The fifth of IPDGC’s monthly series hosting international ambassadors to learn about their country’s approach to public diplomacy.
Date and Time
Monday, March 3rd 2025
5:00 – 6:00 PM ET
Address
School of Media and Public Affairs
5th Floor Studio
805 21st St NW, Washington DC 20052
Snacks and refreshments will be provided
* Doors will close at 5pm
The series will explore two related themes:
Savvy diplomats understand that to succeed in advancing foreign policy goals in Washington it is not enough to communicate in strictly government-to-government channels; they must act as public diplomats, engaging a range of audiences to influence perceptions. The interplay between public diplomacy actions and policy goals is frequently addressed from a U.S. government perspective, or in treating foreign governments’ actions in a third country setting, but this series explores Embassies’ engagement with the U.S. public.
What does it take to be an Ambassador assigned by your government to Washington, DC? What sort of personality, background, and skills are required? Once assigned, how does an Ambassador prepare for their assignment, and once here, how do they continue a process of learning about their country of assignment? Most importantly, how does an Ambassador assigned to Washington connect with America outside the beltway? If every savvy diplomat is a public diplomat, then how do Ambassadors remain connected with the broader American public?
About Our Speaker
Pjer Šimunović is Croatia’s Ambassador to the United States since September 2017. Before assuming his Ambassadorship, together with a career in international affairs journalism and academic research he served in various high-level positions in the Croatian Government, in the fields of national security, defense and diplomacy.
He was Director of the Office of the National Security Council, Ambassador to Israel, Defense State Secretary in charge of defense policy, National Coordinator for NATO and Assistant Foreign Minister, heading Division for International Organizations and Security, Political Counselor at the Embassy in Paris, and Deputy Director of Analytical Department in the Foreign Ministry. During his career in journalism, he worked with the BBC World Service in London, with the magazine Europ in Paris, and with the Croatian daily ‘Večernji list’ in Zagreb, covering the collapse of Communism, crisis and war in the former Yugoslavia, and European and Transatlantic affairs.
A regular speaker on the security issues at many international conferences and seminars, he is the author of a range of studies and articles published in the leading international journals, dealing with the arms trade and defense industry, post-Communist national security, NATO enlargement, defense transformation, international peace-keeping and stabilization operations, counter-terrorism (including: ‘Making of an Ally – NATO membership conditionality implemented on Croatia’, The Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Spring 2015; ‘A framework for success – contextual factors in the UNTAES operation in Eastern Slavonia’, International Peacekeeping, Spring 1999; ‘The Russian military in Chechnya – a case study of morale in war’, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, March 1998).
Ambassador Šimunović holds an M.A. degree from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and a B.A, degree in the Comparative Literature and Italian Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. He is born in Split, Croatia, in 1962. Ambassador Šimunović is decorated with the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur de la République française.
Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu and BGregory1@aol.com
Sherwood Demitz, “Memories From a Cold War Summit,”American Diplomacy, August 2024. In this vivid personal recollection, retired US Foreign Service officer Sherwood “Woody” Demitz discusses his memories of the historic 1972 Nixon-Brezhnev presidential summit in Moscow. It led to détente and signings of the SALT I Treaty, the ABM Treaty, and the US-USSR Incidents at Sea Treaty. Surrounding the substance were pressures on diplomats of a possible last-minute cancellation (the US had dropped aerial mines in North Vietnam’s Haiphong harbor trapping Soviet cargo ships), massive international media coverage, and a dinner for Brezhnev and the Politburo at Spaso House, the residence of the US ambassador. Demitz’s public diplomacy career combined foreign service postings, audience and media research, and international broadcasting.
Mervyn Frost, “The Global Diplomatic Practice: Constituting an Ethical World Order,” in J.E. Spence, Claire Yorke, and Alister Masser, eds., A New Theory and Practice of Diplomacy: New Perspectives on Diplomacy, (I.B. Taurus, 2021), 15-36 [see book review below]. Frost (Kings College London) makes interesting and debatable claims pertinent to discourse on practice theory, ethics and diplomacy, and public diplomacy. First, in contrast to many scholars who treat practice theory as what practitioners do instrumentally and situationally, Frost analyzes diplomatic practices as constitutive components of “the global society of sovereign states” and “global civil society.” Second, it follows, he argues, that in a world of diverse ethical codes, ethical standards for diplomats cannot be drawn from beyond diplomacy. Rather, they “can only be understood from within the social practices in which they are constituted as actors.” He divides everyday global diplomatic practices into “administration” (e.g., issuing passports, facilitating trade, and managing exchanges) and “politics” resolving disputes between states “about the rules of association within the global practice of states” (e.g., about claims to territory, reparations after wars, and constitutional issues in international organizations). Third, Frost contends these practices have become more complex due to media and communication forms open to publics and the “extensive strategic communications” of government leaders, which he states is sometimes “misleadingly referred to as ‘public diplomacy.’” A more accurate term, he argues, is simply “international politics” or the struggle for power and material advantage.
