March 2021. Every four years, the NIC publishes its assessment of key trends and uncertainties in the strategic environment for the next two decades. Intended primarily for policymakers, it is also an excellent first day in class reading for students in diplomacy and IR courses. The report is organized into three sections. First, it examines “structural forces” in demographics, the environment, economics, and technology. Second, it assesses “emerging dynamics” in three categories: individuals and society, states, and the international system. Third, it identifies key uncertainties used to frame five “future scenarios” for 2040. The 144-page report, accessible online, is clearly written, well organized, filled with data and graphics, and intended to prompt thought and discussion. Particularly interesting for diplomacy scholars and practitioners are sections on power shifts, more actors asserting agency, the growing influence of influential non-state actors, growth in global digital connectivity, immersive information technology, widely accessible digital marketing techniques, the Internet of Things, and intense “AI-powered propaganda.” 

Pew Research Center, “America’s Image Abroad Rebounds With Transition from Trump to Biden,” June 10, 2021. Richard Wike and his team at Pew find a significant rise in ratings among America’s allies and partners for President Biden and several of his policies – coupled with concerns about the health of the US political system. On the upside: US favorability is up significantly, the US gets more positive marks for handling COVID-19, views of European allies are now at Obama-era levels, and Biden gets much higher ratings than Trump. On the downside: the US is no longer seen as a role model democracy, overall the US is still viewed as not handling COVID-19 well, younger adults are more likely to think democracy in the US has never been a good example, and few think the US considers their interests when making foreign policy decisions. 

Saskia Postema and Jan Melissen, “UN Celebrity Diplomacy in China: Activism, Symbolism, and National Ambition Online,” International Affairs, Volume 97, Issue 3, May 2021, 667-684. China is now the second-largest UN contributor and leads four of its 15 specialized agencies. In this context, Postema and Melissen (Leiden University and Clingendael) explore how Chinese celebrities, active on the social media platform Sina Weibo, support both China’s engagement in the United Nations and the UN’s efforts to gain increased visibility and influence in China. Their article, based on quantitative and qualitative research, makes several claims. Western literature on “celebrity diplomacy” focuses on celebrity politics and neglects multilayered diplomacy and the digital domain. Because China limits its citizens’ freedom of discussion on global issues, the presence of UN-sponsored celebrities on Weibo is largely symbolic. A causal relationship may exist between a Hong Kong identity and celebrity inactivity as a UN ambassador on Weibo. The UN needs to analyze the translation and adaptation of the messages in China of the celebrities it sponsors. Their findings support arguments “for more and better research on celebrity diplomacy” and for public diplomacy studies to focus more on the domestic domains of national diplomatic actors and on what happens to messages and narratives in receiving countries. The complete article is available online. See also “Is UN Celebrity Diplomacy in China Still Effective?”, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

“Subversive & Malicious Information,” Public Diplomacy Magazine, Issue 24, Spring 2021. Public Diplomacy Magazine is an online publication of the student-run Society of Public Diplomats at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism in collaboration with the Center on Public Diplomacy. It is a forum for graduate students, practitioners, and scholars in the US and worldwide to publish short-form content that addresses cutting-edge trends and issues in diplomacy’s public dimension. Articles in this issue discuss misperceptions about disinformation, Iran’s invisible “soft war,” the re-branding of Confucius Institutes, China’s digital public diplomacy strategy, Russian disinformation, misinformation in Myanmar, a “rickety and ineffective” Smith-Mundt Act, responding to COVID-19 misinformation, and much more. 

“Truth, Dissent, and the Legacy of Daniel Ellsberg,” Conference Commemorating the 50^th Anniversary of the Pentagon Papers Release, University of Massachusetts Amherst and The Ground Truth Project, April 20 & May 1, 2021. In a digital age when policymakers and diplomats struggle with the practical meaning of truth erosion and pervasive disinformation, the Pentagon Papers and lies of US administrations about the Vietnam War for most are a distant memory. At this two-day conference, historians, journalists, whistleblowers, and former officials gathered to discuss the relevance of the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg’s dissent, and lessons from recent research on the voluminous Ellsberg papers archived at UMass Amherst. Complete proceedings of the two-day conference are available online. (Recommended by Rudy Nelson) 

Qingmin Zhang, Paul Sharp, and Jan Melissen, eds., “Special Issue: China’s Global Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 16, Issue 2-3, March 2021. In this timely double issue of HJD, Zhang (Peking University), Sharp (University of Minnesota Duluth), and Melissen (Leiden University and HJD’s Editor-in-Chief) have compiled penetrating research articles, forum contributions, and book reviews by leading scholars on China’s changing diplomacy practices. Topics include China’s diplomacy as a new power in the 1950s and 1960s, its evolving encounters today with the diplomatic norms of Southeast Asian nations, its response to growing demands by Chinese citizens for consular protections, the role of cities in China’s diplomacy, and how China’s public diplomacy is changing. The articles were written by Chinese and non-Chinese contributors. The editors point to implications of their different perspectives and to a shortage of needed theoretical research on China by diplomacy scholars. This special issue demonstrates that HJD, long the gold standard in practitioner-oriented diplomacy scholarship, remains the “go-to” journal in the field. Happily, too, the paywall for all of the articles is unlocked at least for now. 

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest 

Sohaela Amiri, “Toward City Diplomacy 2.0,” April 8, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Mike Anderson, “Five PD Favorites,” June 6, 2021; “Five PD Favorites,” May 30, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Matt Armstrong, “W(h)ither R: A Marquee Failure of Leadership in Foreign Policy,”  June 8, 2021, MountainRunner.us. 

Rebecca Beitsch, “In Departure from Trump, State Affirms Editorial Freedom of Voice of America,”  April 6, 2021, The Hill.

Brett Bruen and Adam Ereli, “How Many ‘Special Envoys’ Does Joe Biden Need?”  May 16, 2021, Politico. 

Nick Cull and Simon Anholt, “People Places and Power: The Podcast.” 

Karen DeYoung, “Samantha Power Wants To Restore U.S. Prestige By Getting American-made Vaccines ‘Into Arms’ Around the World,”  May 11, 2021, The Washington Post. 

Paul Farhi, “When Plagiarism Was Reported to Voice of America, Managers Delayed Action for Months,” May 27, 2021, The Washington Post. 

Sarah Forland, “Reviving Global Democracy: Public Diplomacy in the Post Covid-World,”  April 29, 2021; Sarah Forland and Savarni Sanka, “Radio Marti: Long Overdue for a Tune-up,”  April 14, 2021, American Security Project. 

Alexander Gabuev and Leonid Kovachich, “Comrades in Tweets? The Contours and Limits of China-Russia Cooperation on Digital Propaganda,”  June 3, 2021, Carnegie Moscow Center. 

Robbie Gramer, “Are Special Envoys All That Special Anymore?”  June 1, 2021, Foreign Policy. John Maxwell Hamilton discusses his book Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda, May 3, 2021, First Monday Forum (60-minute video), Public Diplomacy Council.  

Nikki Hinshaw, “Re-Constructing Democratic Narratives to Foster Pro-Israel Support in the U.S.”  April 1, 2021, Smart Power Blog, GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. 

Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, “Case Studies: Preparing to Teach a Case,” May 2021, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. 

Eric Johnson, “Biden’s State Department Needs an Office to Help Local Governments,”  May 5, 2021, The Hill. 

Bryce Johnston and Margaret McLeod, “Is Mutual Understanding Through Exchange Still Possible?”  May 6, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Kathy Kiely, “Dictators Crush Dissent. Then They Hire Firms To Clean Up Their Images,”  May 7, 2021, The Washington Post.“The Lawfare Podcast: Alicia Wanless on What’s Wrong with the Discussion of Influence Operations,”  June 8, 2021, Lawfare. 

