Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu
American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming 2024)
Diplomacy’s Public Dimension Archive, Institute for Public Diplomacy & Global Communication, George Washington University
Matthew K. Asada, An Inter-Event Comparison of Two Historical Global Mega Events: FIFA 2022 and Expo 2020, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, October 2023. In this innovative study, Matthew Asada, a US Foreign Service officer on detail at CPD, compares the FIFA 2022 World Cup in Doha, Qatar and Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). His analysis compares their bidding narratives, how the events responded to external stimuli, the handling of the mega events, and their innovations. He develops his comparison in the context of geopolitics, the COVID-19 pandemic, cultural differences, and the whole of country focus of Qatar and the UAE on the events “as part of their public diplomacy strategies.” The article also provides a framework for future inter-event comparisons within a region and/or during a given period of time. Asada draws on extensive experience with World’s Fairs as a career diplomat and his access to serving practitioners enhanced by his status as an “insider.” He credits opportunities for reflection and in-depth research to time spent as a visiting senior fellow at USC. Photos and endnotes add to the value of this issue of CPD Perspectives.
Jessica Brandt, Bret Schafer, and Rachael Dean Wilson, A Strategy for US Public Diplomacy in the Age of Disinformation, G | M | F, Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), September 28, 2023. In this 9-page paper, the ASD team at the German Marshall Fund identifies practical ideas for harnessing truthful information to contest Russia, China, and other autocratic regimes in the information domain. They restrict their focus to “US international broadcasting and other strategic communication activities” — leaving recommendations to improve exchanges, cultural diplomacy, and other parts of the whole “public diplomacy puzzle” for another day. Key judgments include: (1) increase US government media efforts in Latin America, a region where Russian and Chinese state media efforts are growing substantially and US investment is a low priority; (2) emphasize narratives that attract younger populations — US innovation and entrepreneurship, technology and science, and support for freedom of choice, movement, and expression; (3) address shortcomings in American government and society directly, honestly and constructively; (4) avoid “whataboutism” responses that create false equivalencies and draw attention to content that would go largely unnoticed; (5) substantially upgrade listening and audience analysis tools, market research, and advanced social media analytics for tailored use in individual countries and regions; (6) improve and expand content sharing mechanisms such as social media content with whole of government inputs and creative engagement with the private sector; and (7) situate public diplomacy in a broader information strategy that leverages advanced cyber capabilities and the strength of financial markets to impose costs on state sponsored information manipulation campaigns.
Jihad Fakhreddine, “Performance of Congress-Financed Alhurra TV: Do Viewership Numbers and American Taxpayer Money Spent Add Up?” November 1, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Jihad Fakhreddine is a former research director for Gallup’s opinion research operations in the Middle East and North Africa. In this capacity he directed national media surveys for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, since renamed the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Using longitudinal data and informed analysis, he raises important questions. First, how is it that USAGM increased its global weekly reach by an impressive 47%, from a weekly audience of 278 million to 410 million, between 2017 and 2022 when during the same period its annual budget increased only 4.5%, from $794 million to $830 million? Second, why did the audience share for USAGM’s Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) experience a “freefall” decline compared with USAGM’s other networks? His probing assessment is based in part on comparison of MBN’s weekly audience data, presented by USAGM in its reports as absolute figures, with percentages of the growing total Arab adult population. Third, why despite an expensive overhaul of Alhurra in 2017-2018 did its audiences continue to decline? Congress, he argues, should base funding decisions on the performance of individual networks versus total USAGM performance and “returns to the marginal increases in the budget.”
Allie Funk, Adrian Shahbaz, and Kian Vesteinsson, Freedom on the Net 2023: The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence, Freedom House, October 2023. The Freedom House team documents an increase in attacks on free expression and a now 13-year decline in internet freedom. Their report also points to how AI has made online disinformation campaigns more sophisticated and enhanced online censorship. To combat these trends, they call for adaptation of lessons learned from past internet governance experiences to uses of AI technologies and less reliance on self-regulation by private companies. The 45-page report explores these findings in detail, contains graphics, and explains its research methodology.
Robert M. Gates, “The Dysfunctional Superpower,” Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2023, 30-44. In an essay written before the Israel/Hamas War, Robert Gates (former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director) contends the United States “now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever.” Allied adversaries—Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. Powerful military rivals in both Europe and Asia. China’s rise in all elements of power. Threats that are compounded by political dysfunction at home and lack of concern by many Americans. Gates assesses each threat and offers his agenda for “meeting the moment.” First, address the breakdown of decades-long bipartisan agreement on US global leadership. Second, convey through “a drumbeat of repetition” to American voters and the world the “message” that US military power, US alliances, and international institutions the US designed are essential to deterring aggression. Third, embrace a strategy that incorporates all instruments of national power for “dealing with the entire world.” Fourth, strengthen the US nuclear deterrent, greatly expand the US Navy, and change the way Congress appropriates military funds and the Defense Department’s sclerotic acquisition process. Gates devotes a paragraph, in keeping with his recent writings, to strengthening public diplomacy through adoption of a global strategy, spending more money, and the integration and synchronization of many “disparate communications activities.” His thinking is consistent with an American way of diplomacy that for centuries has been characterized by the prioritization of hard power and episodic attention to public diplomacy when confronted by threats and fear.