Frost’s chapter is useful because it prompts reflection on salient issues in practice theory and ethics in diplomacy. However, it is problematic in its assumption of a hard binary between the society of sovereign states and a “macro practice” of anarchy in the absence of central government — a category distinction that overlooks a vast domain of governance rules, norms, and institutions in the space between anarchy and government. His offhand dismissal of public diplomacy fails to consider that in essence it is a political instrument central to diplomatic practice and relationships between government and governance actors and their publics. For an insightful review of the book and Frost’s chapter, see Kristin Anabel Eggling, “Review Feature: New Perspectives on Diplomacy,” E-International Relations, July 9, 2022.
Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, (Random House, 2024). In this sweeping new book, Harari (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind) challenges what he calls the “naive view” of information. By this he means the idea that information’s primary role in history is to represent a preexisting reality, that sufficient information can lead to truth, which in turn can lead to power and wisdom, and that good information will drive out bad information in the marketplace of ideas. For Harari, most information does not represent reality, although sometimes it does. Rather, because information always connects different points in a network, our starting point should be how information connects people and new networks over time. Part one of the book discusses ways humans invented information technologies that improved connectivity — shared stories, clay tablets, print, mass media. Chapters explore how information networks have been used to create myths and bureaucracies, authoritarian and democratic power structures, resurgent populism, fantasies of infallibility, and self-correcting mechanisms.
With part one as an essential historical perspective, part two interrogates AI — a fundamentally different technology that does not rely on human mythmakers and human bureaucracies to function. What happens when computers with autonomous agency run bureaucracies and invent new myths? How should we distinguish between consciousness and independent decision-making capabilities? What are the implications of computer-to-computer information chains without humans, relentless networks that are always “on,” and computer-generated narratives that a computer’s algorithms alone curate and interpret? What do these inorganic information capabilities mean for democracy, economic models, cultural norms, and instruments of governance and political power? Harari is not a technology determinist; we have choices. In part three he explores the implications of unfathomable AI algorithms for democracy, populism, and authoritarianism, possible “digital empires,” and the heavy responsibility of making good choices and building strong self-correcting capabilities. Harari earned his global reputation by making powerful arguments through impressive storytelling, humor, and conceptual clarity. Some reviewers, including technology experts and scholars bent on writing for other specialists, are critical of Harari’s account. But there is broad reader and reviewer enthusiasm for his creative bridging of scholarship and public discussion of one of the most important issues of our time. His book is a compelling read for teachers and students of diplomacy’s public dimension.
Stuart MacDonald and Andrew Murray, Soft Power at a Turning Point: A Comparative Analysis, 2024, British Council. In this 50-page report, commissioned from ICR Research Ltd, London, the authors compare the “cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy” activities of the British Council and counterpart organizations. Key findings include the following. (1) Countries are focusing soft power assets more on national interests and their foreign and economic policies than shared global challenges. (2) More programs are designed for domestic audiences. (3) Soft power is increasingly mobilized to promote national identities “sometimes assertively or controversially.” (4) More control is “exerted by governments over arm’s length bodies like the British Council.” The report, filled with instructive graphics, compares resources, “digital maturity,” and global reach. The authors recognize a variety of challenges in their comparative analysis: dissimilar connections between governments and civil society, differences in definitions of soft power, complexities in operationalizing digital and analog tools and methods, and structural contrasts between foreign affairs ministries and organizations comparable to the British Council. Despite these analytical concerns, the report is an instructive global overview and online resource for teachers and practitioners.
Jessica T. Mathews, “What Was the Biden Doctrine?”Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2024. The Carnegie Endowment’s Distinguished Fellow Jessica Mathews argues four years is insufficient time to establish a foreign policy doctrine. Nevertheless, Biden’s commitment to diplomacy backed by strength is an approach well-suited to today’s world if it is not overturned by a successor. Her article is a report card on Biden’s achievements and strategic mistakes. High grades: winning the trust of allies, institutionalizing a deep American presence in Asia, restoration of a US presence in multilateral organizations and agreements, ending the longest “forever war” in Afghanistan, and an innovative response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Low grades: undermining an ambiguous “one China” policy and escalating tensions over Taiwan, a stubborn unwillingness to use US leverage with Israel to reduce staggering levels of death and suffering in Gaza, trade protectionism, lack of sustained nuclear arms control and nonproliferation diplomacy, a Manichean division between autocracies and democracies, and an unproductive “Summit for Democracies.” Mathews makes no predictions in the face of historical uncertainties, but overall Biden has used diplomacy to bring about profound changes in foreign policy “not to accommodate American decline but to reflect the country’s inherent strength.”
