The Arab Spring showed the world how social media can help organize mass political dissent. In the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, single issues coalesced online into far broader and diverse campaigns that toppled ruling regimes. Recently, outside of the Arab world, discriminatory government policies  in Iran against Afghans have come to light. Decried by critics as overt state-backed racism, it is a scandalous hot-button issue that the rulers of the “Islamic Republic” have little chance of defending.  Already a nascent but growing social media campaign has emerged to condemn it and may soon tap into broader popular grievances against the entire regime.

“We are all Afghans” is the new rally cry among Iranian and Afghan social media users, shocked by recent discriminatory Iranian government policies against the over two million Afghans living in Iran. A Facebook page with over 20,000 members now exists. And yes, there are protests planned. Iran’s recent Oscar-winning filmmaker, Asghar Farhadi, is speaking out too.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has hardly dispelled these growing charges of racism either. On the contrary, his recent speeches have contained overt declarations of Persian supremacy. The regime of the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” whose clerical leadership claims the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad (an Arab) and his family, is baring an increasing resemblance to the resurgent Neo-Fascist parties of Europe. And it is ironic that the hated Shah Reza Pahlavi regime, overthrown by the 1979 Revolution, was once fiercely condemned by Shiite clerics for emphasizing a Persian identity for Iran instead of an Islamic one.

The BBC reports that the deputy governor-general of Iran’s northern Mazandaran Province announced late last month that all Afghans must leave the province  irrespective of their legal status by July 2 (meaning it’s not an illegal immigration issue). The deputy governor has further warned the public that offering employment or any kind of assistance to Afghans is a crime “punishable by the full force of the law.” He also asserted the validity of a law passed in 2006 that made marriage between Iranian women and Afghan men illegal. Meanwhile, last month in Isfahan, Afghans were banned by officials from attending Nowruz (Persian New Year) celebrations in a public park because they “caused insecurity.”

One Iranian blogger, suggesting a more pervasive racism beyond Iranian government institutions, recently posted photos of signs in Iran that ban the use of facilities by Afghans or dictate segregated facilities for Afghans. Still another Iranian blogger compared recent events to the rise of Le Pen’s anti-immigrant Front National  party in France and lamented the racism in Iran by stating: “[We tell Westerners that] we are from the land of Cyrus the Great, but we think Afghans are murderers, Arabs are savages, Turks are naive and Blacks smell.”

Responses to the controversy from officials in Iran’s “Islamic” government have ranged from silence and denial to speeches glorifying the supremacy of the Persian people among the nations of the earth. Take, for instance, a recent speech (broadcast on state television) by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on April 11, 2012, in the province of Hormozgan. In the speech, he states:

Inside Iran, some ask me why I always speak about Iran. They say this is, I do not know, nationalism, ethnic racism, and so forth. Such talk is baseless. Iran is not an ethnos. Iran is a culture, vision, ethics, and ideology. . . . You look for people similar to our people in other countries. Look around the borders and compare with neighbors, and you will see the difference. There is a huge difference. This difference does not mean arrogance and vanity. It is first of all a divine gift, the glorification of the divine gift. It points to a mission [for our people].

Ahmadinejad goes onto boldly claim that: If you take away the share of the Iranian nation from human civilization, nothing will be left. In support of his ethnocentric narrative, Ahmadinejad sprinkles his speech with a range of anecdotal stories. In one instance, he recounts how extensively he has traveled, visiting more places in Iran than anyone else. Thanks to his travels, he claims, he has seen firsthand that “the best people of the world are living in Iran today.” He also lists some recent achievements of Iran, claiming in the vaguest terms that Iran has improved “nanotechnologies and biotechnologies,” making it “among the few top countries in the world.” And finally he recounts a story that seems to be a hadith from the Prophet Muhammad (again, an Arab), although I am personally unfamiliar with it. It relates that the Prophet once told his followers that “Iranians will [one day] guide and lead, and introduce the truth of Islam to the world.” This, Ahmadinejad says, proves that Iranians have a divinely decreed mission to lead the world (and they must act on it).

This rhetoric of racial or ethnic pride and supremacy goes entirely against Islamic ideals about the equality and universal brotherhood of all Muslims as a single ummah. And yes, I do mean ideals. On an everyday level, one can find examples of racism and prejudice in every Muslim country in the world, just as one can find it in any other country, including the United States of America. But what makes this case so peculiar is that most countries don’t claim to be an “Islamic Republic” or a righteous state representing God’s Mahdi on earth. Moral condemnation aside, it is a tremendous blunder for the theocratic regime to indulge in this sort of racist rhetoric and behavior. And I cannot see how the “Great Satan” or the “Zionist entity” can be blamed for this one. At the very least, Iran’s treatment of its Afghans, many of whom arrived as refugees during the Soviet invasion, will only further alienate its Sunni neighbors and produce further international isolation.

More importantly though, recent events in mind, I have to wonder if the “We are All Afghans” movement might coalesce into something much more. After all,  there is no shortage of grievances among the Iranian populace. Iran’s nuclear program has yet to produce anything but international tensions and sanctions. And the tragic martyrdom of Neda Agha Soltan amidst the 2009 election scandal has yet to be forgotten, despite the regime’s best efforts. Sound far-fetched? Perhaps, but who would have thought that a fatal case of police brutality in Alexandria, Egypt, would have led to the “We are all Khaled Saeed” campaign that grew into a popular revolution that overthrew the US-backed Mubarak regime? Perhaps there’s a “Persian Spring” on the horizon after all.

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In previous posts I have advocated amplifying al-Qaeda’s record of killing Muslims, and argued this practice was doing serious damage toAQ’s brand.  Captured documents from bin Laden’s compound indicate that he was worried about the same thing.

Last week David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote a story based on his “exclusive look” at those documents.  The headline was about bin Laden’s supposed plot to kill President Obama.  But later in the story he describes bin Laden’s hand-wringing over his organization’s image:

Bin Laden’s biggest concern was al-Qaeda’s media image among Muslims. He worried that it was so tarnished that, in a draft letter probably intended for Atiyah, he argued that the organization should find a new name.

The al-Qaeda brand had become a problem, bin Laden explained, because Obama administration officials “have largely stopped using the phrase ‘the war on terror’ in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims,” and instead promoted a war against al-Qaeda. The organization’s full name was “Qaeda al-Jihad,” bin Laden noted, but in its shorthand version, “this name reduces the feeling of Muslims that we belong to them.” He proposed 10 alternatives “that would not easily be shortened to a word that does not represent us.” His first recommendation was “Taifat al-tawhid wal-jihad,” or Monotheism and Jihad Group.

Bin Laden ruminated about “mistakes” and “miscalculations” by affiliates in Iraq and elsewhere that had killed Muslims, even in mosques. He told Atiyah to warn every emir, or regional leader, to avoid these “unnecessary civilian casualties,” which were hurting the organization.

“Making these mistakes is a great issue,” he stressed, arguing that spilling “Muslim blood” had resulted in “the alienation of most of the nation [of Islam] from the [Mujaheddin].” Local al-Qaeda leaders should “apologize and be held responsible for what happened.”

The moral is that words really do matter when it comes to government strategic communication.  As William Saletan writes in Slate, the Obama administration took a lot of political heat for ratcheting-down the “war on terror” rhetoric, but has been vindicated.  Maintaining the idea that the United States is fighting a religion only reinforces the clash of civilizations narrative, which in turns plays directly into the communication strategy of the Bad Guys.

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Morton Abramowitz and Mark Lowenthal, “Restocking the Toollkit,” The American Interest, Winter, January/February, 2012, 57-64.  Abramowitz (Century Foundation) and Lowenthal (Intelligence and Security Academy) lament two decades of US overreliance on military force and call for a stronger “array of diverse tools to influence events abroad.”   Critical weaknesses include lack of well informed political intelligence; failure “to mobilize a genuine vision of an active and efficacious diplomacy;” too many closed-off embassies and passive diplomats; government wide public information programs that are “stale, balkanized, and underfunded;” insufficient diplomatic focus on political opposition groups and a broad range of civil society institutions; and an American Foreign Service Association with too little enthusiasm for transformational change.  The authors frame their case for the 2012 political campaigns and the next cycle of foreign affairs reform.

Matt Armstrong, www,MountainRunner.us. Guest posts on the future of US international broadcasting, February 2012. Armstrong’s website provides a convenient platform to view a lively debate among current and former US broadcasters on the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ 2013 budget request and Strategic Plan, 2012-2016.  Includes:

Alex Belida, “Reforming U.S. International Broadcasting: A New Mission Statement,” (2/13/2012), “Reforming U.S. International Broadcasting (Part Two): What to do About the BBG?” (2/15/2012), “Reforming U.S. International Broadcasting (Part Three): A New Structure” (2/16/2012), and “Blind Ambition,” (2/16/2012).

Kim Andrew Elliott, “US International Broadcasting: Success Requires Independence and Consolidation,” (2/14/2012)

Alan Heil, “Whisper of America?” (2/14/2012)

David Jackson, “The Future of International Broadcasting,” (2/15/2012)

Caitlin Byrne, Campaigning for a Seat on the United Nations Security Council: A Middle Power Reflection on the Role of Public Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 10, 2011, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.  Drawing on her academic research and prior experience as a practitioner in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Byrne (Bond University) argues that Security Council candidate nations must combine their intense lobbying in the UN with a broader range of efforts focused on reputation, image, and significant engagement and persuasion of international audiences.  Using Australia’s Security Council aspirations as a case study, Byrne looks at how and when middle powers might use public diplomacy strategies to supplement traditional diplomacy and achieve broader soft power outcomes.

