Intended for teachers of diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu
Bruce Gregory, American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).
Phillip Arceneaux, “Value Creation Through Organizational Storytelling: Strategic Narratives in Foreign Government Relations,” Public Relations Review, Vol. 50, Issue 2, June 2024. Arceneaux (Miami University of Ohio) examines ways in which governments use public relations and tell stories to promote their interests and create value in competitive environments. He begins with a brief literature review followed by discussion of conceptual issues in narrative theory, the politics of strategic narratives, and use of value propositions to build brands and convey value through stories. He grounds his analysis in a comparison of Canadian, Irish, and Norwegian campaigns to win a seat on the UN Security Council. Arceneaux argues practitioners need to adopt a storytelling approach that blends identity, system, and issue narratives with a holistic content strategy. His conclusion: “Contextualizing strategic narratives as value propositions expands the interdisciplinarity of government public relations scholarship at the nexus of international relations, public diplomacy, and nation branding.” The article is available for a limited time through open access.
André Barrinha, “Cyber-diplomacy: The Emergence of a Transient Field,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, online publication, February 26, 2024. Barrinha (University of Bath, UK) draws on 40 interviews with diplomats and experts and scholarship on diplomatic practices to make a case for cyberspace as a “diplomatized” governance and policy domain.By this he means it is becoming a “diplomatic field.” Its diplomatic actors range from states, multiple government departments, the military, and so-called non-diplomatic groups such as NGOs, corporations and “even journalists.” Barrinha usefully examines a variety of institutional, instrumental, and process dynamics in “cyber-diplomacy.” But it is not clear why this term and a separate form of diplomacy are needed. Diplomacy, a robust and capacious term, is adequate to describe communication and representation of interests and policies by diplomatic actors in a variety of governance and issue domains, including cyberspace.
Jon Bateman and Dean Jackson, Countering Disinformation Effectively: An Evidence-Based Policy Guide, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 2024. In this119-page report, Bateman (Carnegie Endowment) and Jackson (Public Circle Research & Consulting) examine conceptual issues, collate insights from empirical research, and use case studies to provide a guide to major proposals on how democratic governments, platforms, and others can counter disinformation. Among the findings. There are no “best” policy options. Adopt a portfolio approach to managing uncertainty. Give more attention to long-term structural reforms. Countering disinformation is not always apolitical. Generative AI will have complex effects but might not be a game changer. Case studies include: Fact checking. Counter-messaging strategies. Statecraft, deterrence, and disruption. Changing recommendation algorithms. And generative AI.
Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Thismassive volume is sure to be a dominant resource on digitalized diplomacy in coming years. Bjola (Oxford University) and Manor (Ben Gurion University of the Negev) have compiled 34 essays in a multidisciplinary compendium described as an examination of how digital technologies are used in diplomacy “as a practice, as a process, and as a form of disruption.” It divides into four parts: (1) concepts and theories, (2) diplomatic practices, (3) diplomatic institutions, and (4) diplomatic relations. Chapters include a variety of conceptual approaches and globally diverse case studies. The Handbook is institutionally priced. Readers will want to confirm it is available at their universities and in the libraries and training programs of ministries of foreign affairs.
Contributors include a stunning array of accomplished diplomacy scholars and practitioners. Rebecca Adler-Nissen (University of Copenhagen), Banu Akdenizli (Northwestern University Qatar), Phillip Arceneaux (Miami University of Ohio), Daniel Aguirre (Arizona State University), Victoria Baines (Gresham College, London), Corneliu Bjola, Emma L. Briant (Monash University), Caroline Bouchard (Université du Québec à Montréal), Jennifer Cassidy (University of Oxford), Andrew F. Cooper (University of Waterloo), Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), Rhys Crilley (University of Glasgow), Matthias Ecker-Ehrhardt (Universität Duisburg-Essen), Kristin Anabel Eggeling (University of Copenhagen), Anne Marie Engtoft Larsen (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark), Alisher Faizullaev (University of World Economy and Diplomacy), Alicia Fjällhed (Lund University), Tom Fletcher (University of Oxford), Luciana Alexandra Ghica (University of Bucharest), Natalia Grincheva (LASALLE College of Art, Singapore), Elsa Hedling (Lund University), Jorge Heine (Boston University), Marcus Holmes (William & Mary), Zhao Alexandre Huang (Université Paris Nanterre), Lucas Kello (University of Oxford), Didzis Kļaviņš (University of Latvia), Juan Pablo Prado Lallande (University of Puebla), Jeff Hai-chi Loo (University of Waterloo), Matthias LÜfkens (Founder of Twiplomacy), Alex Manby (University of Oxford), Ilan Manor, Fiona McConnell (Lund University), Alejandro Ramos (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico), Gary D. Rawnsley (University of Lincoln), Andreas Sandre (Embassy of Italy, United States), Efe Sevin (Towson University). Damien Spry (University of South Australia), Pawel Surowiec-Capell (University of Sheffield), Geoffrey Wiseman (DePaul University), Katherine A. M. Wright (Newcastle University), Moran Yarchi (Reichman University), and Ruben Zaiotti (Dalhousie University).