Kayla Malcy, “The Kashmir Standstill and Conflicting Identity Narratives,” April 12, 2021, Smart Power Blog, GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. 

Deena Mansour, “In-Person Exchanges, Interrupted,”  April 2021, The Foreign Service Journal. 

“Iver Neumann Explains Diplomacy,” November 9, 2020, YouTube video (6 minutes), International Association for Political Science Students. 

Office of the Inspector General, “Review of the Public Diplomacy Staffing Initiative,” April 2021, US Department of State. 

Saiansha Panangipalli, “From ‘Regional Bully’ to ‘Benign Hegemon,’” April 5, 2021, Smart Power Blog, GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. 

Charles Ray, “Why Defense Gets 12 Times More Money Than Diplomacy,”  April 21, 2021, Diplomatic Diary. 

Roxanne Roberts, “Ambassador Rufus Gifford Is the Reality Star Who Will Try to Fix America’s Image Abroad,”  May 29, 2021, The Washington Post. 

“Russia’s Attack on U.S. Media Has Become a Test Case,”  May 21, 2021, The Washington Post. 

John Ruwitch, “50 Years Later, The Legacy of U.S.-China ‘Pingpong Diplomacy’ Faces Challenges,”  April10, 2021, NPR. 

Noah Smith, “U.S. State Department Announces New Video Game Diplomacy Program,”  April 7, 2021, The Washington Post. 

Adam Taylor, “Xi’s Call for a ‘Lovable’ China May Not Tame the Wolf Warriors,”  June 3, 2021, The Washington Post; Shirley Martey Hargis, “Xi Defangs the ‘Wolf Warrior,’” June 3, 2021, Politico. 

“Thanks to the Pandemic, Diplomats Have a Bigger, Better Toolkit,”  May 1, 2021, The Economist. 

Mary Thompson-Jones, “Is Diplomacy Back? Making the Case to the American People,”  May 2021, American Diplomacy. 

Eriks Varpahovskis, “Is the Country Image Impact of the Tokyo Olympics Pre-determined?”  June 3, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Doug Wilson, Mike McFaul, and Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, “The Need for More Chris Stevenses: A Memorial Lecture at UC Hastings Law,” 7^th annual Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens Lecture, April 14, 2021, Just Security. 

Gem From The Past 

“Chapter 8 – The Role and Coordination of Public Diplomacy Activities by Government Departments and Agencies,” in Australia’s Public Diplomacy: Building our Image, Parliament of Australia, Report of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, August 2007. US public diplomacy practitioners, especially retirees, focus intently on the role of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs – and deplorable gaps in Senate-confirmed incumbents since 1999. Fair enough. But undervalued in this discourse are changes required in today’s whole of government diplomacy. Almost every government agency, and many cities and states, are participants in US diplomacy’s public dimension. A large majority of US international exchange and training programs are not managed by the State Department’s ECA. Nearly fifteen years ago, a Senate committee in Australia’s parliament analyzed planning, operational, and structural issues in a whole of government approach to public diplomacy. Especially useful is its assessment of challenges in providing a needed “central steer” while not losing the advantages of decentralization. The report explored issues in strategic “direction” and “coordination” that go beyond just information sharing. It recognized that foreign ministries, one department among many, cannot direct and coordinate federal and local public diplomacy activities – a finding born out in decades of US practice. The committee was cautious about defining the responsibilities powers of a central body capable of providing leadership, direction, and setting clear objectives. And it left a lot to be studied and decided. All in all, a thoughtful document worth re-reading today. The full report can be downloaded. 

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,  and MountainRunner.us. 

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

Nick Bryant, When America Stopped Being Great: A History of the Present, (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2021). The BBC’s veteran foreign correspondent, now based in New York, provides an outsider’s “tough love” chronicle of the “downward trend lines in almost every aspect of national life” during the four decades from Ronald Reagan’s “morning again in America” to Donald Trump’s “American carnage” and the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Bryant writes from personal experiences and with an accomplished journalist’s skill. Stories and biting insights populate a narrative that takes an unflinching look at America’s dysfunctional politics, the media, and other institutions in American life where “Virtually every sector is in a reputational ditch.” Bryant recognizes the epic contradictions in American history. He grants that past rebounds followed episodic down turns. He finds this no guarantee for the future. For Bryant, America’s decline is “likely irreversible.”

“Case Studies | What is the Case Method, Anyway?” Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, April 2021. Helpful ideas and links on teaching diplomacy, IR, and foreign policy decision-making case studies from scholars and practitioners at ISD.

Peter Cozzens, Tecumseh and the Prophet: the Shawnee Brothers Who Defied a Nation, (Alfred A. Knopf: 2020). Retired Foreign Service Officer Peter Cozzens, winner of

AFSA’s William R. Rifkin Award and acclaimed author of multiple books on early US history, has published a compelling narrative of two Native Americans who used savvy diplomacy, military skill, and cultural soft power in a bid to halt the United States’ dispossession of North America’s indigenous peoples. In Cozzens’ deeply researched account, the well-known Tecumseh and his less well-known brother, the “Shawnee Prophet” Tenskwatawa, collaborated to build the “broadest pan-Indian confederation in United States history.” For too long diplomacy scholars have left research on the diplomatic practices of Native Americans to colonial-era historians and native studies scholars. Tecumseh and the Prophet is a welcome addition to an emerging literature that shows how American diplomacy and its public dimension are deeply rooted in historical patterns of practice that emerged in the relations of native tribes with European colonies during the century and a half before independence and continued into the 19th century.

Ingrid d’Hooghe “China’s Public Diplomacy Goes Political,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, published online March 1, 2021. Ingrid d’Hooghe (Clingendael Institute, The Netherlands) examines trends in China’s public diplomacy under President Xi Jinping. She argues that two changes have occurred under his leadership. First, China’s public diplomacy narratives have shifted from promoting China’s culture as a source of soft power to emphasis on the contributions of China’s political system and CCP leadership to global governance. Second, the form and character of its public diplomacy have hardened, reflecting the growing state-centeredness and government control of its implementation. She examines these claims in the context of two case studies: China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its COVID-19 public diplomacy. Under Xi, China has moved to more public diplomacy messaging and an information-oriented approach. Its foreign and domestic dimensions are more integrated. Its policies and political model are prioritized. She provides evidence in the actions and discourse of China’s leaders and messaging in Chinese media. Particularly useful is her discussion of the two faces of China’s COVID-19 public diplomacy – its positive actions as an aid donor and a hardening posture described by the emerging term “wolf warrior” diplomacy. She helpfully explains the latter, a term derived from two patriotic Chinese movies. Wolf warrior diplomats use tough talk and coercive leveraging of China’s economic and political power. The article builds on her analysis of President Hu Jintao’s public diplomacy in China’s Public Diplomacy (2015).

Mathieu R. Faupin and Nicholas J. Cull, “Law, Soft Power and Reputational Security: The Case of English Law,” The Mena Business Law Review, First Quarter, 2021. Soft power, a concept introduced in 1990 by Harvard University’s Joseph Nye still compels widespread attention three decades on. Younger scholars vigorously debate its continued relevance – with reasoned argument and in the time-honored way successor generations challenge conventional wisdom. Senior scholars look for ways to put old wine in new bottles. In this brief article, Faupin (Al Sulaiti Law Firm, Doha) and Cull (University of Southern California) discuss soft power through three prisms: law as a source of soft power, English contract law as a soft power asset for the UK, and the concept of reputational security. The article is useful for its contextualizing of Nye’s ideas that soft power can be gained and lost and that its sources are deeply rooted in governance and society (e.g., law, norms, language, education, science, sport) as well as government exports. It also clearly explains reputational security, Cull’s term for security that is derived from “being known for something positive internationally,” an asset that becomes less efficacious when an actor’s positive image is tarnished.