Carol A. Hess, Aaron Copland in Latin America: Music and Cultural Politics, (University of Illinois Press, 2023). This book is a masterpiece. Hess (University of California, Davis) provides a beautifully written and deeply researched account of Aaron Copland’s four State Department-sponsored trips to Latin America between 1943 and 1963. Her narrative explores Copland’s concerts, talks, and media interviews; his spotlight on Latin America’s classical music composers; and his commitment to engaging Latin Americans in rural and urban settings. She also puts Copland’s cultural diplomacy in context. The Good Neighbor Policy. The geopolitics of World War II and the Cold War. The FBI’s investigation and Senator Joseph McCarthy’s interrogation of Copland in Congressional hearings. Historical and cultural perspectives of Latin American composers and critics. The origins and evolution of US cultural diplomacy. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Hess mines a broad range of primary sources. She views Copland through the lens of a musicologist and recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships. Her book combines a nuanced scholarship that develops broad themes with vivid portrayals of Copland as a composer and cultural diplomacy practitioner. She also “takes the reader behind the scenes” to examine the hard day-to-day work of cultural diplomacy. Chapters can be read at Oxford Academic, Illinois Scholarship Online. See also Jeffrey Day, “Music Diplomacy: Professor Traces Impact of State Department and Aaron Copland’s Latin American Outreach,” October 24, 2023, UCDavis. (Suggested by Robert Ogburn).
Lonnie R. Johnson, “Remembering Fulbright: The Senator, The Program, and Public Diplomacy,”Video presentation (1 hour), October 2, 2023, First Monday Forum, Public Diplomacy Council of America. Johnson (former executive director of Austria’s binational Fulbright Commission) uses carefully curated images and evidence from his book research to portray the many sides of Senator J. William Fulbright. In this captivating presentation, Johnson discusses Fulbright’s memories of World War II, his experiences as a Rhodes scholar, his opposition to America’s war in Vietnam, and his establishment of the Fulbright exchange program. Importantly, Johnson addresses hard questions stemming from Fulbright’s opposition to civil rights legislation throughout his career as a Democratic Senator from Arkansas. In his presentation, and in an open letter, Johnson provides a reasoned and detailed critique of the systematic “erasure of Fulbright from the historical record” and adoption of a new Fulbright “brand narrative” by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Paul Webster Hare, Juan Luis Manfredi-Sánchez, and Kenneth Weisbrode, eds., The Palgrave Handbook of Diplomatic Reform and Innovation, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). In this handbook (775 pages), Hare (Boston University), Manfredi-Sánchez (Georgetown University and University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain), and Weisbrode (Bilkent University, Turkey) have compiled 36 chapters written by 40 diplomacy scholars and practitioners from across the globe. Their central premise is that diplomacy today is neglected and often dysfunctional. Many of its methods, key institutions, and conventions established decades ago have not kept pace with technologies and transformational challenges. Their goal is critical examination of ways to change and improve diplomatic practices. Topics are diverse: the limits of diplomatic imagination, knowledge diplomacy, digitalization, artificial intelligence, disinformation, challenges to innovation, regional diplomacy, city diplomacy, health diplomacy, humanitarian diplomacy, science diplomacy, an array of country case studies, and more. This handbook is institutionally priced and beyond reach for most individual purchasers. But online abstracts illuminate chapter contents and constitute a starting point for researchers and interested practitioners.
Allison M. Prasch, The World Is Our Stage: The Global Rhetorical Presidency and the Cold War, (University of Chicago Press, 2023). Prasch (University of Wisconsin, Madison) looks at how the travel abroad of US presidents contributed to the projection of power and ideas during the Cold War. Her deeply researched book examines “five foundational moments” in the “rhetorical presidency:” Truman at Potsdam, Eisenhower’s “Goodwill Tours,” Kennedy in West Berlin, Nixon in the People’s Republic of China, and Reagan in Normandy. For an informed and positive review, see Nicholas J. Cull, “A Review of the World Is Our Stage: The Rhetorical Presidency and the Cold War,” November 10, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. As Prasch is aware, and as Cull points out, the travel of earlier US presidents also contributed to American diplomacy’s public dimension. Theodore Roosevelt in Panama. Woodrow Wilson at Versailles. And Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 22 foreign trips.