Ahmed Nabil, “Contact Groups as Diplomatic Intervention Tools in Civil Wars: US Diplomacy,”The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Online publication July 25, 2024. Nabil (Wayne State University and a former diplomat) examines contact groups as a distinct mode of diplomatic intervention and engagement in conflicts. Contact groups are different from track one and track two negotiations, he argues, and they do not include parties to civil wars. Using qualitative methods, consisting primarily of unstructured and anonymous interviews with mid-career, senior, and former US officials who participated in conflict group meetings, his article examines case studies of contact groups in civil conflicts in Libya’s P3+3, the Syria Small Group, and the Yemen Quartet. His interview questions explored each groups’ formation, meeting dynamics, relations with UN processes, and effectiveness from the US perspective. Nabil concludes the three groups failed to achieve success in achieving a final settlement. Nevertheless, they served US interests. They were a forum for dialogue and advancing US policies. They were a means to build support for UN envoys in these conflicts. And they helped to achieve US interests such as guaranteeing Libyan oil exports and financial support to territories liberated from ISIL in Syria. Nabil also argues this mode of diplomacy can support engagement between stakeholders with different views of conflict and provide a useful supplement to other modes of multilateral diplomacy. His article is a good example of how analysis of practice can illuminate conceptual issues in diplomacy.
Jack Spence, Alastair Masser, and Claire Yorke, eds., New Perspectives on Diplomacy,A New Theory and Practice of Diplomacy, Volume 1, Contemporary Diplomacy in Action, Volume 2, (I.B. Tauris, 2021). Spence (Kings College London), Masser (Legatum Institute), and Yorke (Yale University) argue a seismic shift in world order and complex emerging challenges pose fundamental questions for the nature, practice, and study of diplomacy — fading American hegemony; rising multipolarity; geopolitical, technological, and demographic changes; and diminished distinctions between war and peace, state and non-state actors, formal and informal dialogue, and values and interests. Chapters in two volumes explore what these trends mean for continuity and change in the study and practice of diplomacy. Volume 1 includes chapters on diplomacy and ethics, identity, and empathy; relations between diplomacy and conflict resolution, small state politics, summitry, and intelligence; and the theoretical value of practice theory. Volume 2 includes chapters on diplomacy and social media, the environment, information war, domestic populations, emotions, and social movements. Diplomacy remains indispensable, the editors contend, and its “widening aperture” embraces more actors and more sub-disciplines. Central questions going forward: what skills and experiences will next generation diplomats need; how should we study and teach diplomacy; and how should we bridge the academic / practice divide? (Suggested by Kathy Fitzpatrick, University of South Florida)
Daya Kishan Thussu, Changing Geopolitics of Global Communication, (Routlege, 2024). Thussu (Hong Kong Baptist University and previously University of Westminster in London) examines issues at the intersection of geopolitics — shaped by decline in a US-led West, the rise of China, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and global communication — shaped by transformative digital technologies and the role of artificial intelligence in weaponizing information. Chapters explore the historical origins of the 21st century’s global information infrastructure, “digital democracy vs. digital imperialism,” how military conflict has been framed by Western media to advance geopolitical interests, weaponization of information in the Russia-Ukraine war, cyberwarfare, and emerging characteristics of a new global information order.
Kate Wright, Martin Scott, and Mel Bunce, Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Efforts by government officials to politicize news coverage by the Voice of America (VOA) have been present from its creation. Senior VOA broadcasters were fired for their coverage of Italy’s King Victor Emanuel III in 1943. Senator Joseph McCarthy mounted vile attacks on VOA in the 1950s. The White House and senior USIA officials deleted content in VOA’s coverage of the US evacuation from Vietnam in 1975. The State Department tried to prevent VOA from airing an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 2001. Examples from a very long list. In this timely book, Wright (University of Edinburgh), Scott (University of East Anglia), and Bunce (University of London) take a deep dive into VOA’s politicization by US Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack during the last seven months of the Trump administration. Adopting the theoretical framework of “government capture” — understood as ways governments and civil society allies directly and indirectly politicize journalism in public service media — the authors discuss Pack’s actions in detail, their cumulative effect in undermining democratic checks and balances, and VOA’s vulnerabilities to future politicization.
The book brings needed scholarship to examination of historical, conceptual, and practitioner issues in government media. It is distinguished by its evidence-based research, much of it derived from Freedom of Information Act requests. It also serves as a needed reform primer for those seeking to strengthen VOA’s journalism firewall and address continuing risks of politicization. There is one significant weakness in their research. The authors did not seek to interview Pack, his appointees, and others on the questionable grounds that doing so risked disrupting the “delicate processes” of investigations that might result in criminal and civil lawsuits.
Irene Wu, Measuring Soft Power in International Relations, (Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2024). Irene Wu (Georgetown University, US Federal Communications Commission) takes a deep dive into the meaning and measurement of soft power. She argues soft power can be quantified in ways that make possible comparisons across societies and political entities and analyses across time. Her soft power rubric has three people-to-people interactions — emigration, studying abroad, and traveling abroad — and a fourth mediated interaction, watching foreign movies. These indicators are arranged on a spectrum spanning short- and long-term attraction. Part one of the book explores recent conceptual developments in soft power research and how ideas from related fields of study can provide tools to study soft power. Part two applies her conceptual framework to case studies: US movies and popular culture, international education hubs, India’s emigrants, Russia’s and China’s soft power compared, soft power in Southeast Asia, and the strengths and limitations of global soft power rankings.