Alison R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State: The International Relations of California, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). In this important and needed contribution to the literature of sub-national diplomacy, Holmes (Humboldt State University) sets two related goals: (1) to understand from the perspective of practice how California’s evolving self-identity as a nation-state is reflected in the rhetoric of its leaders and its actions on the global stage, and (2) to explore the theoretical implications for concepts of sovereignty, governance, and diplomacy. She succeeds admirably in both. Her central argument is that California illuminates a profound change in the relationships between states and sub-national units, “a seismic shift in our understanding of sovereignty,” and ways in which sub-national polities are becoming diplomatic actors in an identifiable category of “global diplomacy.” Chapters discuss California’s role as international actor, theoretical concepts of space and place, critiques of the Westphalian idea of sovereignty, the concept of “indigenous sovereignty” as used by Native Americans, the relevance of “paradiplomacy” as a subfield of study, the growing trend of cities and tribes seeking global solutions to identity politics, and the activities of consuls general in California. This book is much more than a California case study. It is rich blend of theory and practice at the cutting edge of IR and diplomacy studies.

Jessie Huaracayo and Alexis Ludwig, “Can Diplomacy Be Done Virtually,” The Foreign Service Journal, April 2021. Two experienced US diplomats take a hard, skeptical look at whether diplomatic work can be conducted virtually. Their thoughtful article, shaped by diplomacy in a year of the COVID pandemic, offers an evidence-based argument that, for multiple reasons, the crucial elements of trust, nuance, and spontaneity cannot be replicated in the virtual environment. “In the end, reliance on virtual diplomacy will lead to the dilution and erosion of the benefits of diplomacy altogether. Unable to ‘tend the garden’ in person, the quality of our relationships suffers. As our relationships suffer, so does the quality of our understanding, information and appreciation of the complicated context, the subterranean dynamic or the thorny issue.”

“Interim National Security Guidance,” The White House, March 2021. In what may be the Biden/Harris administration’s draft of what will become its Congressionally-mandated national security strategy, there are several key takeaways.

1. Americans will succeed in advancing their interests and upholding their “universal values” only if they meet global challenges by working with allies and renewing sources of strength at home.
2. The US will “lead with diplomacy” as “our tool of first resort” – rhetoric that sits uneasily with four centuries of American history.
3. The US, and other democracies under siege, must lead by example and address systemic racism and other problems at home.
4. “Economic statecraft” is added to diplomacy, development, and military force as a leading instrument of American foreign policy.
5. In keeping with recent administrations, “public diplomacy,” not mentioned, seems assumed to be integral to diplomacy.
6. Traditional distinctions “between foreign and domestic – and among national security, economic security, health security, and environmental security – are less meaningful than ever before.”
7. To reflect this new reality, the US will “reform and rethink our agencies, departments, interagency processes, and White House organization.”

Benjamin G. Martin and Elisabeth Piller, “Cultural Diplomacy and Europe’s Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919-1939: Introduction,” Published online by Cambridge University Press, March 26, 2021. In this excellent online overview, Martin (Uppsala University) and Piller (University of Freiburg) survey claims and issues relating to cultural diplomacy in Europe between the First and Second World Wars. They ask a central question. At a time when European states were struggling with economic depression and ideological conflicts, why did foreign ministries choose to invest substantial resources in “the arts, literature, architecture, education and science?” Their essay introduces a collection of articles on nine European countries, case studies that examine the argument that cultural diplomacy developed because of, not despite, the crises of the interwar years. Martin and Piller explore the historiography of cultural diplomacy, definitions of the term, challenges to the narratives of Americanization and a disproportionate Cold War focus, perspectives on “new diplomatic history,” partnerships with non-state actors as a defining feature of cultural diplomacy, and the cultural diplomacy of ideological struggle. The articles can be accessed as they appear online in a special issue of Contemporary European History.

Ken Moskowitz, “Effective Public Diplomacy: Lessons from Tuk-Tam,”The Foreign Service Journal, April 2021. Retired Foreign Service Officer Ken Moskowitz shows how authentic long- term engagement with citizens in other countries can have enduring effects. His article describes his multi-year connection, beginning in 2009, with Tuk-Tam (“Here-There”), a start-up Bulgarian NGO committed to encouraging young Bulgarians to return from the US and Western Europe to build careers at home. Today Tuk-Tam is a thriving organization committed to launching projects and host to a large global online community. Lessons learned: PAOs should welcome the State Department’s thematic guidance, but State should give field officers wide discretion in setting priorities and creating programs. The best field programs combine shared goals and fully committed local partners. Critiques of “American exceptionalism” will not stick, he contends, if diplomats listen first and take programming cues from “promising local leaders, of whatever age, rank or experience.”

Yascha Mounk, “Democracy on the Defense: Turning Back the Authoritarian Tide,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2021, 163-173. Mounk (Johns Hopkins University) takes the measure of recent authoritarian offensives and the failings of democracies in this essay on what should be done by democratization practitioners. He argues they need to rethink the idea of “democracy promotion” and its premise that the future will be more democratic than the past. Mounk calls for a strategy of “democracy protection” focused largely on maintaining democracies at risk rather than expanding the democratic world. His recommendations include: a corresponding shift of resources by the National Endowment for Democracy and other democracy building organizations, restoration of RFE’s Polish language broadcasts, monitoring changes in India that would merit a Voice of America Hindi language service, targeted sanctions against officials who subvert democratic institutions, greater focus on links between foreign and domestic politics (e.g., stiff punishments for corporate bribes to foreign officials, laws that prohibit corporations and sports teams from punishing employees critical of autocratic regimes), and the hard, perhaps unachievable, work of resolving unsustainable membership for autocratic regimes in NATO.

Jason C. Parker, Hearts, Minds, Voices: US Cold War Public Diplomacy and the Formation of the Third World, (Oxford University Press, 2016). In this history of American public diplomacy in the Global South during the first decade and a half of the Cold War, Parker (Texas A&M University) advances several claims. First, US public diplomacy played an inadvertent role in fostering the entity of the Third World. Second, it provided a “kind of connective tissue” between the US-Soviet confrontation in Europe and a widening Cold War grounded in decolonization in multiple countries. Third, as decolonizing peoples became the center of USIA’s attention, they engaged in their own public diplomacy, which opposed racism and colonization, and promoted nonalignment and economic development over the superpower conflict. Parker’s case studies illuminate the historical arc of geopolitical and diplomatic trends. They also, he observes, validate the strategic importance of public diplomacy. His excellent book is an accomplished scholar’s selective investigation of events, personalities, tools and methods, and strengths and limitations in USIA’s early Cold War public diplomacy from, as he clearly states, a Washington perspective. Further research is needed in the archives of nations in the Global South. Parker’s book regrettably was overlooked in this list when it was published. Catching up now.