Alan L. Heil, Jr., “All Quiet on the Western Front: 2012 Challenges and Opportunities in the Five-Year Strategic Plan for U.S. International Broadcasting,” American Diplomacy, December 2011. Heil (a former VOA deputy director and author of Voice of America) examines challenges facing US and European international broadcasters and the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ 2012-2016 strategic plan.  His assessment provides a detailed summary of recent organizational and functional changes in US broadcasting.  Can the new plan “meet and master the challenges?”  Heil’s answer is “Hopefully, yes.”

Michael Ignatieff, “The Return of Sovereignty,” The New Republic, February 16, 2012, 25-28.  The former leader of Canada’s Liberal Party returns to academe and uses his review of Brad R. Roth, Sovereign Equality and Moral Disagreement, (Oxford University Press, 2011) to argue that “Sovereignty is back.”  Ignatieff’s essay is a thoughtful reflection on the relationship between sovereignty and law, emotional identification of people with the sovereign, appropriate limits to lawful coercion to prevent chaos, and sovereignty’s continued relevance in the deep waters of global commerce.  “Sovereignty has returned,” Ignatieff argues, because citizens need a principle of authority more stable than price signals and government alone.  His essay offers a paradoxical conclusion: if we want justice in our political and diplomatic decisions to intervene in revolutions, and global markets that deliver jobs and take responsibility for their risks, then we need stronger, more capable, and more legitimate sovereign authority.

Charles Kupchin, Rosa Brooks, Rachel Kleinfeld, Tom Perriello, and Bruce Jentleson, “First Principles: America and the World,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, No. 23, Winter 2012, 8-45. The contributors to this collection of essays offer principles for a progressive foreign policy.

Charles Kupchin (Georgetown University) in “Grand Strategy: The Four Pillars of the Future” outlines key elements of a strategic alternative to isolationism and neoconservative adventurism.

Rosa Brooks (Georgetown University Law Center) calls for a humbler, more patient approach to democratization in “Democracy Promotion: Done Right, A Progressive Cause.”

Rachel Kleinfeld (Truman National Security Project) argues the US must facilitate connections with and among civil societies in “Global Outreach: Speaking to the Awakening World.”

Tom Perriello (a former member of Congress) in “Humanitarian Intervention: Recognizing When, and Why, It Can Succeed” examines issues and criteria relevant to the legitimate use of force.

Bruce Jentleson (Duke University) discusses foreign policy for a world where the US is “not at the center” in “Accepting Limits: How to Adapt to a Copernican World.”

Rebecca MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, (Basic Books, 2012). Drawing on her experiences as CNN’s Beijing and Tokyo bureau chief and work at Harvard’s Berkman Center for the Internet and Society, the co-founder of Global Voicies explores central issues in cyber power and Internet governance.  MacKinnon gives life to her analysis with stories of protest movements, policy debates, and uses and abuses of government and corporate power.  Public diplomacy enthusiasts will find particularly useful her accounts of digital empowerment in the Arab Spring, China’s Internet dilemmas, Wikileaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Internet freedom policy, and the contrasting views of Internet experts Clay Shirky, Evgeny Morozov, and Ethan Zuckerman.

Petar Petrov, Karolina Pomorska, and Sophie Vanhoonacker, Guest Editors, “The Emerging EU Diplomatic System,” Special Issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 7, Nos. 1 2012. In this issue of HJD, the editors (Maastricht University) compile articles by scholars and practitioners that examine political, policy, organizational, legal, and contextual issues in the post-Lisbon EU diplomatic system. Includes:

Petar Petrov, Karolina Pomorska, and Sophie Vanhoonacker, “Introduction: The Emerging EU Diplomatic System: Opportunities and Challenges After ‘Lisbon.’”

Daniel C. Thomas and Ben Tonra, “To What Ends EU Foreign Policy? Contending Approaches to the Union’s Diplomatic Objectives and Representation.”

Jan Wouters and Sanderijn Duquet, “The EU and International Diplomatic Law: New Horizons?”

Edith Drieskens, “What’s in a Name? Challenges to the Creation of EU Delegations.”

Kolja Raube, “The European External Action Service and the European Parliament.”

Federica Bicchi, “The European External Action Service: A Pivotal Actor in EU Foreign Policy Communications?”

Simon Duke, “Diplomatic Training and the Challenges Facing the EEAS.”

David Spence, “The Early Days of the European External Action Service: A Practitioner’s View.”

“Public Diplomacy in the Age of Social Media,” New America Foundation, Washington, DC, February 16, 2012.  In this 90-minute YouTube video, Alexander Howard (Government 2.0) moderates a panel of mid-career US Department of State officers on social media trends and practices.  Panelists:  Suzanne Hall (Senior Advisor, Innovation in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs), Nick Namba (Acting Deputy Coordinator for Content Development and Partnerships, Bureau of International Information Programs), and Ed Dunn (Acting Director, Digital Communications Center, Bureau of Public Affairs).

Olivier Roy, “Breakthroughs in Faith,” World Policy Journal, Winter 2011/ 2012, 8-13.  Roy (European University Institute, Florence, and author of Holy Ignorance) challenges dominant “clash or dialogue of civilizations” theories of the “return of the sacred” in diplomacy and global politics. Both “clash” and “dialogue” analysts err, Roy argues, in framing religion as transmitted identity rather than chosen faith.  Rather, the fundamentalist impulse in many religions is driven by rising secularization, not by resistance to modernization.  This gap between faith and identity has strategic consequences in the context of the Arab Spring, the role of Al Qaida, and rise of new religious movements as international actors disassociated from a given culture.

Barry Sanders, American Avatar: The United States in the Global Imagination, (Potomac Books, 2011).  Sanders (UCLA) looks at historical origins and recent manifestations of a broad array of complex and contradictory images of the United States.  His self-referential assessment (“The United States bears the world’s hopes and dreams as no other nation in history.”) examines a variety of psychological and cultural explanations for these images and the “slender connection between America and views about America.”  Sanders emphasizes Western perspectives and frames his interpretation of American exceptionalism as the “expectations and longings among foreigners in their expectations of the ‘American Dream.’”  He urges caution in using opinion polls, which are volatile and superficial, in analyzing attitudes and instead focuses on more deeply rooted predispositions and stored images.  His concluding chapter offers five positive images that matter in foreign policy and in “messages” that “can be sent by the practice of public diplomacy.”

Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, eds., American Diplomacy, (Brill, Martinus Nijhoff, 2012).  Sharp (University of Minnesota, Duluth) and Wiseman (University of Southern California) compile essays by scholars and practitioners that “examine questions arising from the Obama administration’s efforts to revive American diplomacy and its response to the ways in which diplomacy itself is being transformed.”  Originally published as a special issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (Vol. 6, No. 3-4, 2011), the book includes a new conclusion and index.  For an annotation of the content, visit “Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites #59.”

Jonathan Spalter, “Open-Source Diplomacy,” Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, No. 23, Winter 2012, 59-70.  Spalter (Chairman, Mobile Future) uses Eric Raymond’s essay, “The Cathedral and the Bazaar,” to frame an approach to US diplomacy that embraces open source technologies.  Spalter, a former USIA and National Security Council official in the Clinton administration, calls for “a more adaptive, technologically engaged, and diversely skilled professional foreign policy corps.”

Tara Sonenshine, “Engaging a World in Transition,” US Institute of Peace, January 23, 2012.  The nominee for US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs discusses her views on public diplomacy, foreign and domestic challenges to US foreign policy, funding for diplomacy and development, leveraging the power of technology, and the need for increased “understanding of American values.”

Janice Gross Stein, ed. Digital Diplomacy in the Digital Age: Essays in Honour of Ambassador Allan Gotlieb, (Signal, 2011).   Essays by scholars, diplomats, and journalists look at diplomacy’s future and pay tribute to one of Canada’s leading diplomats.  Stein (University of Toronto) organizes their contributions in four sections:  “Diplomacy with the United States in the Age of Wikileaks,” “The Professional Diplomat on Facebook,” “Diplomacy in the Age of Twitter,” and “Where is Headquarters?”  Allan Gotlieb’s career and book, ‘I’ll Be With You in a Minute, Mr. Ambassador’ (see “Gem from the Past” below), are pioneering contributions to the study and practice of diplomacy.

“Sun Tzu and the Art of Soft Power,” The Economist, December 17, 2011, 71-74.  Drawing on the views of scholars and Chinese political leaders,The Economist looks at strengths and limitations in China’s increasing use of Sun Tzu as a tool in its soft power strategy.  

US Department of Defense, Sustaining Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense,  January 2012.   With cover letters from President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, this 8-page “defense strategy” seeks to frame US national security interests, advance the Defense Department’s efforts to “rebalance and reform,” support deficit reduction through less defense spending, and profile the primary missions of US armed forces.  Although President Obama’s letter makes passing reference to strengthening all the tools of American power, “including diplomacy and development, intelligence, and homeland security,” the report makes no reference to strategic communication and information operations capabilities.

US Government Accountability Office, Broadcasting Board of Governors Should Provide Additional Information to Congress Regarding Broadcasting to Cuba, GAO-12-243R, December 13, 2011.  GAO finds that a strategic plan for US broadcasting to Cuba — submitted by the BBG in response to a Congressional directive in August 2011 –  lacked key information necessary for Congress to exercise it oversight responsibilities.  GAO recommends that the BBG provide an analysis of estimated costs and cost savings of sharing resources between the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the Voice of America’s Latin American Division.  Report Summary.