Chapter titles are available at an open access Table of Contents here.
William J. Burns, “Spycraft and Statecraft: Transforming the CIA for an Age of Competition,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2024, 74-85. Retired career Foreign Service officer and now CIA director William Burns provides evidence that intelligence services are more than compartmented espionage instruments. They are also actors in diplomacy’s public dimension. “Strategic declassification,” the selective public disclosure of secrets through “intelligence diplomacy,” can help allies and undercut false narratives of rivals. Well-crafted arguments by a spy chief in a leading journal can inform and persuade in support of policy agendas. Intelligence officers can engage diplomatically with enemies, and be seen as doing so, in circumstances where normal diplomatic contact might signal formal recognition. Burns has long been regarded as one of America’s top diplomats and change agent in diplomacy reform. This article contains lessons for diplomats and intelligence operatives on ways to transform patterns of practice in the face of geopolitical challenges, new technologies, and complex transnational issues.
Thomas Carothers and Frances Z. Brown, Democracy Policy Under Biden: Confronting a Changed World, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 2024. Carnegie’s Carothers and Brown assess Biden administration democratization efforts in the context of three challenges: a continuing long-term global democratic recession; the rising assertiveness of China, Russia, and other autocracies; and “the troubled status” of the United States as a democracy model. Their paper examines five main elements of the Biden administration’s democratization policies taken in the absence of a global democracy strategy. Countering autocratic challengers. Engaging multilaterally on democracy. Responding to democratic backsliding. Upgrading democracy aid. Reforming U.S. democracy. Although they find positive potential and a significant change from damage inflicted by Donald Trump, they also find “nagging dilemmas and constraints.” A fuller assessment, they argue, will ultimately depend on answers to three questions. Can thematic democracy initiatives be more fully integrated into bilateral country policies? Can initiatives be integrated to become more than the sum of the parts? Can successful efforts be institutionalized and sustained?
Yana Gorokhovskaia and Cathryn Grothe, Freedom in the World 2024: The Mounting Damage of Flawed Elections and Armed Conflict, Freedom House, February 2024. “Freedom declined for the 18th year in 2023.” So begins the current Freedom House report on global trends and country scores on political rights, civil liberties, human rights, and democratic processes and institutions. In the aggregate, 52 countries experienced declines; 21 countries improved. The manipulation of elections and armed conflict were leading causes. The 35-page report contains regional profiles, graphics, and policy recommendations.
Steven L. Herman, Behind the White House Curtain: A Senior Journalist’s Story of Covering the President—And Why It Matters, (The Kent State University Press, 2024). Veteran Voice of America (VOA) journalist Steve Herman’s memoir is a fascinating account of the daily life of a reporter covering the White House during the Trump and early Biden administrations. It is filled with vivid, short, and well-written chapters about what it takes to report from the White House pressroom and Air Force One, technologies needed for just in time reporting in the age of social media, and personalities at the crossroads of journalism and politics during the administrations of two very different presidents. Chapters on the chaos Trump appointee Michael Pack brought to the US Agency for Global Media and VOA during the administration’s last year in office are compelling and instructive. Readers will find broad-brush strokes from his earlier assignments as a VOA foreign correspondent, brief descriptions of VOA’s history and modus operandi, and his views on journalism in a democracy. But this is not a study of VOA as a government-funded media organization. It is the story of a White House reporter for whom good journalism is central, and VOA’s government sponsorship is largely incidental. It is also a finely crafted 21st century successor to Philomena Jurey’s A Basement Seat to History: Tales of Covering Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan for the Voice of America (1995).