Victoria Phillips, Martha Graham’s Cold War: The Dance of American Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2020). The strength of this superbly researched book lies in the voice it gives to the many diplomats, journalists, and cultural figures with first-hand knowledge of Martha Graham’s four decades of cultural diplomacy. Grounded in interviews and primary documents, this is practitioner-oriented diplomatic history at its best. We read about American ambassadors celebrating modern dance as a demonstration of “the universality of freedom,” while also insisting that the “trickle down diplomacy” of her cultural expression will advance pro-US policies. USIS reports early in the Cold War contend “the US should replace European countries as a model civilization” and that Graham’s lecture-demonstrations are “the best propaganda to date.” Cultural diplomats wonder if “emotion in output” can gain credibility and if women can convey “political ideas through psychological revelations.” Cables from US embassies discuss how

Graham’s Appalachian Spring will play in British-colonized Malaya and Singapore and the American-colonized Philippines. Phillips’ insights and analyses range wide and deep, making this a difficult book to summarize. Topics include modern dance as an art form that aged over time; the power of dance and music as non-verbal forms of cultural diplomacy; and her comparison of the Graham who claimed she was not a modernist (rather a self-described “contemporary”), not political, not a feminist, and not a missionary – with Graham the politically astute cultural icon who during four decades “waged a Cold War with modernism in the name of freedom.” Victoria Phillips is a former dancer who studied with Graham before turning to the academic study of cultural history and diplomacy. Her book is an important contribution to Cold War history and the literature on US cultural diplomacy.

Anne-Marie Slaughter and Gordon LaForge, “Opening Up the Order: A More Inclusive International System,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2021, 154-162. Slaughter (CEO of New America) and LaForge (Princeton University) give new life to a compelling idea that Slaughter developed nearly two decades ago in her book, A New World Order (2005). She described it as the “disaggregation of the state” into component executive, legislative, judicial, and sub-national parts. Government regulators, lawmakers, judges, mayors, and civil society organizations were working together in governance networks parallel to formal networks of state-based institutions. These new governance actors inevitably were becoming new diplomacy actors. Both the state-based international order (with formal legitimacy, but often ineffective) and an evolving complex networked order (more participatory, nimble, and innovative, but less accountable) are necessary to confront global threats and challenges. Using responses of both orders to COVID-19 and other global health issues, Slaughter and LaForge explore the dynamics of a new networked liberal order with new actors, new connections, incentivized problem-solving hubs, global networks of mayors and governors, and clear metrics that judge practical results. There are ample research opportunities in this space for diplomacy scholars and practitioners.

Paweł Surowiec and Ilan Manor, eds., Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Uncertainty, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Surowiec (University of Sheffield) and Manor (University of Oxford) have compiled a wide-ranging collection of essays that focus on how uncertainties driven by political extremism, pandemic disease, weaponized digital technologies, rejection of globalization, societal tensions, a post-truth culture, and other global trends are changing multiple elements of public diplomacy. Framed in a foreword by James Pamment (Lund University), chapters include:

— Surowiec and Manor, “Introduction: Certainty of Uncertainty and Public Diplomacy.”

— Steven Louis Pike (Syracuse University) “The ‘American Century’ Is Over: The US Global Leadership Narrative, Uncertainty and Public Diplomacy.”

— Yan Wu, Richard Thomas, and Yakun Yu (Swansea University), “From External Propaganda to Mediated Public Diplomacy: The Construction of the Chinese Dream in President Xi Jinping’s New Year Speeches.”

— Juan Luis Manfredi Sánchez (University of Castilla-La Mancha) and Francisco Seoane Pérez (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid), “Climate Change Begins at Home: City Diplomacy in the Age of the Anthropocene.”

— Nicholas J. Cull, (University of Southern California). “‘Rough Winds Do Shake the Darling Buds of May’: Theresa May, British Public Diplomacy and Reputational Security in the Era of Brexit.”

— Ilan Manor and Corneliu Bjola (University of Oxford), “Public Diplomacy in the Age of ‘Post- reality.’”

— Christopher Miles (Bournemouth University), “The Manufacturing of Uncertainty in Public Diplomacy: A Rhetorical Approach.”

— Lucy Birge (University of Manchester) and Precious N. Chatterje-Doody (Open University, UK), “Russian Public Diplomacy: Questioning Certainties in Uncertain Times.”

— Zhao Alexandre Huang (Université Gustave Eiffel), “The Confucius Institute and Relationship Management: Uncertainty Management of Chinese Public Diplomacy in Africa.”

— Alicia Fjällhed (Lund University), “Managing Disinformation Through Public Diplomacy.”

— Sara Kulsoom (Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi), “Economic Determinants of India’s Public Diplomacy Towards South Asia.”

— Laura Mills (University of St. Andrews), “Managing Uncertainty: The Everyday Global Politics of Post-9/11 US Public Diplomacy.”

— Shixin Ivy Zhang (University of Nottingham Ningbo China), “Foreign Correspondence and Digital Public Diplomacy.”

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “ACPD Meeting Minutes andTranscript,” February 11, 2021. The Commission’s quarterly meeting, moderated by executive director Vivian Walker and held virtually with 250 observers and participants, focused on the Commission’s recent “2020 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting.” A panel of experts discussed the report, presented views on challenges facing public diplomacy, and took audience questions: Martha Bayles (Boston College), Kathy Fitzpatrick (University of South Florida), and Jay Wang (University of Southern California). The full transcript can be viewed at the link.

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest

Matt Armstrong, “Neglected History, Forgotten Lessons: A Presentation and a Discussion,” April 2, 2021, MountainRunner.us.

Evan Cooper, “How Can America Fight Disinformation?” March 17, 2021, Instick Media; Evan Cooper and Robert A. Manning, “How to Fix the US Public Diplomacy Deficit: Restore

USIA,” February 13, 2021, The Hill.

Nicholas J. Cull, “‘What is to Be Done?’ Professor Cull Answers Questions About Rebuilding U.S. Public Diplomacy,” March 9, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.

Tim Dahlberg, “Ping Pong Diplomacy Resonates a Half Century Later,” April 5, 2021, AP.

Paula Dobriansky, Ed Gabriel, and Marisa Lino, “The Soft But Unmatched Power of US Foreign Exchange Programs,” February 2021, The Hill.

Gordon Duguid, “U.S. Public Diplomacy’s Secret Weapons Are Too Few,” March 28, 2021, Diplomatic Diary.

Renee M. Earle, “Can the U.S. Still Be an Example to the World?” February 2021, American Diplomacy.

Kate Ewart-Biggs, “Cultural Relations in a Time of Crisis,” February 2021, British Council.

David Folkenflik, “Trump Appointee At VOA Parent Paid Law Firm Millions To Investigate His Own Staff,” March 4, 2021, NPR; “Trump Official Cited Security To Kill Visas For VOA Staffers, E-mails Say Otherwise,” February 11, 2021, NPR.

Sarah Forland, “Empowering City Diplomacy is Crucial to Building a Resilient Future,” February 22, 2021, American Security Project.

Ryan Heath, “The State Department Has a Systemic Diversity Problem,” March 16, 2021, Politico.

Robert D. Kaplan, “Rebuilding the State Department from the Ground Up,” February 14, 2021, The National Interest.

Patrick Radden Keefe, “Wind of Change: Did the CIA Write a Power Ballad That Ended the Cold War?” Wind of Change Podcast.

Kristin M. Lord and Katya Vogt, “Strengthen Media Literacy to Win the Fight Against Misinformation,” March 18, 2021, Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Alistair MacDonald, “Global Britain in a Competitive Age,” March 2021, British Council.

Ken Moskowitz, “How Do We Talk to Foreign Audiences After Trump’s Subversion?” February 2021, American Diplomacy.

Sherry L. Mueller and Joel A. Fishman, “Eight Steps to Rebuild U.S. Credibility as a World Leader and a Society Worthy of Emulation,” March 2021, The Foreign Service Journal.