Richard Virden, “Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy in One Country: Poland During the Cold War,” AmericanDiplomacy.org, December 21, 2011.  Retired diplomat Dick Virden provides insights into US public diplomacy in Poland during and after the Cold War.  His narrative looks at contrasting social and political environments in Poland during the 1980s and 1990s and implications for US public diplomacy tools and methods.

Vivek Wadhwa, “The First Brain Drain in the United States,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2012, 89-96.  Using data gathered by a research team at Duke, Harvard, and UC Berkeley, Wadhwa argues that very few international students plan to stay in the US after completing their degrees due to flawed US immigration policies and better opportunities in their home countries.  “The world’s best and brightest now view the United States as a decreasingly attractive place to live and work.”

Jian Wang and Shaojing Sun, Experiencing Nation Brands: A Comparative Analysis of Eight National Pavilions at Expo Shanghai 2010, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 2, 2012, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Jay Wang (University of Southern California) and Shaojing Sun (Fudan University) explore how Chinese visitors “experienced the branded space of national pavilions” at the Shanghai Expo and how this “brand experience” might have shaped or re-shaped their perceptions of the sponsor countries.  Drawing on surveys of visitors to the pavilions of Brazil, India, Israel, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, the authors provide a wide ranging discussion of nation-branding as a concept, its use as an instrument of public diplomacy, China’s role as sponsor and target of public diplomacy, and the institutional value of World Expos.  Their  comparative study finds value in the “brand experience” framework, assesses the impact of the national pavilions, offers insights to Expo practitioners, and identifies areas for future research.

Wilton Park, “Putting the Power in Soft Power,” Conference Report, WP1117, October 12-14, 2011. In this online report, conference rapporteur Jayne Luscombe summarizes key points and views expressed by practitioners, scholars, and policymakers attending a three-day conference on soft power.  Wilton Park is associated with the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Jillian York, “The Arab Digital Vanguard: How a Decade of Blogging Contributed to a Year of Revolution,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2012, 33-42.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Jillian York looks at the evolution of the Arab blogosphere, the unique impact of its common language in creating “a transnational community of sorts,” and the variety of digital tools used for citizen activism.  Her optimistic account shows that what seemed sudden “was in fact the culmination of nearly a decade of efforts.”

Blogs of Interest

Robert Albro, “Models as Mirrors or Cultural Diplomacy?” Public Policy Anthropologist, February 15, 2012.  Albro (American University) offers comments on findings from a cultural diplomacy survey of scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and cultural producers who attended conferences on cultural diplomacy at AU.  Posted also on the USC Center for Public Diplomacy’s CPD Blog.

Daryl Copeland, “Canadian Public Diplomacy, Then and Now,” The Mark, January 3, 2012, and “A Future for Public Diplomacy” The Mark  January 12, 2012.  Copeland (Ottawa University and the author of Guerrilla Diplomacy) writes that Canada “once a pioneer in public diplomacy” now faces an “uphill battle” and is “trailing most of its diplomatic competition.”

Helle Dale, “Fill the Public Diplomacy Leadership Vacuum,” WebMemo, February 3, 2012 and “Quieting the Voice of America,” February 23, 2012. Dale (The Heritage Foundation) questions leadership, organizational, and budget deficiencies in the Department of State and US international broadcasting.

Gem From the Past

Allan Gottlieb, ‘I’ll be with You In Just a Minute, Mr. Ambassador,’ The Education of a Canadian Diplomat in Washington, (University of Toronto Press, 1991).  When Canada’s Allan Gottlieb arrived in Washington in 1981 to begin a seven-year tour as Ambassador to the United States, he anticipated most of his time would be spent in diplomatic formalities and meetings in the Department of State.  He quickly discovered that diplomacy’s radical transformation required the talents of an effective lobbyist and, in the words of former US Secretary of State James Baker, an ambassador who is “an insider” and who “knows how to work the system.”  Gottlieb’s book was and is a pioneering contribution to “the new diplomacy.”  This new diplomacy, he wrote, “is, to a large extent, public diplomacy and requires different skills, techniques, and attitudes than those found in traditional diplomacy, as it is practiced in most countries, including Canada.”
____________________________________

*Bruce Gregory is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Georgetown University, and publishes this list periodically via mailing list.  We reprint it here as a service to our readers.  Bruce can be reached by email via bgregory at gwu dot edu

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I pass on, for your viewing enjoyment, a segment from the PBS Newshour about a perky, Chinese speaking, twenty-something Voice of America employee named Jessica Beinecke.  She is becoming something of a sensation in China by teaching American slang to people there via internet video.  Her program, called OMG! Meiyu, uses social media not only to distribute her shows, but to get viewers involved in selection of the slang to be covered in upcoming segments.  It’s a great example of how technology changes not only what we think of as public diplomacy, but innovative ways in which it can be delivered.

UPDATE February 12

Some of my colleagues asked why I used “boogers” in the title of the blog, when the video says nothing about this.  The actual PBS Newshour segment (which I wrongly assumed the video below displayed) had a clip from an OMG! Meiyu about “stuff that comes out of your face” (see it here) including boogers.  Sorry for the confusion.

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In December, COMOPS was invited to participate in a question and answer forum with General Stéphane Abrial, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, hosted by Atlantic-Community.org. Atlantic-Community is a leading European online think tank focused on transatlantic relations. The Q&A reveals that General Abrial has an integrative, forward-looking conceptualization of the role of strategic communication in NATO.  A close read also suggests that NATO faces both internal, as well as external, strategic communication challenges.

As the head of Allied Command Transformation (ACT), General Abrial is one of two strategic commanders in the NATO organizational structure (Allied Command Operations or ACO is the other, led by Admiral James Stavridis), and is charged with leading and facilitating the continuous improvement of NATO capabilities to meet NATO missions, operations and goals now and into the future.  The online forum consisted of a video by General Abrial introducing the concept of “Smart Defense”, an initiative recently put in place by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and General Abrial’s thoughts on what Smart Defense means for ACT.

Members of Atlantic-Community were invited to submit questions to General Abrial, facilitated by the editors at Atlantic-Community, and over the course of two subsequent sessions General Abrial answered a selection of these questions.  The first set of questions addressed specific implementations of Smart Defense, including definitions and ACT implications as well as transparency and development concerns.  The second inquired about broader NATO issues such as maritime security, cultural obstacles to cooperation and strategic communication.  The complete question and answer session can be found here.

One of the underlying factors driving Smart Defense, emphasized both in General Abrial’s introductory video and his answers to multiple questions, is the increased pressure on defense budgets in the face of the current European debt crisis and severe recession in the United States.  Yet, the security challenges faced by NATO and member countries have not abated.  These fiscal conditions motivate a need to do more with less, or as the general puts it: “We need to spend better.”  General Abrial provides some interesting thoughts about cooperative procurement as a method to leverage economies of scale.  In addition, he suggests the coordination of each member-country’s unique strengths and capabilities would be more efficient than developing parallel capabilities across the Alliance.

Acknowledging the fiscal challenges underpinning Smart Defense, my question to General Abrial centered on what sort of security dividend could be realized by emphasizing strategic communication as an additional tool for achieving NATO security objectives.  In other words, with the significant rise in insurgency and other irregular warfare situations, might non-kinetic solutions offer a cost-effective supplement to traditional kinetic military capabilities (and by implication, could successful non-kinetic solutions reduce the need for expensive weapons systems procurement and maintenance, if only slightly)?

General Abrial’s answer emphasized the role of strategic communication as part of a broad public diplomacy effort and cited a 2009 NATO Summit conclusion that strategic communication must be an integral part of both political and military objectives.  This dual role of strategic communication points to a significant challenge for conducting it effectively.  Which arm of NATO (or any government for that matter), the political or military, should lead strategic communication?

Thinking of strategic communication in terms of public affairs and information operations is too restrictive. It is a discipline that bridges both political and military domains and is intricately enmeshed with both political and military operations.  It requires careful planning and forethought, otherwise devaluing its strategic benefit.  General Abrial calls for “building a professional framework strategic communications related military disciplines” and I would argue that this framework should be overtly collaborative with the political dimension of the alliance’s functions.

General Abrial’s answer also got me thinking about two sides of strategic communication and the special challenges faced by NATO.  All countries when seeking to communicate their objectives and goals, and seeking to persuade an audience to cooperate in the achievement of those goals have two audiences, external and internal.  In its traditional definition—communication crafted and coordinated to support the achievement of a goal—strategic communication is often conceived as an externally focused process, and this is especially true when subcomponents of the discipline such as public diplomacy, information operations and psychological operations (psyops) are considered.  However, countries have domestic audiences that require information and need to understand what their government is trying to accomplish.

In NATO’s case, this internal audience presents a particular challenge:  28 member countries, each with its own unique security and diplomatic concerns, its own internal political turmoil, not too mention significant historical and cultural concerns.  Each country itself has both internal and external audiences.  General Abrial’s comments introducing Smart Defense indicates this need to address this internally-focused facet of strategic communication.

He observes that a question facing NATO is: “how do we best encourage groups of like-minded countries to reap economies of scale by working together more often?”  This sounds like a strategic communication issue, but not one suited to information operations or pysop campaigns.  Rather, it is about getting all the member countries to share the same vision of NATO’s future and the same vision about how they can contribute to that future.  In short, they need to participate in the same narrative.