Marcy E. Gallo, “Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs): Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service (CRS), Updated April 3, 2020. The CRS defines FFRDCs as a special class of research and development (R&D) institutions owned by the federal government, but operated by universities, other nonprofits, and industrial firms. They provide federal agencies with R&D that cannot be obtained within government or the private sector alone. The State Department through Federal Register notices is requesting public comment on its first proposed FFRDC for diplomacy. This CRS report provides information on the origins, activity types, characteristics, and federal funding of the 42 FFRDCs sponsored by the 13 federal agencies (currently 15) when the report was written. The report summarizes issues of interest to Congress: agency oversight and management, competition with the private sector, diversification of activities or “mission creep,” competitive FFRDC contracts vs. long-term relationships with sponsoring agencies, and aging infrastructures. The State Department seeks an FFRDC for R&D in three areas: Diplomatic Innovation and Modernization, Global CyberTech Solutions, and Global Operations and Acquisitions.
In 2008, a Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication report called for an R&D center such as RAND with multiple capabilities. They included facilitation of knowledge transfer across government through a help desk staffed by subject experts, assessments of cultural dynamics and societal values, audience segmentation analysis and behavioral trends, up-to-the-minute knowledge of media trends and communication technologies, a knowledge base for public diplomacy implementation and evaluation, a locus for project experimentation, and sustained memory of core data, best practices, and research. The recommendation was dismissed by State at the time. It still has value and deserves a second look today.
Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Matthew Asada, “The Department of State’s Reception Centers: Back to the Future,”The Foreign Service Journal, April 2024, 38-42. State Department Foreign Service Officer Asada is a visiting senior fellow at USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy where he has written a carefully researched history with interesting photos of the Department’s 20th century US-based reception centers (Seattle, San Francisco, Honolulu, New Orleans, Miami, Washington, DC, and New York). All but the New York center were closed decades ago due to budget cuts. Their responsibilities were absorbed by local organizations, many affiliated with the National Council for International Visitors (now Global Ties, U.S.). Asada frames the narrative as a predicate for ways to enhance State’s domestic engagement today. Among his ideas: establish domestic geographic districts (aligned with federal regions and divisions); establish “Diplomatic Engagement Centers” in districts or spanning districts; and bring together existing offices concerned with exchange programs, public outreach, media engagement, public-private partnerships, liaison with city and state officials, and support for foreign embassies and consulates.
Niklas Bremburg and Anna Michalski, “The European Union Climate Diplomacy: Evolving Practices in a Changing Geopolitical Context,”The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, April 12, 2024. Bremburg (Stockholm University) and Michalski (Uppsala University) examine the evolution of the EU’s climate diplomacy following the “perceived failure” of COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009 and the consequences of rising geopolitics for the global climate agenda. They use practice theory methods in IR and diplomacy studies to show how the EU’s External Action Service and member states adopted a more “linked-up and universal approach” to its climate mitigation and adaptation diplomacy. Using a combination of elite interviews and systematic analysis of official documents and academic literature they assess the EU’s adoption of four practices. (1) Creation of narratives to persuade other actors to strengthen their global climate agendas. (2) Efforts to co-ordinate the negotiating positions and objectives of EU and member states. (3) Outreach actions tailored to the interests of selected national governments, businesses, and civil society organizations. And (4) the practice of mainstreaming, meaning dealing with climate change in the context of human rights, migration, trade, geopolitics, and other issues. Bremburg and Michalski conclude that, despite these operational practices, deep-seated beliefs by EU diplomats and officials “have remained more or less unchanged,” particularly their reliance on leading in climate negotiations through the power of example. They also call for more context-specific analysis and evidence to support answers to why, how, and with what effects diplomatic practices shape policy outcomes.
Andrew F. Cooper, The Concertation Impulse in World Politics: Contestation Over Fundamental Institutions and the Constrictions of Institutionalist International Relations, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Cooper’s (University of Waterloo) prodigious body of work ranges from deep dives into IR theory and global governance to studies of diplomatic practice, notably in the BRICs, G-7, and G20. His writings include Celebrity Diplomacy (2008), “AdaptingPublic Diplomacy to the Populist Challenge,” (The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 2019), and other articles on practitioners in diplomacy’s public dimension. Cooper’s new bookcombines a rereading of Hedley Bull’s understudied ideas about the concept and practice of concertation in world politics with a multi-faceted critique of mainstream IR. The latter includes neglect of crises as stimulants of international change, a stereotyped “non-West” as either subordinate to universalistic “rules of the game” or potential disrupters of the system, and inattention to the disruptive effect of domestic forces in the United States (Donald Trump’s personalist-populist challenge). Cooper defines concertation as “an institutional format that places the emphasis on forms of dialogue, mutual exchange of information, knowledge sharing, and the aim of unified proposals, among competing and even fractious actors.” His book explores how the institutional concert format – understood as the construction of patterned practices used to solve problems and facilitate co-existence – is a productive approach to sovereignty and multilateralism. Analytical chapters address Bull’s scholarship and institutional IR as a foil for his book. Other chapters discuss concertation as a foundational and sustained fundamental institution, the G-20 as a modern institutional concertation format, the challenges of personal-populist disruption, and aspirations of the BRICs as a solidarity concert and plurilateral summitry.