Chris Murphy, “Murphy Introduces Legislation to Ensure Diplomats are on the Front Lines in Fragile States and Conflict Zones,” March 11, 2021, Press Release; Senator Murphy’s “Expeditionary Diplomacy Act of 2021,” March 11, 2021; Robbie Gramer, “New Bill Takes Aim at State Department’s ‘Bunker Mentality,’” March 10, 2021, Foreign Policy.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “How I Got Here,” March 14, 2021, Foreign Affairs Career Center. Dinyar Patel, “Go Abroad, Young American,” March 29, 2021, Foreign Affairs.

“Putin’s Latest Aggression Could Silence U.S. Media Operations in Russia,” February 13, 2021, Editorial Board, The Washington Post.

Kishan S. Rana, “Multilateral Training and Work at Foreign Ministries,” February 2021, American Diplomacy.

Greg Starr and Ronald E. Neumann, “Changing a Risk-Averse Paradigm at High-Threat Posts Abroad,” March 2021, The Foreign Service Journal.

Yasmeen Serhan, “The Ultimate Symbol of America’s Diminished Soft Power,” February 2021, The Atlantic.

Pranshu Verma, “Under Biden, Diplomacy Is An Attractive Career Again,” March 27, 2021, The New York Times.

Matthew Wallin, “10 Reasons Disinformation is Appealing,” February 23, 2021, American Security Project.

Fareed Zakaria, “America is Becoming More Imperial Than Empires Were. That’s a Mistake,” February 25, 2021, The Washington Post.

Gem From The Past

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., The Future of Power, (Public Affairs: 2011). It has been ten years since Nye (Harvard University) published this magisterial synthesis of his decades of scholarship on the nature and types of power. In diplomacy and communication studies, Nye is best known for his concept of soft power, views on the study and practice of public diplomacy, and the paradox derived from an amplitude of information and poverty of attention. His thinking is invoked and critiqued, explored in analytical deep dives, often cited casually, and frequently misunderstood. The Future of Power continues to reward for its academic rigor, its discussion of 21st century power shifts among states and from states to nonstate actors, its examination of hard, soft, and smart power categories in the context of global trends, its insights into public diplomacy “done more by publics,” and its original analysis of cyberpower in “a new and volatile human-made environment.” For those seeking to “move beyond Nye,” here’s the thing. When

revisionist arguments are advanced, one usually finds on close examination that he has anticipated your move in a footnote, in a chapter, in a line of argument advanced decades ago.

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, and MountainRunner.us

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

Martha Bayles, “News They Can Use,” National Affairs, Number 46, Winter 2021.  Bayles (Boston College) weaves an account of recent political controversies in US international broadcasting with an overview of how the missions, structures, and methods of its media networks have evolved and intersect.  Details of Trump loyalist Michael Pack’s destructive leadership of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and her critique of Congress’s abolition of the Broadcasting Board of Governors lead her narrative.  Her tapestry includes assessments of the VOA Charter, the origins of RFE/RL, a brief case study of VOA and Radio Free Asia’s broadcasts in Cambodia, the “intense, sometimes bitter rivalry” between VOA and the grantee networks driven by scarce resources and desire “to shift the stigma of being a ‘government mouthpiece,’” and her analysis of how America’s journalism norms have changed in commercial and government sponsored media.  Bayles’ blended approach to surrogate broadcasting puts a useful spotlight on how all USAGM networks, including VOA, cover events in other countries as well as news about America.  Broadcasters, as they do endlessly, will debate her perspective and the fine points of her thought-provoking article.  General audiences will find it an informed, easy to understand summary of key issues and useful historical context for the deluge of national news stories on US broadcasting in the last year of the Trump presidency.  

British Council, Soft Power and Cultural Relations Institutions in a Time of Crisis, Researched and written by International Cultural Relations (ICR), London, January 29, 2021. This 65-page report, commissioned by the Council and prepared by an ICR team led by Stuart MacDonald (ICR) and Nicholas Cull (University of Southern California), is an in-depth assessment of the UK’s cultural relations infrastructure and broadly comparable cultural relations organizations and practices in 12 other countries (Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Turkey, and the US) and the European Union.  The report was written for the Council as a “competitor analysis” intended to provide knowledge and implications for policymakers in the UK who are transitioning to new relationships outside the EU and dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.  It has broad empirical and conceptual value, however, for scholars and practitioners.  The report’s descriptive information (structures, methods, funding levels) and quantitative data are presented clearly and systematically.  Its findings are grounded in extensive interviews with a variety of experts.  It devotes considerable attention to definitions: soft power, cultural relations, public diplomacy, relationship building, influence, attraction, competition.  It poses and explores a set of fundamental questions about soft power and cultural relations raised by the research.  It concludes with a literature review and discussion of its methodology.  This important report is sure to spark spirited debates in classrooms and policy meetings of practitioners.  One key issue derives from the report’s definition of soft power and problematic premise that soft power and cultural relations are categorically different.

Center for AI and Digital Policy (CAIDP), “Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values: The AI Social Contract Index 2020,” December 2020.  The CAIDP, founded in 2020 under the auspices of the Michael Dukakis Institute, seeks to ensure that AI research and national policies are fair, accountable, and transparent.  Its AI Social Contract Index 2020, developed by a team of international experts, analyzed AI in 30 countries and ranked ordered their performance.  Germany ranked first for its promotion of public participation in AI policymaking, strong standards for data protection, and AI policy efforts within the EU.  Canada, France, South Korea, and others ranked in the second tier.  The US was placed in tier 3 “because its policy-making process is opaque” and lack of strong laws for data privacy.  China ranked in tier 4 because of its use of facial recognition against ethnic minorities and political protesters.  The report lists five key recommendations to guide policymakers and the public.  See also “Artificial Intelligence Cybersecurity Challenges,” European Union Agency for Cybersecurity,” December 15, 2020.  (Courtesy of Len Baldyga)

“Geoffrey Wiseman Joins DePaul University as Endowed Chair of Applied Diplomacy,”  January 8, 2021, DePaul Newsroom.  The Grace School of Applied Diplomacy at DePaul offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs designed to prepare “a new generation of diplomats” who will pursue careers “not only in the foreign service, but in their work as business people, scientists, artists, community organizers, activists, clergy and educators.”

Thomas Kent, Striking Back: Overt and Covert Options to Combat Russian Disinformation, (The Jamestown Foundation, 2020).  The former president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty argues that Western responses to Russian disinformation have been weak, uncoordinated, too reliant on defensive measures, too reluctant to confront and expose Russia’s actions, and too constrained by fears of “becoming propagandists ourselves.”  His book is a call for a campaign that stresses democratic values and includes more aggressive messaging to the Russian people by governments and non-government organizations.  It includes a series of recommended actions for governments and democracy activists and an assessment of the ethics and practicality of covert actions. 

Diana Ingenhoff, Giada Clamai, and Efe Sevin, “Key Influencers in Public Diplomacy 2.0: A Country-Based Social Network Analysis,” Social Media + Society, January-March 2021, 1-12.  Ingenhoff, (University of Fribourg), Clamai (University of Fribourg), and Sevin (Towson University) use a two-month data set of Twitter-based communication to identify key influencers in Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands and assess their role in shaping country images.  A key assumption of their study is that in the digital age, non-state actors, citizens, and individual users can interact directly with local, national, and international authorities and create public diplomacy content.  The authors contend their analysis offers insights into “how opinion leaders can play a more dominant role than states or other political actors in creating and disseminating content related to country image.”  They also assert their research “demonstrated a theoretical and empirical link between social media communication campaigns and audiences’ perceptions of countries,” which can be used to assess the influence of other public diplomacy projects.  Their study uses quantitative and qualitative methods, which are helpfully explained at length, and includes a useful list of references.  