This challenge illustrates how approaching narrative from a systemic perspective can be helpful, not only in terms of narrative analysis and understanding, but also in terms of strategic communication planning.  Smart Defense already articulates some fundamental themes: cooperation, fiscal prudence, balancing sovereignty and solidarity, etc.  As we’ve noted here at COMOPS Journal before (notably here and here), a narrative is (1) an explanatory organization of information; (2) is structured with a trajectory towards the resolution a conflict or satisfaction of a desire (and the events of this trajectory illustrate themes, values and ideals); and (3) is a system of stories.

Constructing a Smart Defense narrative, then, would consist of identifying a variety of stories that constitute the events in the overall narrative trajectory.  For an effective and coherent narrative that unites the alliance, these stories would ideally be sourced from the member countries and thus consistent with those narrative landscapes.  Next, they would contain within them actions and characters and events that, when collected together, place Smart Defense at the resolution of the conflicts or the satisfaction of  desires germane to each member country.  Of course, that’s easier said than done.

The most encouraging of all the general’s comments, though, was his assertion that strategic communication “must be incorporated into all operational planning, instead of being relegated to an after-the-fact attempt to explain, or build support for a decision that has already been taken.”  As my co-authors and I argue in our upcoming book Narrative Landmines, understanding the narrative landscape and incorporating that knowledge into the decision-making process at operational and strategic levels can make the difference between success or failure of civil affairs, public outreach, crisis management and other soft power enterprises.

We at COMOPS thank General Abrial and Atlantic-Community for the opportunity to engage in this dialogue, and look forward to following NATO’s efforts in implementing Smart Defense and ensuring both European and Transatlantic security in the years to come.

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*Dr. Scott W. Ruston is an Assistant Research Professor at the Center for Strategic Communication at Arizona State University. A specialist in narrative theory and media studies, he is the co-author of Narrative Landmines: Rumors, Islamist Extremism and the Struggle for Strategic Influence (Rutgers UP, available March 2012).  He is also an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve newly assigned to a NATO ACT reserve support unit.

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In an apparent budget cutting move, the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy was cut from the recently passed budget, and has ceased to exist. The move eliminates an organization over 60 years old.

The Commission was established under the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 as the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information.  It was merged with an educational exchange commission in 1977 to produce the current name and configuration.

According to its website, the Commission had only one permanent staffer (its Executive Director) and a budget of just $135,000.  I can attest that the activities of the Commission were valuable.  In a recent post I recounted some events from one of their meetings.  That meeting also led to a connection between our group and a group in Afghanistan working on narrative issues there.  It doesn’t take too many such connections to justify a budget that basically amounts to a rounding error in the Federal balance sheet.

The now-former Executive Director of the Commission is Matt Armstrong, whose mountainrunner blog went into hibernation while he had the gig.  Matt is restarting the blog and I welcome him back to the PD/SC blogoshopere, though I wish it were under different circumstances.

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Asia Foundation, Afghanistan in 2011: A Survey of the Afghan People, November 15, 2011.  While nearly half (46%) of Afghans say their country is moving in the right direction, more respondents (35%) than at any time since the Foundation began polling there in 2004 say Afghanistan is headed in the wrong direction.  Attacks, violence, and terrorism are cited.  The survey also found, however, that Afghans see progress in access to education, drinking water, health services, and in household financial well-being.  Sympathy for armed opposition groups declined dramatically in 2011, reaching its lowest level since the Foundation’s surveys began.

Tom Bartlett and Karin Fisher, “The China Conundrum,” The New York Times, November 6, 2011.  In this NYT Education Life feature, Bartlett and Fisher argue that American colleges have been slow to adjust to challenges caused by the rapid rise in Chinese undergraduates — now the largest group of foreign students in the United States.  In their eager competition for students from China’s expanding middle class who can afford to pay full tuition, American colleges contend with application, language, and acclimation problems as they “struggle to distinguish between good applicants and those who are too good to be true.”  The article is a collaboration between The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

British Council, Corporate Plan 2011-2015, posted September 2011.  The British Council’s vision for 2015 anticipates significant reductions in government funding, more collaboration with corporate and civil society partners, increased income from paid services, and greater priority to countries with strategic importance to the UK.   Includes a foreword by Council CEO Martin Davidson and sections on English teaching, education and society, the arts, sports, science, climate change, digital platforms, regional programs, and a financial plan.  See blog comments by Alex Case on implications of a 26 percent cut in government funding and keeping an eye on the Council’s “increasing commercialism.”

British Council, “Trust and Why it Matters,” Culture Report, EUNIC Yearbook 2011, pp. 190-193.  Calling for an evidence-based approach to trust building, the Council reports on its survey of young urban, educated, and online “influencers” (age 16-34) in India, China, Poland, and Saudi Arabia.  The survey tested for levels of trust in the people and governments in the UK, the US, Germany, and France.  The Council found “a clear positive association” between self-assessed levels of trust and some form of cultural relations activity involving the base line countries as well as a willingness to engage further with those countries.  Levels of trust were significantly higher for the UK, Germany, and France than for the United States.

Broadcasting Board of Governors, Impact Through Innovation and Integration, BBG Strategic Plan, 2012-2016, posted November 2011. In this brief (seven pages) and imaginative five year plan, the BBG outlines a strategy for US international broadcasting intended to address fundamental changes in the global information environment.  Its strategy includes a revised statement of mission, a vision for “altogether new ways of doing business” in programing and use of new technologies, making internet censorship circumvention and anti-jamming a top priority, and transformational changes in the identity and organizational structure of the BBG and its broadcasting services.  See also the BBG’s press release and “Frequently Asked Questions.”

Massimo Calabresi, “Hillary Clinton and the Rise of Smart Power,” Time, November 7, 2011, 26-33.  Time magazine’s cover story chronicles US Secretary of State Clinton’s efforts to face different situations, threats, and opportunities with smart combinations of diplomacy, development, and military hard power.  Her tools include the “convening power” of connections with civil society organizations, greater control over US foreign aid strategy, expansion of political advisors in the Department of Defense, and immersing “everyone from entry-level foreign service officers to newly appointed ambassadors in social media.”  Many of her initiatives, Time observes, are low on budget, “long on jargon and short on deliverables,” and run out of her office making their duration problematic.  Includes a Q&A with the Secretary by Time’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel.

Daryl Copeland, “Science Diplomacy: What’s It All About?” Center for International Policy Studies, Policy Brief No. 13, November 2011.  Copeland (Canadian diplomat and author of Guerrilla Diplomacy) calls for greater attention to science diplomacy in addressing global issues that challenge development and security.  He distinguishes between science diplomacy (a subset of public diplomacy with governance connections) and international scientific collaboration among corporate and civil society partners.  His paper frames conceptual issues and outlines difficulties flowing from dominance of defense-related funding and lack of awareness and capacity in foreign ministries, multilateral organizations, and science-based institutions.

Mai’a K. Davis Cross, “All Talk and No Action,” Culture Report, EUNIC Yearbook 2011, pp. 20-25.  Cross (University of Southern California) looks at rising Euro-pessimism in the United States and finds widespread lack of awareness of Europe’s political, economic, and military achievements.  She suggests three images that Europe should strive to promote:  a Europe “united in diversity,” a Europe that acts and doesn’t just talk, and a Europe that effectively combines hard and soft power in facing 21st century challenges.  Cross examines the role the European External Action Service can play in addressing US misperceptions with particular emphasis on the value of networked cultural diplomacy.

Recent articles by Professor Cross also include:  “Building a European Diplomacy: Recruitment and Training to the EEAS,” European Foreign Affairs Review, (2011), 16: 447-464.  On building professionalism, expertise, flexibility, and collective identity in the European External Action Service.  “Europe, A Smart Power?” International Politics (2011), 48, 691-706.  On the meaning of smart power and Europe’s use of soft and smart power.

European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC), Culture Report, EUNIC Yearbook 2011.  This fourth edition of the Culture Report — published for the first time within the framework of EUNIC (a network of 19 European cultural diplomacy organizations) — examines the current state of Europe’s external cultural relations.  Includes chapters by 30 scholars and practitioners from 20 countries that examine external perspectives on Europe, the role of culture in Europe’s external affairs, and the evolution of the EUNIC network.

“2011: Facets of Diplomacy,” Exchange: The Journal of Public Diplomacy, Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars, Syracuse University, November 2011. Graduate students at Syracuse University have published their second edition of online journal Exchange.  Includes:

Simon Anholt (Editor, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy), “Beyond the Nation Brand — The Role of Image and Identity in International Relations”

Rachel Wilson (Syracuse University), “Cocina Peruana Para El Mundo: Gastrodiplomacy, the Culinary Nation Brand, and the Context of National Cuisine in Peru”

Sofia Kisou (Ionia University), “The Power of Culture in Diplomacy: The Case of U.S. Cultural Diplomacy in France and Germany”

Ivaylo Ladjiev (University of Bath), “Searching for Influence and Persuasion in Network-Oriented Public Diplomacy: What Role for ‘Small States?’”