Zhao Alexandre Huang and Phillip Arceneaux, “Ethical Challenges in the Digitalization of Public Diplomacy,” Chapter 13 in Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2024). Huang (Université Paris Nanterre) and Arceneaux (Miami University of Ohio) examine three ethical challenges for diplomats in a digital society through the lens of public diplomacy — principles of openness versus secrecy, inclusivity versus exclusivity, and state interests versus public interests in diplomatic practice. Following overviews of definitions of ethics and professionalization of public diplomats, their chapter provides distinctions and assertions that will provoke thought and energize debate. For example: (1) Diplomacy differs from other types of organized communication because diplomats have authority and agency as representatives of political collectives. (2) Diplomatic allegiance has evolved through stages that correspond to principles of dynastic sovereignty, territorial sovereignty, and international norms. (3) Social media create a “hybrid media system” that is weakening gatekeeping power; reshaping global distributions of power; and weaponizing disinformation, computational propaganda, information operations, and fake news. (4) Diplomacy practitioners face challenges brought by a weakened ability to build trust in chaotic information environments. Huang and Arceneaux are cautious in providing answers to important questions in digitalized diplomacy. The value of their chapter lies in framing them for scholars and practitioners to consider and debate. How should tensions between personal morality, professional ethics, and international norms be reconciled? Do cultural differences influence ethics? How should freedom and order be coordinated? What are the ethics of responsibility in spaces where globalization and digitalization are increasingly pervasive?
Dilara Cansın Keçialan, “Webster University, Visiting Prof. Alisher Faizullaev: ‘Social Diplomacy is a Societal Phenomenon and Has Certain Distinct Features,’” February 22, 2024, Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy Studies. Social diplomacy is an ascending topic in diplomacy studies, and Alisher Faizullaev (scholar, teacher and former Ambassador of Uzbekistan to the United Kingdom) is one of its leading proponents. His superb book, Diplomacy for Professionals and Everyone, (Brill Nijhoff, 2022), is a comprehensive statement of his thinking. The value of this interview is its brevity. It is an excellent summation of his views and a great assigned reading for students. He defines social diplomacy and compares it to traditional diplomacy. He discusses social diplomacy’s role in addressing solutions to problems that elude states and other political entities. And he reflects on future developments and opportunities for scholars and practitioners. Proponents of social diplomacy must reckon with concerns that stretching diplomacy too far risks losing its particularity and analytical utility. Faizullaev welcomes such critiques and debate — and defends his views with skill.
Suzanne Nossel, “The Real Culture Wars: How Art Shapes the Contest Between Democracy and Autocracy,” Foreign Affairs, February 29, 2024. Nossel (PEN America Center) briefly surveys how autocracies seek to control artistic expression and cultural institutions — and how democracies competing with autocracies have prioritized military, political, economic, and diplomatic instruments. Nossel argues outcomes also will depend significantly on culture. “How people in democracies and autocracies see the world is shaped by the music they listen to, the books they read, the films and television they watch, the art they admire, the museums they visit, and the textbooks they must study.” Nossel summarizes US government support for cultural and educational activities during and after the Cold War. Going forward, however, the US should not seek to replicate these methods or spread American culture to counter autocracies. Rather, the US government should strengthen activities of independent thinkers and creators in their own countries. Her article identifies bilateral and multilateral ways this might be achieved. “The aim of such efforts,” she concludes, “should be to lift and celebrate authentic creative thinkers and works rather than to shape what those thinkers say or produce.”