Diana Ingenhoff and Jérôme Chariatte, Solving the Public Diplomacy Puzzle— Developing a 360-Degree Integrated Public Diplomacy Listening and Evaluation Approach to Analyzing what Constitutes a Country Image from Different Perspectives, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, November 2020.  Ingenhoff and Chariatte (University of Fribourg) discuss their conceptual model for analyzing how public diplomacy, different types of publics, and five country image components contribute to the formation of country images.  The first part of the paper examines relevant literature and the elements of their model.  Then they explore its application to Switzerland’s country image using survey data to analyze perceptions in five countries (Germany, France, Italy, the UK and the US).  They conclude with an assessment of the limitations of their empirical study and suggestions for future research.

Journal of Public Diplomacy, Korean Association for Public Diplomacy (KAPD).  JPD is a promising new journal devoted to public diplomacy scholarship and practice.  Launched by KAPD, it is the initiative of Editor-in-Chief Kadir Jun Ayhan (Ewha Womans University) and Associate Editors Lindsay Bier (University of Southern California), Efe Sevin (Towson University), and Lisa Tam (Queensland University of Technology).  Its goals are (1) to publish articles devoted to theoretical and empirical research on public diplomacy that will contribute to the discipline of international relations, and (2) to provide a venue for discussions and exchanges of views among scholars, policymakers and practitioners.  JPD is a double-blind peer-reviewed and open-access journal to be published biannually online in June and December, beginning in June 2021.  Additional information and author guidelines are accessible on the Journal’s website.

Jill Lepore, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future, (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020). Harvard University historian Jill Lepore, acclaimed author of These Truths and seemingly almost weekly essays in The New Yorker, has mined MIT’s archives to tell the story of the 1960’s corporation that anticipated the uses of computer modeling for campaign politics and psychological warfare.  It is largely the story of the personalities who founded Simulmatics, including notably its head of research, Ithiel de sola Pool, and their consulting work with politicians and government agencies.  Although her book devotes considerable attention to the firm’s role in John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign and the Pentagon’s counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam, it also captures an era when an early generation of communications scholars and behavioral scientists helped to shape USIA’s public diplomacy strategies and public opinion research.  Her pages contain highly readable accounts of Pool’s life and work, Simulmatics’ contested relations with Eugene Burdick (The Ugly American), and the influence of communications theorists Harold Lasswell and Paul Lazarsfeld.  In Silicon Valley, Lepore writes, “the meaninglessness of the past and the uselessness of history became articles of faith, gleefully performed arrogance.”  This “cockeyed idea” isn’t original, she continues.  “It’s a creaky, bankrupt Cold War idea . . . The invention of the future has a history, decades old, dilapidated.  Simulmatics is its cautionary tale.”

Juan-Luis Manfredi-Sánchez, “Deglobalization and Public Diplomacy,”  International Journal of Communication,15(2021), 905-926.  Manfredi-Sánchez’s (University of Castilla-La Mancha) central claim in this article is that “deglobalization” – characterized by a downturn in flows of trade, services, capital, and people; the rise of populism and nationalism; a global pandemic; and new barriers to cosmopolitanism – has undermined the foundations of public diplomacy.  “Deglobalization assumes the principles of an anarchic society in which the tools intrinsic to public diplomacy are put to an unfair use.”  For example, journalistic information is converted to propaganda.  Social media campaigns support disinformation.  Culture is used “to break and reconstruct historical links suiting the present.”  Using Nicholas Cull’s public diplomacy taxonomy (listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchange diplomacy, and international broadcasting), Manfredi-Sánchez explores the consequences of deglobalization for each category of practice using a variety of examples and arguments from a broad range of scholarship in communications theory, diplomacy studies, and international relations.  He concludes by pointing to two areas of research in which these ideas can be tested: the immediate and long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and whether nation branding is compatible with the political and economic structures of deglobalization.  The full text can be downloaded.  (Courtesy of Francisco Rodriguez-Jimenez)

Michael McFaul, “Dressing for Dinner,” November 25, 2020; “Sometimes You Get Another Chance,”December 14, 2020;  “Sell It Again Uncle Sam,” January 13, 2021, American Purpose.  In three articles drawn from his forthcoming book, American Renewal: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today, McFaul (Stanford University, former US Ambassador to Russia) offers ideas on democratic renewal, combatting illiberalism and disinformation, and ways to improve the performance and institutions of American diplomacy.  Transforming America’s democracy at home “towers above all other objectives” in what he calls the “global ideological struggle between democracy and autocracy, liberalism and illiberalism, and open and closed societies.”  Many ideas on his long list of proposals are “devoted to improving public diplomacy, strategic communications, and U.S. government-funded media.” 

(1) Expand the portfolio of every US diplomat to include public diplomacy and strategic communications. 

(2) Strengthen the authority, resources, and staff of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R).  Broaden its purview to include State’s Bureau of Democracy Human Rights, and Labor “so that democracy, human rights, public diplomacy and strategic communication become more integrated.”  Change the name to Under Secretary for Global Engagement, Democracy, and Human Rights and, because “symbolism is important,” relocate its offices to the “seventh floor.”  

(3) Upgrade the Global Engagement Center to bureau status to be “run by an assistant secretary and radically expanded to be able to expose, deter, and slow the spread of anti-American disinformation.”  Strengthen its ties to American social media companies. 

(4) After four disruptive years, rebuild the talent in the US Agency for Global Media’s organizations.  RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia, Radio Farda, Cuba Broadcasting, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and the Open Technology Fund should be completely independent, with nonpartisan boards and funding channels comparable to grantees of the National Endowment for Democracy.   

(5) Consider transforming VOA into an organization affiliated with the Corporation of Public Broadcasting with the sole purpose of broadcasting news – “in essence an American version of the BBC.” 

(6) Radically expand all educational exchanges, short-term leadership training programs, and yearlong fellowships at US and European universities. 

(7) Finish the work of amending Smith-Mundt restrictions on domestic dissemination to increase the State Department’s “focus on explaining U.S. diplomacy to the American people.” 

Walter Russell Mead, “The End of the Wilsonian Era: Why Liberal Internationalism Failed,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2021.  With his typically clear writing and analysis, Mead (Bard College) discusses his reasons for why the Wilsonian liberal international order project has failed.  Many supporters of President Biden want to put Humpty Dumpty together again.  Mead wishes them well.  They may have continued success in Europe.  But elsewhere their prospects appear bleak.  Why?  The return of an ideology-fueled geopolitics in which Russia, China, Iran and their allies view Wilsonian ideals as a deadly threat.  Destabilizing new technologies that undermine democracies and empower authoritarian regimes.  Historical patterns of empires and civilizational states that have been as enduring and attractive as the European model of peer state rivalries.  Fixating on past liberal order glories will not be productive for team Biden.  It will need to focus on American foreign policy as a coalition affair between Wilsonians, Hamiltonians, Jacksonians, and Jeffersonians.  That said, Mead contends, nothing in politics is forever, including the current “Wilsonian recession.”  “The Wilsonian vision is too deeply implanted in American political culture, and the values to which it speaks have too much global appeal, to write its obituary just yet.”

Hedvig Ördén and James Pamment , “What’s So Foreign About Foreign Influence Operations?”  Lines in the Sand Series #1, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2021.  Ördén and Pamment (Lund University) question the utility of “foreignness” as a criterion for distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate influence operations.  They argue it can be helpful in a narrow set of cases “where there is overwhelming evidence of state-based, hybrid, and irregular warfare” – and in protection of democratic institutions, such as in elections.  But, more broadly, defining influence operations as illegitimate simply because they are carried out by foreign states, by foreign citizens, or in terms of foreign interests is insufficient.  Their paper develops the reasoning supporting these claims and briefly discusses alternative approaches in judging how to effectively combat influence operations.