Shahihul Alam (Independent University) “Stretching the Parameters of Diplomatic Protocol: Incursion into Public Diplomacy”

Ellen Huijgh (Netherlands Institute of International Affairs), “Changing Tunes for Public Diplomacy: Exploring the Domestic Dimension”

Candace Ren Burnham (University of Southern California), “Public Diplomacy Following 9/11: The Saudi Peace Initiative and ‘Allies’ Media Campaign”

Michael Schneider (Syracuse University), “Book Review: The Practice of Public Diplomacy — Confronting Challenges Abroad”

Bruce Gregory, “American Public Diplomacy: Enduring Characteristics, Elusive Transformation,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 6 (2011) 351-372.  This article looks ways in which characteristics of an American approach to public diplomacy are rooted in the nation’s history and political culture.  These include episodic resolve correlated with war and surges of zeal, systemic tradeoffs in American politics, competitive practitioner communities and powerful civil society actors, and late adoption of communication technologies.  The aarticle examines these characteristics in the context of the Obama administration’s strategy of global public engagement and three illustrative issues:  a culture of understanding, social media, and multiple diplomatic actors.  It concludes that characteristics shaping US public diplomacy significantly constrain its capacity for transformational change.

Craig Hayden, The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts, (Lexington Books, 2012).  Hayden (American University) asks why do international political actors increasingly believe communicating with foreign audiences is crucial to their interests?  His answers are provided in a significant new inquiry into the theoretical nature of soft power and the variety of ways soft power is interpreted and implemented in the public diplomacy initiatives of different actors.  Hayden draws on concepts and methods in international relations and communications to develop a theoretical treatment of soft power and public diplomacy.  He then examines discourses and practices of soft power in case studies of the public diplomacy and strategic communication policies of China, Japan, Venezuela, and the United States.  Hayden is particularly concerned with the rhetoric of soft power — the reasoning, policy discussions, and public arguments that shape how public diplomacy programs of these actors are imagined and what they view to be necessary political action through communication.

Institute for International Education (IIE), Open Doors 2011, November 2011.  IIE’s annual report on cross border student flows finds international student enrollment in the US increased 5% in 2011. Students from China led the increase followed by students from India, South Korea, Canada, and Taiwan.  The top three countries comprise almost half of the international enrollment in US higher education.  Although only 270,604 American college students studied abroad in 2010-2011, there has been a steady annual rise with an increase of about 10,000 from the previous year.  Most US students still choose traditional destinations in Western Europe.  However, enrollment in less traditional destinations such as India, Israel, and Brazil is on the rise.

Robert Kelley, “Repairing the American Image, One Tweet at a Time,” The United States After Unipolarity, LSE Ideas, London School of Economics, 2011, 35-39.  Kelley (American University) looks at the Obama administration’s public diplomacy.  He commends efforts to put “social media and technology exchanges into the toolkit of the public diplomat.”  In contrast with these innovations in method, however, he finds an “absence of a strategic framework for public diplomacy” and a “strategic incoherence” in which means matter more than content.

Michelle Lee, “Public Diplomacy: At the Crossroads Between Practitioner and Theorist,” Council of American Ambassadors, The Ambassadors Review, Fall 2011.  Lee (a US Foreign Service Officer currently assigned at the Department of State) looks at reasons for the divide between practitioners and academics in public diplomacy and what might be done in the two communities to benefit from greater collaboration.  Her article discusses recent efforts to bridge the divide, the value of advanced educational as well as increased training for mid-career diplomats, and recommendations to strengthen the practice and study of public diplomacy.

Jan Melissen, Beyond The New Public Diplomacy, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael Discussion Paper No. 3, October 2011.  The Director of Clingendael’s Diplomatic Studies Program and co-editor of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy looks at changes in diplomatic practice in a world of multiple actors and diverse networks.  His paper assesses criticisms of public diplomacy; varieties of public diplomacy practices by states; the increasing public diplomacy roles of sub-state, regional, and civil society actors; and points of learning from the public diplomacy of East Asian countries.  Given these changes, Melissen argues the juxtaposition of “traditional” and “new” public diplomacy is no longer satisfactory.  Rather, public diplomacy and diplomacy are merging into a more inclusive and “societized” form of diplomacy.  In a polylateral world of multiple actors, states remain highly relevant, but their diplomacy can best be understood in a context where non-state and non-official actors have a much greater role in international relationships.  Practitioners, he suggests, can learn much “outside their comfort zone from how public diplomacy is practiced in distinct organizational and cultural settings.”

Pew Research Center, Global Digital Communication: Texting, Social Networking Popular Worldwide, December 20, 2011.  Pew’s survey of digital communication in 21 countries finds overwhelmingly large majorities in most major countries use cell phones for text messages (75%), taking pictures/video (50%), and Internet use (23%) based on median percentages across the nations surveyed.  Social networking remains popular but with only marginal change in use since 2010.  Exceptions are Egypt and Russia where usage has increased from 18% to 28% in Egypt and 33% to 43% in Russia.  Multiple uses of cell phones and social networking correlates with youth demographics and education. Media release.

Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, guest editors, “American Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 6, Nos. 3-4 2011.  In this special issue of the Journal, Sharp (University of Minnesota, Duluth) and Wiseman (University of Southern California) convene a team of scholars and practitioners to look at the conduct of American diplomacy, the character of its diplomatic culture, efforts to reform, and suggestions for what lies ahead.  Includes:

Introduction

Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman, “American Diplomacy,” 231-234

Research Papers

Geoffrey Wiseman, “Distinctive Characteristics of American Diplomacy,” 235-259

David Clinton (Baylor University), “The Distinction Between Foreign Policy and Diplomacy in American International Thought and Practice,” 261-276

CHEN Zhimin (Fudan University), “US Diplomacy and Diplomats: A Chinese View,” 277-297

Michael Smith (Loughborough University), “European Responses to US Diplomacy: ‘Special Relationships,’ Transatlantic Governance and World Order,” 299-317

Karin A. Esposito and S. Alaeddin Valid Gharavi (School of International Relations, Tehran), “Transformational Diplomacy: US Tactics for Change in the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2004-2006,” 319-334

David Bosco (American University), “Course Correction: The Obama Administration at the United Nations,” 335-349

Bruce Gregory (George Washington University/Georgetown University), “American Public Diplomacy: Enduring Characteristics, Elusive Transformation,” 351-372

James Der Derian (Brown University), Quantum Diplomacy: German-US Relations and the Psychogeography of Berlin,” 373-392

Paul Sharp, “Obama, Clinton and the Diplomacy of Change,” 393-411

Practitioners’ Perspectives

Chas W. Freeman Jr. (US diplomat, retired), “The Incapacitation of US Statecraft and Diplomacy,” 413-432

Thomas Hanson (University of Minnesota, Duluth), “The Traditions and Travails of Career Diplomacy in the United States,” 433-450

Alec Ross (US Department of State), “Digital Diplomacy and US Foreign Policy,” 451-455.

Clay Shirky, Salant Lecture — Press Freedom in a Global Era, Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, October 2011.  Shirky (New York University and author of Here Comes Everybody) looks at press freedom as a relationship between technological capability and the regulatory power of legal and policy constraints.  Using Wikileaks and other examples, Shirky examines challenges to freedom of expression in “a post national environment.”  He argues the US and other democracies, which have been good at lecturing autocracies on freedom of speech, need to become much better at holding themselves to the standards they espouse.  (Courtesy of Bob Coonrod)

Russell Shorto, Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason, (Vintage Books, 2008).  Intellectual historian and journalist Russell Shorto tells the story of Descartes’ legacy and its relevance to today’s competing fundamentalist impulses (secular, Christian, and Muslim).  His lively and witty narrative uses the strange story of a centuries long struggle between scientific and religious authorities over the disposition of Descartes’ physical remains as a metaphor for understanding the continuing conflict between faith and reason.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A New Theory for the Foreign Policy Frontier: Collaborative Power,” The Atlantic, November 30, 2011.  Slaughter (Princeton University) updates her inaugural Joseph S. Nye lecture at Princeton to frame a concept of “collaborative power,” — defined as “the power of many to do together what no one can do alone” — which she contrasts with Nye’s concept of “top down” relational power.  Elements of collaborative power include mobilization, connection, and adaptation of one’s preferences to enable meaningful dialogue.  For Slaughter, collaborative power is not held by A in relation to B.  Rather it is an “emergent phenomenon,” which leaders can learn to unlock and guide but not possess.

Tara Sonenshine, Under Secretary-designate for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, US Department of State, Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, December 8, 2011.  In prepared remarks for her confirmation hearing, Sonenshine (Executive Vice President, US Institute for International Peace) described public diplomacy as “a shared means to a shared goal of extending America’s reach and security by influencing how individuals around the world come to know and understand us.  It is about the advancement of foreign policy goals through people-to-people connections in a complex, global networked society.”  Successful public diplomacy, she stated, “is inextricably linked to national security.”  Public diplomacy “increases economic security through global engagement,” and it “must be agile and adaptive in using state of the art information technologies.”

In a Huffington Post blog, “America’s Next Move on Public Diplomacy,” co-authored with her USIP colleague Sheldon Himelfarb on May 5, 2009, Sonenshine offered her ideas to then incoming Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale.

Janet Steele, “Justice and Journalism: Islam and Journalistic Values in Indonesia and Malaysia,” Journalism, 12(5) 533-549.  Drawing on interviews with journalists in Jakarta, Surabaya, and Kuala Lumpur, Steele (George Washington University) looks at ways in which Southeast Asian journalists think about their work and implications for US public diplomacy.  She argues “journalists in Indonesia and Malaysia express universal values of journalism, but do so in an Islamic idiom” that privileges goals of economic justice and the legitimacy of those in authority more than freedom.  If the US wishes to engage journalists in these countries, Steele contends, “rather than focusing on ‘the role of a free press in a democracy,’ it would make far more sense to focus on ‘the role of independent media in a just society.’”