Brian C. Rathbun and Caleb Pomeroy, “See No Evil, Speak No Evil? Morality, Evolutionary Psychology, and the Nature of International Relations,” International Organization 76, Summer 2022, pp. 656–89. Rathbun (University of Southern California) and Pomeroy (Ohio State University) contest the notion that anarchy in international relations (IR) requires states to set ethical concerns aside to achieve security. Rather, evolutionary and moral psychology demonstrate that morality emerged to succeed in anarchy. “It is not despite anarchy but because of anarchy that humans have an ethical sense.” They advance three arguments. (1) It is “almost impossible” to talk about threats and harm without moral discourse. (2) Leaders and publics routinely use moral judgments in assessing threats. (3) Foreign policies shaped by conceptions of international relations as an amoral domain are rare. The authors provide empirical support for these claims with word embedding surveys of large data sets. Rathbun’s and Pomeroy’s ideas have value for diplomacy scholars debating ethical and engagement practices. Their assessment of literature that distinguishes between individual morality (an ethics of caring and providing) and group morality (an ethics of retaliation and protection) is particularly helpful. Also, their discussion of the evolutionary origins of the human tendency to favor insiders over outsiders. Less persuasive, however, is their claim that a central theme in IR studies holds that anarchy “requires” states to set ethics aside, which makes IR an “autonomous sphere devoid of ethical considerations.” Much of the literature on power and morality in IR (e.g., Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr, Kenneth Waltz, Michael Walzer, and many others) is not grounded in a dismissal of ethics in international society. It is based on implications of a category distinction between morality in the behavior of individuals and morality in the behavior of social groups. (Article suggested by Eric Gregory)
Joseph Siegle, Winning the Battle of Ideas: Exposing Global Authoritative Narratives and Revitalizing Democratic Principles, International Forum for Democratic Studies / National Endowment for Democracy, February 2024. ForSiegle (National Defense University), autocracies use narratives as asymmetric instruments of power to shift relations between society and states and between states and coalitions. His report examines four authoritarian narratives. (1) Non-interference, choice, and threats to sovereignty. (2) Exploiting grievances in the Global South. (3) Democracies failing to deliver. (4) Need for a new world order. Autocracies advance these narratives, he argues, through social media, state broadcasters, partnerships with local media, and foreign media cooptation. Siegle calls on democracies to “play the winning hand they have” with a strategy that elevates democracy as an organizing principle in international relations, articulates a positive vision of a democratic world order, challenges authoritarian claims of “performance legitimacy,” fosters cultures of democratic self-correction, and builds strong information ecosystems to counter manipulation.
US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “Public Diplomacy and DEIA Promotion: ACPD Official Meeting Minutes,” December 12, 2023. Minutes and a transcript of the Commission’s meeting at the USC Annenberg Center in Washington, DC focus on the Commission’s special report Public Diplomacy and DEIA Promotion: Telling America’s Story to the World. Executive director Vivian Walker moderated a panel that discussed DEIA challenges and opportunities from a field perspective. Panelists included Nicholas J. Cull (USC Annenberg), Krista Johnson (Howard University), C. Brian Williams (Step Afrika Dance Company), and Yolonda Kerney (US Department of State). The event is accessible also on video (80 minutes).
Sarah Wardwell, “A Look at the New Learning Policy: How, When, and Where Do State Department Employees Learn,” Foreign Service Journal, March 2024, 47-51. In the 1920s the State Department paid for two years of tuition, textbooks, and living expenses in Germany for George Kennan and other Foreign Service officers (FSOs) to study Russian language, literature, and history before assignment to Moscow. A similar investment a century later is hard to imagine. Unlike the US military, State until recently paid scant attention to a culture of professional education. In this article, Sarah Wardwell, a State FSO assigned as an innovation advisor, examines the department’s “Learning Policy” launched in September 2023 in response to recent reports and recommendations by senior US diplomats (e.g., Nicholas Burns, Marc Grossman, and Marcie Ries, A U.S. Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century, Harvard Kennedy School, 2020.) The new policy, Wardwell writes, “prioritizes learning as a part of the department’s culture by dedicating more time for learning, empowering employee-manager learning partnerships, and expanding learning opportunities.” The policy anticipates a core curriculum for mid-career professionals, expanded Individual Development Plans, and additional professional development and training options. Wardwell defends a policy that is strongly encouraged, but she recognizes “valid” concerns of critics who argue that unless it is mandated, other priorities will “win out.” The policy is a welcome first step, but as the US military recognized long ago, for policies such as professional education and joint force integration to work, they must be well funded and built into the incentives, rewards, and penalties of career advancement systems.