“Disinformation is on the Rise. How Does it Work?”The Economist, May 4, 2024, 66-71.The Economist devotes its entire Science & Technology section in this issue to a discussion of what disinformation is, how it works, and how it can be mitigated. The feature article explores the role of AI in creating disinformation, detecting it, and using it to overcome problems it creates. Issues discussed include the uses of analytical tools in combination and challenges of distinguishing between disinformation originators and spreaders. The article includes a case study of the disinformation campaign intended to falsely show that Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zalenska spent $1.1m of Ukrainian aid on jewelry. It summarizes the role of the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center in exposing and responding to a Russian campaign to discredit Western health programs in Africa. The article also takes aim at how US efforts to fight disinformation through coordinated activities of tech companies, academics, government agencies, civil society groups, and media organizations have become entangled in polarized politics and the objects of litigation and right-wing conspiracy theories. The experiences of Taiwan, Finland, Sweden, and Brazil are also examined. Separately, in an editorial, “Truth or Lies?” (p. 10), The Economist optimistically states that although disinformation is a serious problem there is little evidence it alone can influence election outcomes, and “it has not yet revealed itself as an unprecedented and unassailable threat.”
David V. Gioe and Michael J. Morell, “Spy and Tell: The Promise and Peril of Disclosing Intelligence for Strategic Advantage,”Foreign Affairs, May/June 2024. CIA director Bill Burns calls it “intelligence diplomacy.” Gioe (Kings College London) and Morell (Beacon Global Strategies), both former CIA practitioners, call it “strategic disclosures.” It is a strategy with a long history in diplomacy’s public dimension: U-2 spy plane disclosures of Soviet missile bases in Cuba, Colin Powell’s satellite images of alleged weapons sites in Iraq, and recent advance disclosures of Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. In their measured assessment, Gioe and Morell assess differences between recent vetted disclosures of secrets that serve public interests, seen as resoundingly successful, and leaks that serve private interests. They conclude with a call for caution and guardrails. Disclosures must protect sources and methods. Revelations that are wrong damage reputations and undermine goals. They are especially concerned that using intelligence as a policy and diplomacy tool risks it being used as a partisan political weapon. Gioe and Morell emphasize that in today’s disinformation environment the disclosed information must be true. “Although it may be tempting to embed disinformation in a disclosure, that line should never be crossed.”
Alan K. Henrikson, “What is Public Diplomacy? Fostering Cooperation, Countering Disinformation,”Baku Dialogues: Policy, Perspectives on the Silk Road Region, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter 2023-2024), 98-117. In this article Henrikson (Professor of Diplomatic History Emeritus and founding Director of Diplomatic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) has adapted and made more accessible an essay he published as chapter 11 in “The Role of Diplomacy in the Modern World,” in Reimagining the International Legal Order, ed. Vesselin Popovski and Ankit Malhotra (Routledge, 2024),145-168. These essays address the international legal framework in which public diplomacy is and should be conducted. He frames his analysis in a discussion of five interrelated steps: (1) the origins and “historically evolved” meaning of the term public diplomacy, (2) the range of public diplomacy activities and how they can vary with country size, (3) his central legal-normative question, (4) challenges to public diplomacy in the international political system and global communications space, and (5) a critique of responses to these challenges and suggestions of ways public diplomacy could strengthen the international legal order and contribute to global comity and human enlightenment. Henrikson’s essays stand out in the vast literature on public diplomacy for their assessment of understudied legal and normative issues, and ways in which narrative and power are related.
Jovan Kurbalija, History of Diplomacy and Technology: From Smoke Signals to Artificial Intelligence, (DiploFoundation, 2023). In this slim, well-resourced, and easy to read volume, DiploFoundation’s executive director examines the ways changing technologies interact with the continuity of diplomacy in human experience. He shapes the narrative in three contexts. The impact of technologies on power distribution, geopolitics, and the relevance of countries, cities, and continents. The topics and issues that diplomats address. And the tools diplomats use to communicate, negotiate, and build relationships. Images, graphics, and affordable pricing make this an excellent book for courses in diplomacy and global communications.