Kishan S. Rana, 21st Century Diplomacy: A Practitioner’s Guide, (The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2011).  In this recent contribution to the Key Studies in Diplomacy series, former Indian Ambassador and DiploFoundation scholar Kishan Rana provides a guide to modern diplomacy for diplomacy practitioners and scholars.  His book is written with particular attention to its use in foreign ministry training courses and by teachers and students in academic institutions.  The book divides into three categories.  (1) A section on the international environment includes chapters on globalized, regional, and small states diplomacy; public diplomacy and country branding; and disapora diplomacy. (2) Chapters on institutions and processes look at foreign ministry reform, the reinvented embassy, decision-making and risk management, performance evaluation, information and communications technologies, the new consular diplomacy, and protocol.  (3) A section on diplomacy skills offers guidance on professional responsibilities, advocacy and public speaking, media skills, writing skills, and training exercises.

Websites and blogs of Interest

Robert Albro (American University), Public Policy Anthropology, a blog site that looks at cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy, intercultural dialogue, and other topics.

Intermedia’s AudienceScapes, an interactive tool and knowledge resource “on how citizens and policymakers gather, share, and use information for all sources.”  In a news release on December 15, 2011, Intermedia announced the appointment of Ali Fisher (Director of Mappa Mundi Consulting) as Associate Director of Digital Media Research.

R. S. Zaharna (American University), Culture Posts, an interactive blog site on USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy platform.

“U.S. Department of State Announces Launch of New Website,” Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, October 12, 2011.  The Department’s interactive Discover Diplomacy website seeks to introduce the world of diplomacy and the work of the State Department to high school and college students.

Gem from the past

Walter R. Roberts, “The Evolution of Diplomacy,” Mediterranean Quarterly, 17.3 (Summer 2006), 55-64.  In this article, retired US diplomat and scholar Walter Roberts examines the origins of diplomatic practice as it focused increasingly on publics and differed from traditional diplomacy between governments during the second half of the 20th century.  It is a succinct overview of a transformation in diplomatic practice that led eventually to a global conversation on the meaning and methods of public diplomacy.  His article is a useful foundational reading as scholars and practitioners in the 21st century ask whether another transformation is occurring.  Has public diplomacy become so central to diplomacy that it is no longer helpful to treat it as unique theoretical concept and subset of diplomatic practice.  Mediterranean Quarterly lists “The Evolution of Diplomacy” as its seventh most cited article of the past eleven years.  His article is available online courtesy of the Public Diplomacy Alumni Association.

Walter Roberts career, which began in the Voice of America in 1942, included diplomatic assignments in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere, service as an associate director of the US Information Agency, and a presidential appointment to membership on the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.  He pioneered the teaching of public diplomacy at George Washington University in the 1980s and 1990s.
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*Bruce Gregory is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Georgetown University, and publishes this list periodically via mailing list.  We reprint it here as a service to our readers.  Bruce can be reached by email via bgregory at gwu dot edu

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Manan Ahmed, Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination, (Just World Publishing, 2011).  The author of “Chapati Mystery” blog and a historian of Islam in South Asia (Freie Universitate Berlin) gathers his commentaries on US imaginings about Pakistan and historical and political trends within Pakistan.  Sharply critical, humorous, and well written, Ahmed’s short essays portray a failure on the part of American officials and writers in mainstream media to “imagine” the realities of Pakistan’s people and society.  Ahmed’s blogs make a case for deeper comprehension of relations between the two societies:  “Unless we decide to get local, to pay attention to local narratives, facts, histories, realities, languages, religions, ethnicities, cultures, and so forth, we will remain in this deeply flawed discourse.”  Includes a foreword by Amitava Kumar (Vassar College).

Robert M. Beecroft, “Taking Diplomatic Professional Education Seriously,” Foreign Service Journal, July/August 2011, 66-69.  Retired US Foreign Service Officer Beecroft argues the “new diplomacy” requires “a systematic regimen of professional diplomatic education at the Department of State.”  His article summarizes key findings and recommendations in the 2011 report sponsored by the Stimson Center and the American Academy of Diplomacy on Forging a 21st-Century Diplomatic Service Through Professional Education and Training.

Lee C. Bollinger, “News for the World — A Proposal for a Globalized Era: an American World Service,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 2011, 29-33.  Bollinger (Columbia University) finds (1) a contradiction between the need for global news and the diminished supply of foreign reporting; (2) a rise in national media intended to have a global presence (BBC World Service, Al Jazeera, Xinhua News Agency and CCTV, and France 24), (3) a continuing need for journalistic institutions to offset laissez-faire “citizen journalism;” and (4) a trend from local to regional to global in civil society institutions such as universities and the media.  He discusses America’s dual system of public broadcasting — the journalism of National Public Radio and PBS and international broadcasters such as Voice of America and RFE/RL, which are rooted in the Cold War and barred from broadcasting to US audiences by “constitutionally suspect” provisions of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948.  Bollinger calls for an “American World Service” to provide a “stronger publicly funded system of international news.”

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “In Afghanistan’s Garmser District, Praise for a U.S. Official’s Tireless Work,” The Washington Post, August 13, 2011. The Post’s correspondent and author of Imperial Life in the Emerald City (2006) profiles the work of State Department representative Carter Malkasian during his two year stay in Garmser on the Helmand River.  Chandrasekaran attributes Malkasian’s success to his Pashto fluency, sensitivity to local cultural norms, willingness to take risks, countless meetings and roadside conversations, residence in a local trailer, two-year  stay in one district, a “soft spoken manner” combined with “fierce negotiating skills,” his credibility with US troops, and his willingness as a temporary civilian hire to “to forge his own job description, even if it meant bucking the State Department’s rules.”  In a letter to the Post on August 23, 2011, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker comments that “hundreds of foreign service officers and other federal agency workers are doing similar work in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere.”

Jacob Comenetz, “Innovating Public Diplomacy for a New Digital World,” The Washington Diplomat, July 27, 2011. Contributing writer Comenetz discusses conceptual issues and operational challenges facing US diplomats in using social media tools.  His essay looks at (1) implications of ideas on network power and “Internet Freedom” in the writings of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter; (2) projects and institutional changes in the Department’s public diplomacy bureaus; and (3) uses of digital technologies to create stealth networks and enable activists challenging regimes in Iran, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere.  Comenetz also summarizes contrasting views, drawing particularly on Evgeny Morozov’s critique in The Net Delusion (2010).

Paul Cornish, Julian Lindley-French, and Claire Yorke, Strategic Communications and National Strategy, A Chatham House Report, Royal Institute of International Affairs, September 2011.  Cornish (University of Bath), Lindley-French (Netherlands Defense Academy), and Yorke (Chatham House) call for a whole of government approach to strategic communication and increased awareness of its central role in the development and implementation of national strategy.  They argue the UK government has a good understanding of strategic communication’s importance, but this understanding is “relatively limited in its sophistication and imagination.”  Their recommendations fall into three categories:  (1) establish a clearer definition of strategic communication and its place in national strategy, (2) reform how strategic communication is managed within government, and (3) adapt and strengthen strategic communication in response to the challenges of new information technologies and cyber security.  (Courtesy of Robin Brown)

Mai’a K. Davis Cross, Security Integration in Europe: How Knowledge-based Networks Are Transforming the European Union, (The University of Michigan Press, 2011).  Cross (University of Southern California) argues the European Union has made significant advances in achieving internal and external security through collaboration in and among epistemic communities — i.e., knowledge-based transnational networks of diplomats, soldiers, scientists, civilian crisis professionals, and other areas of shared expertise. Her generally optimistic view of EU integration is grounded in her reading of the capacity of networks to supersede national governments in the diplomacy of “security decision making.”  Through their common culture, shared professional norms, frequent meetings, speed, and flexibility, epistemic communities are changing how we think about governance, diplomacy, and approaches to dealing with terrorism, immigration, cross-border crime, drug and human trafficking, and other transnational security threats.

“Diplomacy Post 9/11: Life in the US Foreign Service,” The Kojo Nnamdi Show, National Public Radio, September 22, 2011. Host Kojo Nnamdi interviews American Foreign Service Association President Susan Johnson, US Foreign Service Officer Matthew Asada, and US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter.  Issues discussed include tensions between security and fulfilling mission goals, changes in recruitment and promotion, training requirements, and debates between proponents of “a traditional service and an expeditionary service.”  Available in audio and transcript versions.  (Courtesy of Michelle Lee)

Ali Fisher and David Montez, Evaluating Online Public Diplomacy Using Digital Media Research Methods, A Case Study of #ObamainBrazil, InterMedia Global Research Network, July 2011 (available online through USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy.  In this study, Fisher (Mappa Mundi Consulting) and Montez (InterMedia) (1) discuss research methods needed to develop, implement, and evaluate social media campaigns in public diplomacy; (2) assess the State Department’s use of digital media to support President Obama’s March 2011 visit to Brazil; and (3) offer recommendations for using social media in future public diplomacy campaigns.  They conclude that, to be effective, public diplomacy practitioners must adopt new research methods and strategies that take into account opportunities and constraints in using social media.

Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, U.S. Public Diplomacy in a Post-9/11 World: From Messaging to Mutuality, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 6, 2011.  Fitzpatrick (Quinnipiac University) finds a lack of consensus among scholars, practitioners, and informed observers on the methods and goals of public diplomacy in the decade since 9/11.  Her paper draws on dialogue theory to assess US public diplomacy during the Bush and Obama administrations and to create a prescriptive relational model that seeks to ground its practice in two-way “symmetric engagement.”

Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used To Be Us, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).  Using stories, interviews, and analysis, New York Times columnist Friedman and Johns Hopkins (SAIS) professor Mandelbaum assess the causes and implications of four challenges: globalization, the revolution in information technology, America’s chronic deficits, and its excessive energy consumption.  Their critique — intended as “both a wake up call and a call to collective action” — offers a change manifesto grounded in more and better education and different habits of saving and consumption.  Students and teachers will find useful their chapters on bottom up innovation and “creative creativity” as today’s necessary adjuncts to learning critical skills and mastering knowledge domains.

Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War, (Random House, 2010).  Forman (University of London) puts the war in an international context with a focus on Britain’s policy of neutrality, deep opposition to slavery, and dependence on the South for cotton; the South’s need for British-made weapons and ships; and the North’s frequent consideration of war with Britain and efforts to block diplomatic and economic connections with the Confederacy.  Her massive (958 pages) and critically acclaimed study reinforces the correlation between US public diplomacy and armed conflict throughout American history.  She offers many fresh insights into the practice of traditional and public diplomacy midway between the American Revolution and World War I. Written from the perspective of political leaders, diplomats, soldiers, journalists, writers, and citizen activists, Foreman’s narrative includes a thorough assessment of the diplomatic and public opinion implications of the North’s capture of Confederate agents Mason and Slidell in the Trent affair, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, military successes and failures, and the political and economic interests all concerned.

Public diplomacy practitioners and scholars will find particularly interesting Foreman’s discussion of US Minister Charles Francis Adams’ skills in traditional diplomacy, which contrasted with his pronounced unwillingness to engage journalists and British publics; the methods and tools used by Thurlow Weed, sent by Secretary of State William Seward to influence European public opinion; the methods and tools used by the skilled, multi-lingual journalist Henry Hotze, who was recruited by the Confederacy to engage the press on behalf of the South’s Commission in London; Hotze’s pro-South journal the Index; the uneasy relationship between diplomats and spies; the influence of citizen activists and journalists with pro-South or pro-North sympathies; dissemination of unattributed speeches and editorials; and the roles of the telegraph, photographs, political cartoons, debates in Parliament, and non-governmental organizations in shaping public opinion.

Seward’s controversial release of all US diplomatic correspondence in the first half of 1862, motivated by domestic political considerations, proved deeply embarrassing to Adams who never imagined his letters would become public.  Britain’s political leaders and diplomats took this 19th century precursor to WikiLeaks in stride.

Peter W. Galbraith, “How to Write a Cable,” Foreign Policy, March/April 2011, 102-103.  The former US Ambassador to Croatia and Special Representative of the UN Secretary General to Afghanistan argues that, contrary to what Julian Assange might say, most diplomats “do not worry that the wrong people will read their cables, but that the right people won’t.”  With a twinkle in his eye, Galbraith in this short piece, offers this advice:  (1) “be strategically nasty,”  (2) “a spoonful of Ukrainian nurse helps the cable go down,” (3) accuracy is at a premium (except about the home team); (4) “pretend you’re a foreign correspondent — back in the glory days;” and (5) “be literate.”

Susan Gigli and Ali Fisher, “Networked Audiences: 10 Rules for Engagement,” The Channel (Association of International Broadcasters), Issue 2, 2011.  Gigli (InterMedia) and Fisher (Mappa Mundi Consulting) provide a brief guide for media organizations seeking to embrace new networked media platforms.  Their 10 rules show how “users behave and cluster with these networks, and how users are shaping their own news and information environments.”

William Hague, “The Best Diplomatic Service in the World: Strengthening the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as an Institution,” London, September 8, 2011.  In a speech at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Foreign Secretary outlines his vision for the future of the Foreign Office and steps needed to improve the skills and capabilities of Britain’s diplomats.

Steven Livingston, Africa’s Evolving Infosystems: A Pathway to Stability and Security, Africa Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Research Paper No. 2, December 2010, March 2011.  Livingston (George Washington University) looks at cellular telephony and other emerging information and communication technologies in the context of emerging democratic institutions in Africa.  He concludes that although these “technologies can, at times, be used for less positive purposes, including crime and politically motivated violence, on the whole they are enhancing human security and sustainable economic development across the continent.”

Ali Molenaar, Reading Lists, Clingendael Library and Documentation Centre, Netherlands Institute of International Relations.  Clingendael’s librarian continues to provide useful literature lists on public diplomacy and a wide range of related topics.  Recent updates include:
– Literature on Public Diplomacy, July 1, 2011
– Literature on Celebrity Diplomacy, July 1, 2011
– Literature on Cultural Diplomacy, July 1, 2011
– Literature on Citizen and Track 11 Diplomacy, July 1, 2011
– Literature on Branding, July 1, 2011
– Literature on External Relations of the European Union, July 1, 2011
– Literature on European Level Diplomacy and the EU Diplomatic Service, July 1, 2011
– United States of America: Diplomatic Relations, July 1, 2011

Alex Oliver and Andrew Shearer, Diplomatic Disrepair: Rebuilding Australia’s International Policy Infrastructure, Lowy Institute for International Policy, August 2011.  In this in-depth followup to a 2009 blue ribbon panel report on Australia’s Diplomatic Deficit, the Lowy Institute’s Oliver and Shearer conclude that Australia’s international policy infrastructure and overseas diplomatic network “remain seriously under-resourced and lagging behind comparable nations.” Their study looks at overstretched diplomatic posts, critical shortfalls in foreign language training and other critical skills, “lackluster” public diplomacy, “almost nonexistent use of new digital platforms,” and a significant gap between diplomatic capacity and the nation’s interests.  An appendix compares Australia’s diplomatic service with those of the US, the UK, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the European Union.  The 33-page report and a 2-page Fact Sheet can be downloaded from the Institute’s website.

Alasdair Roberts, “The WikiLeaks Illusion,” The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2011, 16-21.  Roberts (Suffolk University Law School) argues that although new information technologies make it easier to leak and broadcast sensitive government information, barriers remain to what WikiLeaks seeks to achieve.  His article discusses implications of the large amount of information released, minimal public outrage, business decisions by commercial companies that hurt WikiLeaks’ functionality, and the lack of surprise at the “open secrets” released.  Roberts, quoting former New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, agrees the disclosures did not “expose some deep unsuspected perfidy in high places.”  Rather they provided only “texture, nuance, and drama.”

Paul S. Rockower, “Projecting Taiwan: Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Outreach,” Issues & Studies, 47, No. 1 (March 2011), 107-152, (Available on the USC Center on Public Diplomacy’s Resources website).  Rockower (a journalist and former Israeli Foreign Ministry press officer) analyzes Taiwan’s soft power and use of public diplomacy “not only as a means of promotion, but also as a means of ensuring its diplomatic survival and access to the international arena.” His essay discusses Taiwan’s public diplomacy strategies and tactics, narratives, institutions, and methods.  Rockower looks particularly at Taiwan as a middle power with unusual limitations and capacities and its emphasis on polylateral connections with non-state actors and multilateral institutions.  His paper combines an academic assessment of Taiwan’s public diplomacy with recommendations for practitioners.

Max Schulman, “The State Department’s Shameful Record on Internet Freedom,” The New Republic, August 8, 2011.  TNR intern Schulman finds “significant failures, both in overall funding efforts and in the omission of vital tools” in implementation of the State Department’s Internet freedom agenda.  He summarizes the arguments of Congressional and public policy critics, views of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, and views of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, “Notes From the Foreign Policy Frontier,” The Atlantic, July 2011.  Slaughter (Princeton University and former director of policy planning at the US Department State) has joined The Atlantic as a correspondent and “curator/host’ of an online feature that examines ways of thinking about foreign affairs in a “framework that moves beyond states and addresses both governments and societies.”  In her first post, “The New Foreign Policy Frontier” (July 27, 2011) she summarizes her goals and intentions.  See also her YouTube video presentation, DIY Foreign Policy, Personal Democracy Forum 2011, June 27, 2011 (19 minutes).

US International Strategy for Cyberspace:  Prosperity, Security, and Openness in a Networked World, Washington, DC, May 2011.  In his covering letter, President Obama describes his cyberspace strategy as “an approach that unifies our engagement with international partners on the full range of cyber issues.”  The document contains elements of a US cyberspace policy, a vision for cyberspace’s future, and a statement of policy priorities.  The section on diplomacy focuses on the need to “strengthen international partnerships” and “engage the international community in frank and urgent dialogue” on “principles of responsible behavior in cyberspace” and actions needed to build a system of cyberspace stability.  Like White House national security strategies, the cyberspace “strategy” is more a policy and public diplomacy statement than an analysis of tradeoffs among priorities, resources, costs and risks, and specific steps needed to achieve its goals.

US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Kerry Introduces Legislation to Authorize and Strengthen the State Department and U.S. Diplomacy,” July 27, 2011.  Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry’s authorization bill for Fiscal Years 2012-13 contains a number of proposals to modernize the State Department, build the capacity of US diplomacy, strengthen public diplomacy, increase program accountability, exempt US international broadcasting from restrictions on domestic dissemination of “public diplomacy information,” and support global development, cyberspace, and Internet freedom.  The full text of the bill, S. 1426, is available on the Library of Congress Thomas website.