Geoffrey Wiseman, “Digital Diplomatic Cultures,” Chapter 17, 311-329, in Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Digital Diplomacy, (Oxford University Press, 2024). In this chapter, typically thoughtful and well-written, Wiseman (DePaul University) achieves several objectives. He correctly suggests the term “digital diplomacy” is problematic in that it does not convey a form of diplomacy (e.g., cultural diplomacy, sports diplomacy). It also implies diplomacy is conducted only through digital means. Terms such as “digitalization of diplomacy” or “diplomacy by digital means” are more apt. Other terms, such as “hybrid diplomacy” and “blended diplomacy,” signify qualitative differences made by digital technologies. He provides useful assessments of definitional challenges presented by the words “digital,” “diplomatic,” and “culture.” The central thrust of the chapter is devoted to assessment of research challenges and ways in which digital practices are changing four diplomatic cultures: bilateral, multilateral, polylateral, and omnilateral. Each culture exhibits blended degrees of analog and digital characteristics on a spectrum that ranges from in-person interactions to online norms and practices. His omnilateral culture, characterized as far from “fully conceptualized,” prompts questions as to whether diplomacy can “begin with the individual” and how far it can be stretched into the domain of cross-cultural internationalism. The chapter’s examination of differing degrees of digitalization in diplomatic cultures is evidence-based, deeply grounded in the literature, and an ideal platform for ongoing debate and research.
Recent Items of Interest
“100 Years of Radio in Africa: From Propaganda to People’s Power,” February 12, 2024, The Conversation.
Matt Armstrong, “Our Dysfunctional Relationship with Information Warfare Starts With Leadership,” March 5, 2024, Arming for the War We’re In.
Katie Azelby, “The Diplomatic Reserve Corps: A Bold Vision for American Diplomacy.” March 12, 2024, RealClear Defense.
Andrea Bodine, “Same Number, Different Story: Takeaways from the President’s FY25 Budget Request,” March 15, 2024, Alliance for International Exchange.
Hal Brands, “The Age of Amorality: Can America Save the Liberal Order Through Illiberal Means,” March/April 2024, Foreign Affairs.
Katherine A. Brown, “Global Engagement Matters for U.S. Communities,” February 16, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Michael Crowley, “Blinken Warns of Disinformation Threat to Democracies,” March 18, 2024, The New York Times.
Andrew Dubbins, “The Future of AI in Africa: Designing an Ethical Rollout of AI-powered Tech on the Continent,” March 4, 2024.
Kristin Eggeling, “Fieldnotes From Brussels: When Diplomacy Meets (Big) Tech,” February 22, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Ian Garner, “The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia’s Information War,” March 9, 2024, Foreign Policy.
Michael Green and Daniel Twining, “The Strategic Case for Democracy Promotion in Asia,” January 23, 2024, Foreign Affairs.
Natalia Grincheva, “K11 Alternative Diplomacies: Penetrating the Global Arts Markets,” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Vol. 10, Issue 3, November 2023.
Jonathan Guyer, “The State Department Is Still Pale, Male, and Yale,” February 12, 2023, The New Republic.
Edouard Harris, Jeremie Harris, and Mark Beall, “Defense in Depth: An Action Plan to Increase the Safety and Security of Advanced AI,” [Report commissioned by the US Department of State], February 26, 2024, Gladstone AI.
Jory Heckman, “State Dept Seeks Mid-career Experts to join Foreign Service in ‘Lateral Entry’ Pilot,” February 5, 2024, Federal News Network; Molly Weisner, “State Dept. Seeks Mid-career Applicants for Foreign Service,” February 1, 2024, Federal Times; “State Department Announces New Lateral Entry Pilot Program,” January 24, 2023, US Department of State; “State Department Eyes More Mid-Career Hiring to Address Skills Gaps,” January 28, 2024, Fedweek.
Jory Heckman, “AI & Data Exchange 2024: State’s Matthew Graviss, NIH’s Susan Gregurick on AI as Force Multiplier,” February 28, 2024, Federal News Network.
Michael Hirsh, “Did a Young Democratic Activist in 1968 Pave the Way for Donald Trump,” January 13, 2024, Politico Magazine. [Profile of Geoffrey Cowan, former VOA director, founder of USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and director of USC’s Annenberg Center on Leadership & Policy.]