“Letters-Plus,”The Foreign Service Journal, April 2024, 13-15. In FSJ’s April issue, three seasoned career diplomats respond to the Journal’s March 2024 article, “A Look at the New Learning Policy: How, When, and Where Do State Department Employees Learn,” by Sarah Wardwell. In “A Step in the Right Direction,” retired FSO Alexis Ludwig welcomes State’s intentions but rightly contends that success will depend on harnessing the political will to make implementation mandatory and obtaining the resources needed to achieve results at scale. In “Prioritizing Learning,” acting deputy assistant secretary for passport services Don Jacobson applauds this “potentially transformative commitment to professional development.” Much will depend, he observes, on the time commitments and strategic thinking of supervisors at all levels and the need for all employees to take ownership of their professional development. Career Ambassador James Jeffries in “Deeply Disillusioning” objects that with one exception none of the policy’s 16 Core Curriculum courses seem to address State’s central foreign policy mission.
Keith E. Peterson, American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission,(Armida Publications, 2024). Peterson’s career as a US diplomat included information officer, cultural officer, and PAO assignments in Dhaka, Tunis, Nicosia, Bridgetown, London, Valetta, Stockholm, and Washington. American Dreams is his account of the 52-year history of the independent bicommunal Fulbright Commission in Cyprus, its role in bridging different memories and visions of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, the difficulties it encountered in conflict resolution training, and the commitment of its Greek, Turkish, and American board members. His book is both a narrative of strategic issues and the Cold War politics of Cyprus and a useful case study of one Fulbright Commission facing unusually difficult operational challenges.
Peter Pomerantsev, How to Win the Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, (PublicAffairs, 2024). In his latest book, Pomerantsev (Johns Hopkins University), author of Nothing Is True But Everything Is Possible (2015) and This Is Not Propaganda (2020), combines analysis of Russian disinformation under Vladimir Putin with a biography of the British print and broadcast journalist Thomas Sefton Delmer. Through his parties for top Nazi officials and flattering articles, Delmer gained access and scoops. When war began in 1939, he was recruited by British intelligence. Pomerantsev’s book is part history, part biography, and part guide to understanding and countering disinformation. It has garnered praise from Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny (2017), The Atlantic’s Anne Appelbaum, and The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman. For a critical review, see Max Fisher, “The Journalist Who Tried to Fight the Nazis With Radio Stories”The New York Times, March 9, 2024.
David E. Sanger, New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and America’s Struggle to Defend the West, (Crown, 2024). Twenty-five years ago, the New York Times’ David Sanger and the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, then rising national security reporters, were quick to accept cold call invites to meet with US and international students in small (14 person) seminars at the National War College. They valued professional education, but they also knew they were connecting with future ambassadors and flag rank military officers. The range and depth of the interviews in Sanger’s latest book demonstrate the wisdom of this reportorial strategy. It is a deeply connected reporter’s easy to read account of “the revival of superpower conflict” and struggles for military, economic, political, and technological supremacy. He examines not only how leaders and key aides assessed strategic choices but also how they sought to frame their choices in the public square. Three cameos are particularly useful. Sanger’s analysis of NSC advisor Jake Sullivan’s reasoning and desire to shape the “information narrative” as to what was happening and who was responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in advance (pp. 210-215). His discussion of how the toxic zero sum domestic debate on US immigration policies damages US soft power and creates many missed opportunities including attracting a younger generation of Russians to emigrate (pp. 447-449). And his Epilogue in which the reporter turns opinion writer on what’s new in the new cold wars and what the future may hold.
Elizabeth N. Saunders, The Insiders’ Game: How Elites Make War and Peace, (Princeton University Press, 2024). Saunders (Columbia University) begins with a paradox. Publics have scarce time for the details of most foreign policies and issues. Yet leaders act as if public opinion matters, even though they rarely change public views and attitudes through persuasion. Why then, she asks, do elites care about public opinion? Her book provides explanations for this paradox and a thoughtful examination of the importance of political elites in democratic governance and decision-making. Elites lead mass opinion in part, she argues, because publics use trusted elite cues as shortcuts. Saunders distinguishes between leaders and three groups of elites with systematic influence: lawmakers, military leaders, and senior government officials. Grounded in survey experiments and case studies, her book is a nuanced assessment of how elites shape choices in war and peace decisions in the United States — with frequent asides for her theory’s implications for other democracies. This is a study of elite politics, decision-making as an “insider’s game,” a “hawkish bias” in a militarily powerful country, elite accountability, and how a democracy initiates, escalates, and ends wars. It combines well written and interesting history with sophisticated theoretical analysis.