Prasch’s book prompts the thought that nineteenth century roots of the “rhetorical presidency” can be found in the two-and-a-half-year world tour of President Ulysses S. Grant shortly after he left office in 1877. Accompanied by his wife Julia and New York Herald journalist John Russell Young, the “Hero of Appomattox” was greeted by cheering crowds and feted by world leaders in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, India, China, and Japan. Young wrote detailed accounts of Grant’s meetings with Britain’s Queen Victoria, Germany’s Otto von Bismarck, Belgium’s King Leopold II, Russia’s Czar Peter Alexander, Pope Leo XIII and other luminaries who received him as “President Grant.” He participated in civic gatherings and July 4 festivities at US missions. Young’s articles were read enthusiastically in the US and abroad. Recognizing their political value, President Rutherford B. Hayes authorized the warship USS Vandalia to take Grant’s party to stops in the Mediterranean and Egypt and the USS Richmond to do the same in Asia.
Dina Smeltz and Craig Kafura, Americans Grow Less Enthusiastic About Active US Engagement Abroad, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, October 2023. The Chicago Council’s Smeltz (a former opinion research analyst for USIA and the State Department) and Kafura report that while six in ten Americans still support an active role in world affairs, this 57% reflects a decline from 70% in 2018. Their study also finds that for the first time a slim majority of Republicans (53%) say the US should stay out of world affairs. Graphics display trends in support for global engagement by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents from 1974 to the present. Despite these findings, the Council’s survey states that a majority (70%) are confident in the US ability “to manage global problems.
Albert Triwibowo, “The Prospect and Limitations of Digital Diplomacy: The Case of Indonesia,” The Hague Journal of Public Diplomacy, online publication September 18, 2023. In this article on the digitalized diplomacy of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Triwibowo (Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung, Indonesia) contributes to the literature on diplomacy practitioners in Asia. His qualitative study draws on interviews with diplomats, officials, scholars, and Indonesian citizens. The article develops four themes. It opens with a brief literature-based discussion of digitalized diplomacy and varieties of experiences in other countries. A second section explores Indonesia’s diplomacy between 2020 and 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. A third section analyzes strengths and limitations of Indonesia’s digital activities, including a tendency to prioritize information sharing, emphasize domestic publics and issues, and avoid using technologies to advance tailored, evidence-based, and narrative-based diplomatic strategies. In his conclusion, Triwibowo suggests ways in which Indonesia and other countries can achieve change in leveraging digital technologies to diplomatic advantage.
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy and DEIA Promotion: Tellling America’s Story to the World (2023), November 21, 2023. In this field-oriented 28-page special report, co-authored by the Commission’s executive director Vivian Walker and senior advisor Deneyse Kirkpatrick, the Commission examines “the integration of principles of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA)” in the US government’s public diplomacy outreach and program activities. Its findings are based on 36 focus group discussions conducted by Walker and Kirkpatrick with 18 US missions in all six of the Department’s geographic regions during February-May, 2023. Their nine recommendations are grouped in three categories: resources and capacity building; program content, process, and evaluation; training and mentoring. The authors identify challenges born of resource-driven choices and social and institutional barriers. They conclude, however, that “Overall, there is a very good story to tell about DEIA in the field.” The report is well written, effectively organized, and contains excellent graphics.
US Department of State, Enterprise Artificial Intelligence Strategy FY2024-2025: Empowering Diplomacy Through Responsible AI, October 2023. State’s “first-ever” AI strategy is a vision statement that identifies four goals, nine objectives, and an organizational structure. Its goals: (1) integrate AI into a sustainable and secure AI-enabling infrastructure; (2) foster a culture that embraces AI technology and provides AI training and support services; (3) establish an enterprise capacity that ensures AI is applied responsibly, manages algorithmic risk, and assesses data quality; and (4) become an active innovator in applied AI. State’s organizational structure includes an Enterprise Governance Board, an AI steering committee, and a Responsible AI official. See also the Department’s fact sheet. As with most Department (and NSC) strategy documents, it does not provide a roadmap and criteria for making cost/benefit decisions.
Recent Items of Interest
Maria Abi-Habib, Michael Crowley, and Edward Wong, “More Than 500 U.S. Officials Sign Letter Protesting Biden’s Israel Policy,” November 14, 2023, The New York Times; Michael Birnbaum and John Hudson, “Blinken Confronts State Dept. Dissent Over Biden’s Gaza Policy,” November 14, 2023, The Washington Post.
Sohaela Amiri, “The Future of Noncoercive Statecraft and International Security,” October 27, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Nick Anderson, “With Surge from India, International Students Flock to United States,” November 13, 2023, The Washington Post.
Matt Armstrong, “The Fulbright Paradox: How the ‘Relic of the Second Zulu War’ Continues to Undermine National Security, Part I,” November 10, 2023 (see comments and replies in the thread; “Analyzing ‘Information Campaigns’ Through an Anachronistic Lens,” October 24, 2023, Arming for the War We’re In.