Mark G. Pomar, “A U.S. Media Strategy for the 2020s: Lessons from the Cold War,” Texas National Security Review, Vol. 4, Issue 1, Winter 2020/2021.  In this call for the Biden administration to revitalize US international broadcasting, Pomar (University of Texas) draws on experiences and insights from his career as a Russian studies scholar and practitioner with Voice of America, RFE/RL, and IREX.  US broadcasting’s current difficulties, he argues, are a consequence of (1) “ill-conceived” 2017 legislation that created a powerful CEO and eliminated the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors, (2) the Trump administration’s appointment of Michael Pack as CEO, and (3) failure to develop a media strategy relevant to today’s global challenges.  His article covers a lot of historical ground, primarily as it relates to what can be learned from the capabilities and methods of RFE/RL during the Cold War.  He devotes attention to former Senator Joe Biden’s crucial role in maintaining RFE/RL’s mission and corporate structure at the end of the Cold War.  The task ahead, Pomar argues, is to create a new national security directive that articulates a bold vision for US broadcasters, correct the legislation creating a powerful CEO, preserve the independent status of RFE/RL and other surrogate broadcasters, develop a comprehensive media strategy, hire leaders with journalistic and area expertise, and pass legislation that protects the journalistic independence of US broadcasters.  His article is drawn in part from a forthcoming book about international broadcasting during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Anna A. Velikaya and Greg Simons, eds., Russia’s Public Diplomacy: Evolution and Practice, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).  Velikaya (The Alexander Gorkachev Public Diplomacy Foundation, Moscow) and Simons (Uppsala University, Sweden) have compiled essays that examine three questions.  What is Russian public diplomacy exactly?  What are its activities, past and present?  How effective are its numerous public diplomacy programs?  Contributors address a broad range of topics: nation branding, soft power, digital diplomacy, science diplomacy, the role of civil society, and cases of Russian public diplomacy in international organizations, Southeast Asia, the Baltic Sea region, Latin America, and the Middle East.   For an informed review that describes the book as “essential reading,” points to similarities between Russian and US public diplomacy, and summarizes strengths that outweigh its limitations, see Vivian Walker, “Insights Into Russia’s PD Challenges,” The Foreign Service Journal, October 2020, 73-74.

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “2020 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy & International Broadcasting: Focus on FY 2019 Budget Data,” February 2021.  As has been the Commission’s practice in recent years, almost all of its 287-page 2020 report consists of strategy documents, budget data, and program descriptions prepared by State Department and US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) practitioners.  There is a wealth of descriptive information, systematically organized and illuminated by excellent graphics, which will be useful to Congressional staff, public policy researchers, scholars and students.  Particularly helpful are budget graphics showing 2019 spending by region and overseas mission, and annual spending from 1980-2019 in actual and adjusted 2019 dollars. The Commission’s oversight responsibilities are found primarily in four pages of recommendations (pp. 15-18) for the White House, Congress, State Department Bureaus, and USAGM.  Many have been updated from previous Commission reports.  Included are the following: (1) resurrect the NSC’s Information Statecraft Policy Coordinating Committee, (2) implement findings of a recent Strategic Resource Review intended to balance resource allocations with foreign policy priorities and eliminate inefficient and duplicative activities, (3) integrate educational and cultural affairs programs more fully into the policy planning process, and (4) undertake restorative measures in the wake of efforts to politicize USAGM’s journalists and breaches of the Congressionally-required broadcasting firewall. 

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest 

Mike Anderson, “Five PD Favorites,”  February 1, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Anne Applebaum, “What Trump and His Mob Taught the World About America,”  January 7, 2021, The Atlantic. 

Matt Armstrong, “Neglected History, Forgotten Lessons: The Struggle or Minds and Wills Relies on Leadership First, Organization Second,”  January 14, 2021, NSI. 

Emma Ashford, “America Can’t Promote Democracy Abroad. It Can’t Even Protect It At Home,”  January 7, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Donald M. Bishop, “Eight Steps to a Stronger US Public Diplomacy,”  December 13, 2020, The Hill. 

Elizabeth Braw, “The United States Needs a BBC,”  January 28, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Elizabeth Cornelius, “Q&A With a Council Member: Leonard J. Baldyga,” February 7, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Laura Daniels, “How White Supremacists Use Soft Power,”  February 5, 2021, Lawfare. 

Ciarán Devane, “The Power of Experience and Shared Values,”  December 2020, British Council. 

Patrick Duddy and Michael Shoenfeld, “Biden’s Facing a Diplomacy Deficit Going Back Decades,”  February 1, 2021, CNN. 

Daniel Immerwahr, “History Isn’t Just for Patriots,” December 27, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Richard LeBaron and Dan Sreebny,  “Biden Administration Should Act Fast to Bolster People-to-People Exchanges with the Middle East,”  December 4, 2020, Atlantic Council. 

Robert M. Gates, “The World is Full of Challenges. Here’s How Biden Can Meet Them,”  December 18, 2020, The New York Times. 

Paul Farhi, “Radio Free Europe Fires a Prominent Russian Journalist – and the Kremlin Smirks,” December 16, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Jeffrey Feltman, “To Rebuild the Foreign Service, Avoid an ‘Amnesty’ and Promote Functional Roles,”  December 28, 2020, Brookings. 

Jamie Fly,“How Biden Can Undo Damage to U.S.-backed News Outlets That Counter Authoritarian Propaganda,”  December 24, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Robert D. Kaplan, “The Greatest Humanitarian You’ve Never Heard Of,” January 24, 2021, Foreign Policy; Max Boot, “A Guide to Repairing Our Image Abroad and Replacing ‘the Ugly American,’” January 26, 2021, The Washington Post. 

Molly McCluskey, “Their Doors May Be Closed, But Embassies Are Still Showing People the World,”  January 26, 2021, Smithsonian Magazine. 

Emile Nakleh, “A New US Approach to the Muslim World,”  December 14, 2020, The Cipher Brief. 

Rachel Oswald, “Congress Ditches State Department Bill After Fight With Ivanka Trump,”  December 23, 2020, Roll Call. 

Sagatom Saha, “Let 100 Foreign Services Bloom,”  February 1, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Anton Troianovski, “Russia Pushes U.S.-Funded News Outlet Toward Exit,”  January 21, 2021, The New York Times; “Meeks, McCaul, Kaptur, Kinzinger, and Keating on Threats to U.S. International Broadcasting,”  January 22, 2021, Press Release, Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Selected Items (in chronological order): Trump / Voice of America / USAGM 

Brian Schwartz, “Trump Loyalist Michael Pack Plots Final Purge at Federal Media Agency Before Biden Takes Office,”  December 7, 2020, CNBC 

“Inspector General Statement on the Agency for Global Media’s Major Management and Performance Challenges,”  December 2020, Office of Inspector General, Department of State. 

David Folkenflik, “VOA Director Forced Aside in Drive to Embed Trump Loyalists Before Biden Era,”  December 8, 2020, NPR; Paul Farhi, “Voice of America Interim Director Pushed Out by Trump-appointed Overseer in Final Flurry of Actions to Assert Control,”  December 8, 2020, The Washington Post; Pranshu Verma, “Trump Appointee Sidelines V.O.A. Director Before Biden Takes Office,”  December 8, 2020, The New York Times. 

Paul Farhi, “Trump Appointee Who Oversees Voice of America Refuses to Cooperate with Biden Transition Team,”  December 8, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Jon Allsop, “The Fight for Voice of America,”  December 9, 2020, Columbia Journalism Review. 