Sarah E. K. Smith and Sascha Priewe, eds., Museum Diplomacy: How Cultural Institutions Shape Global Engagement, (American Alliance of Museums, 2023). Smith (Western University, Ontario) and Priewe (Aga Khan Museum, Toronto) have compiled 18 chapters by practitioners and scholars on the global engagement of museums. Contributors address a range of professional, cultural, political, and academic issues. The editors situate their contributions in a conceptual framework that treats museum diplomacy as a subset of cultural diplomacy now carried out by state actors, cities and other substate actors, and a diverse array of nonstate actors. Museums exist to educate and provide enjoyment. They also serve political agendas as “arbiters of cultural significance, custodians of prized objects, and narrators of histories, communities, and identities.” Chapters address ways museums have advanced hegemony and current efforts to achieve decolonization and social justice. The collection, which includes case studies, contributes helpfully to current debates over cultural diplomacy, network diplomacy, cross cultural globalism, and boundaries between what is and is not diplomacy.
Elise Stephenson and Susan Harris Rimmer, “Bolstering the Boys Club: Security Vetting, Diversity and Diplomatic Gatekeeping,”The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, May 8, 2024. Stephenson (Australian National University Canberra) and Rimmer (Griffith University) turn the focus on gender and diplomacy away from serving diplomacy practitioners to the security clearance processes that influence levels of clearance and career progression. They argue that clearance processes include not only criteria use to assess potential national security risks but also values (loyalty, maturity, trustworthiness), which may lead to bias or discriminatory exclusion. Their research is grounded in a larger Australian project that also focuses on cultural and linguistic diversity, First Nations and Indigenous inclusion, generational differences, sexuality, neurodiversity, mental health, and people living with disabilities. The authors discuss a variety of issues related to security vetting processes and methodological challenges for researchers. They conclude that problematic security clearance processes mean the exclusion of women and sexual minorities remains “explicit policy and practice.”
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Celebrating 75 Years of ACPD Reporting: ACPD Official Meeting Minutes,” February 26, 2024, Transcript here and Video here. The Commission’s meeting, held at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and moderated by Executive Director Vivian Walker, achieved two goals. First, the Commission presented its Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting: Focus on FY 2022 Budget Data. The report provides detailed budget and program data on the public diplomacy activities of the US Department State and activities of the US Agency for Global Media. Critically important are the Commission’s 25 policy, program, and structural recommendations to the White House, Congress, State Department, and USAGM at pp.13-16. Second, Commissioners and a panel reflected on the presidentially appointed, bipartisan Commission’s essential and durable role in US public diplomacy for 75 years. Panelists included: Tom C. Korologos, ACPD Commissioner and Chairman, 1981-1994, former Ambassador to Belgium, and founding member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors; Katherine Brown, President and CEO of Global Ties U.S. and APCD Executive Director, 2013-2016; and Bruce Gregory, Visiting Scholar, George Washington University and ACPD Executive Director, 1985-1998.
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “The Global Engagement Center: A Historical Overview 2001-2021,” May 2024. In this timely, important, and deeply researched 47-page report, the Commission’s senior advisor Adele E. Ruppe and executive director Vivian S. Walker examine the origins, evolution, mandates, objectives, tools, methods, and activities of the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC). The GEC’s mission is to counter foreign state and non-state disinformation threats to US national security. The report is grounded in interviews with 22 former and current political appointees and senior officials, legislative and archival records, and the insights of the Commission’s professional staff. Following a detailed historical overview, illuminated by helpful graphics, the report identifies a series of findings and lessons learned. Findings include the importance of Senate confirmed under secretaries of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, the need for White House validation and strong bipartisan support, and alignment of expectations and activities with budget realities. Other findings point to the disruptive impact of changes in administrations and funding delays due to cumbersome authorization processes and bureaucracies in the State and Defense Departments.
Looking ahead, the Commission identified eight lessons learned: (1) the United States needs a GEC located within State to counter global disinformation threats; (2) the GEC requires appropriate legislative and executive branch legal authorities; (3) adequate support from interagency stakeholders is essential; (4) the Defense Department and intelligence community are crucial partners; (5) direct funding is required rather than highly inefficient indirect funding through other government entities; (6) special authorities and hiring mechanisms are necessary to recruit specialized expertise; (7) flexible capabilities and funding are key to coping with constant change in the threat environment; and (8) mistaken past assumptions that disinformation threats can be “eliminated” means a robust and sustained GEC or similar entity is necessary to counter a radically new global disinformation environment.
US Department of State, “United States International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy,” May 2024. The State Department’s strategy, framed as a policy of “digital solidarity,” sets forth goals for achieving effective uses of technologies in diplomacy by the US and its allies and partners; an open, inclusive, secure, and resilient internet; and responsible behavior by political entities in cyberspace. The document states that a US goal also is to maintain global technology primacy and set global standards and norms. Part one of the document examines threats to national security and internet freedom, protection of physical infrastructures, competing internet norms, challenges to digital economies, the future of AI technologies governance, and working with the private sector and civil society. Part two sets forth priorities and examines four “action domains” to achieve policy goals. The Department’s Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nathaniel Fick summarized its importance in an interview with The New York Times, “Just about everyone is willing to acknowledge that technology is an important element of foreign policy, but I would argue that tech is not just part of the game — it’s increasingly the entire game.” The “entire” game is debatable. Technologies are tools of diplomacy and policies. As with most strategy documents, much will depend on how road maps are implemented, how cost/benefit choices are made, and how bureaucratic wars are fought and won. See also, David Sanger, “A New Diplomatic Strategy Emerges as Artificial Intelligence Grows,” May 6, 2024, The New York Times; Rishi Iyengar, “Washington Takes Its Cyber Strategy Global,” May 8, 2024, Foreign Policy; Office of the National Cyber Director, “2024 Report on the Cybersecurity Posture of the United States,” May 2024; and report Fact Sheet.