Nina Jankowicz, “The Coming Flood of Disinformation: How Washington Gave Up On the Fight Against Falsehoods,” February 7, 2024, Foreign Affairs.
John Katzka, “Russian Propaganda Efforts: Historical Continuities Accompany Technological Changes,” February 2024, American Diplomacy.
Todd Leventhal, “Soviet vs. Post-Soviet Russian Disinformation,” February 2024, American Diplomacy.
“Management Letter Related to the Audit of the U.S. Agency for Global Media,” and ”Audit Report,” February 2024, Kearney & Company, P.C.
“Management Letter Related to the Audit of the U.S. Department of State” and “Audit Report,” February 2024, Kearney & Company, P.C.
Ilan Manor, “Public Diplomacy in the Era of Post-Reality,” February 13, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Steven Lee Meyers, “Spate of Mock News Sites With Russian Ties Pop Up in U.S.,” March 7, 2024, The New York Times.
Alan Philips, The Red Hotel: Moscow 1941, the Metropol Hotel, and the Untold Story of Stalin’s Propaganda War, (Pegasus, 2024); Reviewed by Jonathan Steele, “The Party Line,” The New York Review, March 21, 2024, 46-48.
Peter Pomerantsev, How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, (Public Affairs/2024). Reviewed by Martha Bayles, “‘How to Win an Information War,’ Review: Deception on the Airwaves,” The Wall Street Journal, March 8, 2024.
Charles Ray, “From Mars to Venus: My Journey from Soldier to Diplomat,” February 18, 2024, Washington International Diplomatic Academy.
Brianna Rosen, “Disclosing Secrets: Deterrence, Diplomacy, and Debate — Reflections on Remarks by DNI Avril Haines,” March 1, 2024, Just Security.
Tom Selinger, “A Century of Service: Firsthand Accounts From U.S. Diplomats,” March 2024, Foreign Service Journal.
Dan Spokojny, “What is Expertise? Let’s Ask the Experts,” March 13, 2023 “Introducing: Foreign Policy Expertise,” March 7, 2024, Foreign Policy Expertise Substack.
Julie Tremaine, “Everything To Know About The Diplomat, Season 2,” February 10, 2024, People.
Eriks Varpahovskis and Anri Chedia, “Türkiye’s Hizmet Schools: Once a Point of Pride, Now a Government-Labelled Threat,” March 5, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Vivian Walker, “DEIA and Public Diplomacy: Telling the Real Story,” January 31, 2024, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.
Gem from the Past
Deborah Cohn, The Latin American Literary Boom and U.S. Nationalism During the Cold War,(Vanderbilt University Press, 2012). Twelve years ago, Deborah Cohn (Indiana University Bloomington) wrote a perceptive and deeply researched book on literature in the Cold War’s cultural politics and diplomacy in the Americas. It warrants reading today for its enduring insights and conceptual frameworks. Cohn’s study is contrapuntal, a word she uses to describe an approach that moves back and forth between perspectives of Latin American and US-based writers, publishers, and promoters of Spanish American literature during the 1960s and 1970s known as “the boom.” She points to Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude as a primary and pivotal example.
Her book is contrapuntal in other important ways. It frames the Boom as a transnational and cosmopolitan movement that bridged a hegemonic and anti-hegemonic divide in the America’s following the Cuban revolution. It examines “skewed lines of cause and effect” that allowed writers who participated in operations of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, other CIA front groups, the State Department, and the US Information Agency to pursue their own political and literary agendas apart from US government policies. Her book also addresses their literature in the context of modernism, Marxism, and the fierce literary criticism debates in the second half of the 20th century. A long introduction surveys the book’s multiple agendas. Four chapters cover (1) the impact of the McCarthy era blacklist on Spanish American writers, (2) Latin American writers and the 1966 PEN Congress, (3) Latin America and its literature in US universities after the Cuban Revolution, and (4) the Center for Inter-American Relations. This is an essential book in the literature on cultural diplomacy, cross-cultural internationalism, and complex dynamics at the intersections of art, thought, and the state.
An archive of Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.