Matthew Asada, “CPD Issue – October 2023,” LA Monthly: Dispatches from USC’s Public Diplomat in Residence.
Babak Bahador, “Media Tip Sheet: The Role of Media and Images in the Israel-Hamas War,” October 20, 2023.
David Ellwood, “The Future of UK Soft Power: An Endless Agony in London,” October 3, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Paul Farhi, “GOP Senators Blast Voice of America for Hamas ‘Militants’ Terminology,” November 29, 2023, The Washington Post.
Loren Hurst, “Driving Public Diplomacy Innovation With Focused Coordination,” November 30, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.
Jeff Jager, “American Foreign Policy Decision-Making at the Agency Level: The Department of State as Exemplar?” November 13, 2023, fp21.
Robert Kagen, “A Trump Dictatorship Is Increasingly Inevitable. We Should Stop Pretending,” November 30, 2023, The Washington Post.
Laura Kelly, “Divisions Over US Support for Israel Deepen at State Department,” November 9, 2023, The Hill.
Ariella Marsden, “Israel Shuts Down Public Diplomacy Ministry, Budget Heads to South,” October 22, 2023, The Jerusalem Post; Carrie Keller-Lynn and Amy Spiro, “Cabinet Votes to Shutter Denuded Public Diplomacy Ministry, Send Budget to South,” October 22, October 2023; Amy Spiro, “Public Diplomacy Minister Quits Post Amid War, Citing ‘Waste of Public Funds,’” October 13, 2023, The Times of Israel.
Steven Lee Myers, “U.S. Tries New Tack on Russian Disinformation: Pre-Empting It,” October 26, 2023, The New York Times.
Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel, “In a Worldwide War of Words, Russia, China and Iran Back Hamas,” November 3, 2023, The New York Times.
Ivan Nechepurenko, “Russia Detains a U.S. [RFE/RL] Journalist,” October 19, 2023, The New York Times.
Hans Nichols, “Scoop: Internal State Dept. Memo Blasts Biden, U.S. Policy on Israel-Hamas War,” November 13, 2023, Axios.
Office of Inspector General, US Department of State, US Agency for Global Media’s Major Management and Performance Challenges Fiscal Year 2023, November 2023.
Farah Pandith, “The U.S. Faces a Public Relations Crisis in the Arab and Muslim World,” October 27, 2023, Council on Foreign Relations.
Pamela Paul, “A Chill Has Been Cast Over the Book World,” October 18, 2023, The New York Times.
Anna Popkova, “The Public Diplomacy of Political Dissent,” October 30, 2023, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Zach Przystrup, “How 75 Years of the Fulbright Program Bolsters the ‘Special Relationship’ Between the US and the UK,” November 27, 2023, The Baltimore Sun.
Tara D.Sonenshine, “Media Is Meant To Inform, But Is It Stoking the Flames of War in the Middle East?” November 9, 2023, The Hill.
Zed Tarar, “Analysis| What the Tech Industry Gets Wrong About the Risks of AI,” October 25, 2023, The Diplomatic Pouch
Matias Tarnopolsky, “Cultural Diplomacy May Seem Pointless. That Won’t Stop Me,” November 16, 2023, The New York Times.
Chris Teal, Interview With Visiting Professor and IPDGC Public Diplomacy Fellow, 2022-2024 [9-minute video], Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University.
Bill Wanlund, “Fixing a Communications Deficit,” November 25, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.
Dan Whitman, “Training Ukrainians To Manage International Conflict,” November 3, 2023, Public Diplomacy Council of America.
Gem from the Past
George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” first published in Horizon, London, 1946. Word choices are hard in diplomacy, because intent and context create meaning and because words both evaluate and describe. They do “propaganda;” we do “public diplomacy.” “Disinformation” is used to describe intentional lies and misused to describe selective rhetoric intended to persuade. “Systemic” can be a misleading synonym for “persistent.” “Collateral damage” is an abstraction. Word choices have political consequences. Lawmakers attack government media for avoiding and using the label “terrorists.” Exaggerations gain attention in a world of information abundance. Euphemisms are favored by the risk averse. The mission of exchanges is “mutual understanding.” The mission of government journalists is to “support freedom and democracy.”
Orwell’s powerful essay, cited previously on this list in 2012, continues to provide helpful guidance. Language, he argued, is not a “natural growth.” It is an instrument we shape for purposes. English is full of bad habits which “spread by imitation.” Bad habits “can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.” Orwell’s concerns included particularly the reflexive use of words that have “no agreed definition” and that have evolved to become general framing terms for a positive good or an object of disagreement (e.g., “terrorist,” “communist,” “fascist”). “The invasion of one’s mind by ready-made phrases,” he wrote, “can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them.”
An archive ofDiplomacy’s Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.