“Engel Statement on Appointment of Robert Reilly as VOA Director,”  December 9, 2020, US House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs; Jessica Jerreat, “USAGM Says Robert Reilly to Return as VOA Director,”  December 9, 2020, VOA News; “Robert R. Reilly Returns to Role of VOA Director,”  December 9, 2020, USAGM; Alan Heil, “U.S.-Funded Global Media: an Uncertain Future,”  December 10, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council.

 “Trump Has Launched An Eleventh-hour Assault on Voice of America,”  December 10, 2020, Editorial, The Washington Post. 

Amanda Bennett, “I Was Voice of America’s Director. Trump’s Latest Pick to Run the Organization is Dangerous,”  December 11, 2020, The Washington Post. 

David Folkenflik, “New VOA Director Arrives With Baggage: Anti-Islamic and Homophobic Writings,”  December 11, 2020, NPR. 

Margaret Sullivan, “Restoring the Voice of America After a Trump ‘Wrecking Ball’ Won’t Be Easy.  But It’s Worth Saving,”  December 13, 2020, The Washington Post. 

“Press Release: Voice of America Staff Protest Appointment of New VOA Director,”  December 14, 2020, Government Accountability Project; Courtney Buble, “Anonymous Voice of America Employees Protest New Acting Director,”  December 15, 2020, Government Executive. 

Bill Gertz, “Michael Pack Fiercely Defends Overhaul of Voice of America and other U.S. Broadcast Outlets,”  December 14, 2020, The Washington Times 

Alan Heil, “A Fresh Look at U.S. Overseas Broadcasting,”  December  18, 2020, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Paul Farhi,“Trump Appointee Names Conservative Allies to Run Radio Free Europe and Cuba Broadcast Agency,”  December 18. 2020; “USAGM CEO Names New Leaders for RFE/RL, OCB,”  December 18, 2020, VOA News. 

Joe O’Connell, “Give Listeners a Reason to Tune In,”  December 21, 2020, The Washington Post. 

Jessica Jerreat, “COVID-19 and Defense Spending Bills Target USAGM Powers,”  December 22, 2020, VOA News. 

David Folkenflik, “Trump Appointee Seeks Lasting Control Over Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia,”  December 30, 2020, NPR; Brian Schwartz, “Trump-appointed Federal Media Agency CEO Blasted in Letter by Radio Free Europe Leaders,”  December 30, 2020, CNBC. 

“Targeted Inspection of the U.S. Agency for Global Media: Journalistic Standards and Principles,” Office of Inspector General, US Department of State, December 2020. 

Rob Bole, “USAGM Is A Unique, Underutilized Foreign Policy Tool,” December 28, 2021, MountainRunner.us 

Kim Andrew Elliott, “US International Broadcasting: The Demolition of Credibility,”  January 6, 2021, The Hill. 

Paul Farhi, “Voice of America Employees Protest Order to Broadcast Pompeo Speech, Calling it Propaganda,” January 8, 2021, The Washington Post; Whistleblower complaint, Address by Secretary of State Pompeo at VOA headquarters endangers public health and safety, Government Accountability Project, January 8, 2021; David Folkenflik, “Voice of America CEO Accused of Fraud, Misuse of Office All in One Week,”  January 8, 2021, NPR. 

“Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Gives an Address at Voice of America,” January 11, 2021, Youtube video, 33 minutes. 

Karen DeYoung, “Pompeo Calls on VOA to Trumpet American Exceptionalism as Journalists at the Service Warn of Propaganda,”January 11, 2021, The Washington Post; Nicole Gaouette, Jennifer Hansler, and Kyle Atwood, “Pompeo Accuses VOA of ‘Demeaning America’ in Speech that Whistleblowers Blast as ‘Political Propaganda,’” January 11, 2021, CNN Business; Laura Kelly, “Pompeo Feud With US Global Media Agency Intensifies,” January 11, 2021, The Hill; Jessica Jerreat, “Pompeo Defends Changes at USAGM Under Trump Appointee,” January 11, 2021, VOA News. 

David Folkenflik, “Voice of America White House Reporter Reassigned After Questioning Pompeo,”  January 12, 2021, NPR; Paul Farhi, “Voice of America Reassigns White House Reporter After She Sought to Question Mike Pompeo,”  January 12, 2021, The Washington Post. 

Tia Sewell, “Trump’s War on the U.S. Agency for Global Media,”  January 12, 2021, Lawfare. 

Dan De Luce, “Voice of America Journalists Demand Resignation of Top Officials, Protesting Sidelining of Two Staffers,”  January 14, 2021, NBC News; Jessica Jerreat, “Whistleblowers Demand VOA Director Resign Over Pompeo Speech, Staff Moves,”  January 14, 2021, VOA News. 

Paul Farhi, “Controversial Head of Voice of America Resigns Hours After President Biden Takes Office,”  January 20, 2021, The Washington Post. 

David Folkenflik, “Trump Ally at Voice of America Replaced by News Executive He Recently Demoted,” January 21, 2021, NPR; Paul Farhi, “At Voice of America, a Sweeping Ouster of Trump Officials on Biden’s First Full Day,” January 21, 2021, The Washington Post; Jessica Jerreat, “New Acting USAGM Chief Begins Undoing Predecessor’s Policies,” January 21, 2021, VOA News. 

David Folkenflik, “USAGM Chief Fires Trump Allies Over Radio Free Europe And Other Networks,” January 22, 2021, NPR. Paul Farhi, “Former Voice of America Overseer Hired Two Law Firms to $4 Million No-bid Contracts,” January 25, 2021, The Washington Post; “Voice of America Overseer Spent $2 Million Investigating Employees, Complaint Alleges,” January 19, 2021, The Washington Post.

“Meeks, McCaul Applaud Removal of Controversial USAGM Leadership,” January 25, 2021, Press Release, Committee on Foreign Affairs. 

David Folkenflik, “Trumpism at Voice of America: Firings, Foosball and a Conspiracy Theory,”  January 27, 2021, NPR. 

Robert R. Reilly, “Voice of America’s Dysfunction Corrupts News Organization’s Mission,”  February 4, 2021, The Washington Times. 

Byron York, “America’s Lost Voice,”  February 4, 2021, Washington Examiner.

“RFE/RL Welcomes Back Jamie Fly as President,”  February 4, 2021, USAGM.  

Gem From The Past 

Antony J. Blinken, “Winning the War of Ideas,” The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2002. 25.2 (2002), pp. 101-114.  Two decades ago, six months after 9/11 and three years after USIA’s merger with the State Department, recently appointed Secretary of State Blinken made a case for rebuilding public diplomacy.  He framed his ideas in the rhetoric and context of the day.  His change agenda included many perennial and still valid recommendations.  Some of his ideas were innovative and prescient.  (1) Prioritize public diplomacy in the foreign policy process.  (2) Strengthen research on public opinion.  (3) Develop a rapid response capability.  (4) Refine the role of ambassadors to focus more on public diplomacy.  (5) Emphasize language and communication skills in the assignment of ambassadors and all senior embassy officials, and provide them with regular media skills training.  (6) Create US presence posts outside foreign capitals.  (7) Enhance strategies for using the Internet.  (8) Develop, support, and leverage the expertise and credibility of outside partners.  (9) Expand highly effective exchange programs.  (10) Work with the private sector to develop message campaigns.  (11) Deploy technology and trade as “strategic weapons in the war to win hearts and minds.”  Blinken’s article is worth another look as he undertakes his new responsibilities.  

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,  and MountainRunner.us.