Taylor Owen, Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age, (Oxford University Press, 2015). Almost a decade ago, Taylor Owen (McGill University) took the measure of ways in which digital technologies were transforming states and key institutions underpinning world order. Luminaries who endorsed his book included Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michael Ignatieff, Clay Shirkey, and Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Although technologies and the global environment have changed greatly in subsequent years, his central arguments in this slim volume are worth another look. Owen rehearses now familiar themes: the decentralization of hierarchical power, the rise of individuals and groups empowered by digital technologies, and the challenges states face in giving up power to achieve success in a networked world. Today, when much of the literature prioritizes technologies over diplomacy and governance, Owen puts power, accountability, stability, and democratic engagement first and technologies second. His final three chapters constitute a prescient examination of public diplomacy’s uses of social media, how the “violence of algorithms” is blurring boundaries in war and international relations, and models for the structural adaptation of traditional institutions.
In his latest book, IPDGC Visiting Scholar Joe F. Khalil explores the interplay of digital technology and socio-political shifts, providing valuable perspectives on the evolving landscape of the Middle East. His presentation of “The Digital Bind: Change and Stasis in the Middle East,” co-authored with Mohamed Zayan.
Khalil explores how the Middle East’s digital turn intersects with complex political, economic, and socio-cultural dynamics. Drawing on local research and rich case studies, they show how the same forces that brought promises of change through digital transformation have also engendered tensions and contradictions. With this book, Khalil and his co-author contend that the ensuing disjunctures have ensnared the region in a double bind, which represents the salient feature of an unfolding digital turn. The same conditions that drive the state, market, and public immersion in the digital also inhibit the region’s drive to change.
Publishing house Oxford Press describes The Digital Double Bind as a book that reconsiders the question of technology and change, moving beyond binary formulations and familiar trajectories of the network society. It offers a path-breaking analysis of change and stasis in the Middle East and provides a roadmap for a critical engagement with digitality in the Global South.
IPDGC welcomes Professor Natalia Chaban, professor in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Professor Chaban is a leading expert in image and perceptions studies within the EU and IR contexts, and in public diplomacy and political communication.
As a Visiting Scholar with our Institute, she will be researching “Public diplomacy at times of conflict and crises”, which will allow her to apply and extend her expertise in image and perceptions studies, international political communication and media ecology studies, while considering the three cases informed by her original theorization of the perceptual approach to foreign policy studies.
Professor Chaban has led multiple transnational research projects externally supported by the Erasmus+ of the European Commission, Foreign Policy Instrument Division of the European Commission/European External Action Service, EU member states’ embassies and NATO.
She is also widely published in high impact foreign policy journals such as Journal of Common Market Studies, Cooperation and Conflict, Journal of European Integration and Foreign Policy Analysis.
Our Institute and the wider GW scholarly community look forward to collaborating with Professor Chaban on this very topical and timely research.
Since 2011, the Walter Roberts Endowment and the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication (IPDGC) has spent time learning how our GW graduate students plan their future global careers, and with this year’s award we recognize one exceptional student who has shown exemplary performance in public diplomacy studies.
Matthew Snow, a graduate student at GWU’s Elliott School and the MA in Global Communication program, has been selected as the recipient of the Walter Roberts Award for Public Diplomacy Studies. This award recognizes Matthew’s exceptional academic performance and current work related to public diplomacy, as well as his aspirations to continue contributing to the field.
Matt’s time in the graduate program saw him refine his skills, competencies, and knowledge to launch him into a career as a U.S. diplomat. His studies were a vehicle of personal and professional growth.
I was drawn to public diplomacy by the parallels from my time in the music industry. Being on tour in a band means constantly creating new connections, forging new relationships, and hopefully making new fans. It is also a lot of hard work to find ways of connecting with people you’ve never met in places you’ve never been.
Matthew Snow, MA Global Communication ’24
His professors have been impressed with his eagerness for positive engagement. GW adjunct professor Dr. Patricia Kabra, a Senior Officer in the Foreign Service, noted that Matt always demonstrated openness and support for fellow students, shared his knowledge, and encouraged classmates to think creatively about public diplomacy.
This award is a testament to Matt’s dedication, passion, and ability to engage with others. His future in public diplomacy is bright, and we look forward to seeing the positive impact he will undoubtedly make in the field.
Congratulations Matt, on this well-deserved honor!