Richard Wike, “From Hyperpower to Declining Power: Changing Global Perceptions of the U.S. in the Post-September 11 Era,” Pew Global Attitudes Project, September 7, 2011.  Findings in the Pew Research Center’s 2010 and 2011 surveys include:  (1) America’s global image improved significantly in Western Europe and many parts of the world after Barack Obama’s election in 2008; (2) the Obama bounce has staying power overall, but with lower marks for his handling of Iran, Afghanistan, and Israeli-Palestinian issues; (3) there has been no Obama bounce in Turkey, Pakistan, Jordan, and Palestine; and (4) the economic downturn since 2008 did not significantly affect positive opinions, but did lead to a reassessment of American economic power overall and relative to China.

R.S. Zaharna, Battles2Bridges blog. American University communication scholar Zaharna blogs on relational approaches in public diplomacy, assertive public diplomacy, Palestinian public diplomacy, digital strategies, and other issues.

Gem from the Past

Robert M. Entman, Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy, (The University of Chicago Press, 2004).  In Projections of Power, communications scholar Robert Entman (George Washington University) developed his cascade model of media framing and examined its implications for public opinion, foreign policymaking, and the “framing” of events by political leaders.  When it was published to critical acclaim in 2004, Harvard University’s Thomas E. Patterson called it a “stunning achievement” and observed that “scholars and practitioners alike will be relying on this book for years to come.”  The reviewers were right.  Projections of Power recently earned Professor Entman the American Political Science Association’s Doris Graber Book Award for the best book published in the last ten years in political communication.
*Bruce Gregory is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Georgetown University, and publishes this list periodically via mailing list.  We reprint it here as a service to our readers.  Bruce can be reached by email via bgregory at gwu dot edu

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As Congress is once again behaving badly, I thought I would post a brief note about some interactions I have had while visiting Asia.  Comments here show that what many of us regard as “inside baseball” matters a lot to foreign publics, and it has them worried.

Last week I attended the Singapore Global Dialogue, organized by the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University. It was attended by influential people from all over the Asia Pacific region.  Roughly three out of four people I talked to inquired about ongoing political problems in the U.S.  They often asked specifically about the debt reduction circus of this summer, but in many cases conversations expressed deeper concerns.

For example, an international banker asked me if the political system in the U.S. was in danger of collapsing.  He explained how closely people in this part of the world follow our political developments. They look to the U.S. for leadership and depend on us to do the right thing. Accordingly they get very worried–at least as worried as people in the U.S., based on these conversations–when it appears that our system is becoming gridlocked and unable to function.

One academic colleague suggested that ongoing political problems in the U.S. play into skepticism in the streets of countries where our stated goal is promoting democracy: “The average guy hears about this and says: ‘So this is what we get with democracy? Who wants that?’”

All this goes to show that our political problems in the U.S. aren’t just a domestic matter. They have public diplomacy functions too.  At the moment they are sending a very bad message about the U.S. and its viability as a world leader–at just the time, incidentally, when China is seen as ascendent (another big theme at the conference).

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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.

Jozef Batora and Monika Mokre, eds., Culture and External Relations: Europe and Beyond, (Ashgate, 2011). The essays compiled by Batora (Comenius University, Brataslava) and Mokre (Austrian Academy of Sciences) examine conceptual issues, historical case studies, and trends in the uses of culture in external relations.  The authors assess ways in which political entities use culture to generate goodwill and frame international agendas, culture’s role in creating boundaries, and its role in building connections across boundaries.  Includes:
– Jozef Batora and Monika Mokre, “Introduction: What Role for Culture in External Relations?”
Part I, Universalism Versus Particularism
– Erik Ringmar, “Free Trade by Force: Civilization Against Culture in the Great China Debate of 1857″
– Iver B. Neumann, “Our Culture and All the Others: Intercultural and International Relations”
– Srdjan Vucetic, “The Logics of Culture in the Anglosphere”
Part II, Boundary Building Versus Boundary Transcendence
– Monika Mokre, “Culture and Collective identifications”
– Jozef Batora, “Exclusion and Transversalism: Culture in the EU’s External Relations”
– Bahar Rumelili and Didem Cakmakli, “‘Culture’ in EU-Turkey Relations”
Part III, Policy Aspects
– Manfred J. Holler and Barbara Klose-Ullmann, “Abstract Expressionism as a Weapon of the Cold War”
– Milena Dragicevic Sesic, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Cultural Policies of and Towards Serbia”
– Emil Brix, “European Coordination of External Cultural Policies”
– Monika Mokre and Jozef Batora, “Conclusions”

Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Board Meeting, Transcript, Washington, DC, June 3, 2011. In its “first ever public meeting,” BBG Chair Walter Isaacson and US international broadcasting’s bipartisan board “outlined initiatives to reform U.S. international broadcasting, provided an update on the BBG’s strategic review, announced the Burke Award winners to recognize courage, integrity and originality of BBG journalists, and took questions from the public on U.S. international broadcasting.”  Additional information and related documents are available at the BBG’s website.  A subsequent BBG board meeting was held on July 14, 2011.

Rosa Brooks, “Ten Years On: The Evolution of Strategic Communication and Information Operations since 9/11,” Statement Before the Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, US House of Representatives, July 12, 2011. Brooks (Georgetown University) draws on her past two years as senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in these reflections on drawbacks in the term strategic communication, lessons from the past decade, and thoughts about the future.  Among many useful observations, Brooks calls for:  (1) clear distinctions between strategic communication and related terms; (2) appropriate assumptions about accountability, metrics, methods, and timeframes; (3) the compelling need to understand human terrain (the languages, narratives, memories, and hopes of others); (4) learning from the “major mistake” of validating Osama bin Laden’s “special” status and fixation on terrorism; (5) a willingness to take risks and recognition that mistakes will happen; and (6) recognition that “obsession with who does what” in government-wide communication is a waste of time.

Caitlin Bryne and Rebecca Hall, Australia’s International Education as Public Diplomacy: Soft Power Potential, Clingendael Discussion Papers in Diplomacy, No. 121, July 2011. Bryne (Bond University) and Hall (International Education Resources Group) discuss trends and opportunities in international education as an instrument of public diplomacy.  They argue that Australia has not realized its full potential and call for more active public diplomacy leadership, enhanced evaluation, and increased dialogue within Australia’s public diplomacy community and civil society.

Damian Carrington, “Artists Condemn British Council’s Decision to Axe Climate Programme,” The Guardian, July 14, 2011. In an open letter on July 14, a group of well-known British authors and artists “with affectionate connections to the British Council” have written to express “mystification and deep concern” that funding and staffing have been radically cut for work on climate change, one of the Council’s three top priorities. The move was criticized by the UK’s Foreign Minister Jeremy Brown in a letter to British Council Chief Executive Martin Davidson.  In his letter, leaked to The Guardian, Brown reportedly admonished Davidson “for his apparent ‘termination’ of one of the council’s ‘success stories.’”  In a letter to The Guardian on July 16, Davidson stated the Council’s work on climate change would continue.  He noted, however, that “we are not a climate change organization” and that the Council would focus on its “core programmes in the arts, English, education and society around the world.”  (Courtesy of Robin Brown’s (Leeds University) Public Diplomacy: Networks and Influence blog.)   

Daniel Costa, Guestworker Diplomacy, Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper No. 317, July 11, 2011. In this report critical of the State Department’s exchange visitor program, EPI’s Immigration Policy Analyst Costa finds that the J visa program “gives U.S. employers significant financial incentives to hire foreign workers over U.S. workers, while providing them no labor protections.”  He faults the State Department, which oversees the J visa program, for collecting “very little data” on visa holders and for relying on employers and sponsoring organizations to regulate themselves.  His report looks at the history of the J visa program, including its large Summer Work Travel program, and at the “severe exploitation of J visa holders” consequent to the outsourcing of State’s oversight responsibilities.

For the State Department’s views on “New Regulations for J-1 Visa, Summer Work Travel,” see “Question Taken at the June 20, 2011 Daily Press Briefing,” Office of the Spokesperson, Department of State, June 21, 2011 and Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss, “Student Visa Program: New Rules, Same Problems,” ABC News, Associated Press, June 20, 2011.

Nicholas Cull and Ali Fisher, eds., The Playbook: Case Studies of Engagement. InThe Playbook, a project commissioned by the British Council, Cull (University of Southern California) and Fisher (Mappa Mundi Consulting) host a coordination point for international practitioners to share experiences on methods of engagement and the practice of public diplomacy.  Examples from among dozens of cases in its growing collection include:  China’s Panda Diplomacy, Framing Climate Change at the G-8 Summit, Forgotten Voices Listening Project UK, Creative Cities Project East Asia, Japan’s International MANGA Award, The Franklin Book Program, and the New York Philharmonic’s Trip to North Korea.  Users are invited to register, comment, and contribute cases.

Shawn Dorman, ed., Inside a U.S. Embassy: Diplomacy at Work, 3rd edition, Foreign Service Books, 2011. Dorman (Associate Editor, Foreign Service Journal) has compiled an entirely new edition of essays on the lives and work of US foreign service officers and other foreign affairs professionals.  Its broad spectrum of nearly 100 short chapters by practitioners include profiles of the work of ambassadors (Marie Yovanovitch, Armenia), political officers (Dereck Hogan, Russia), public affairs officers (Christopher Teal, Mexico), and entry level officers (Carolyn Dubrovsky, Nepal); “day in the life of” accounts of a cultural affairs officer (Anne Benjaminson, Tajikistan), a public affairs officer (Michael McClellan, Iraq), and an environment, science, technology, and health officer (Jason McInerney, Honduras); chapters on embassies, employees, and families; chapters on a variety of field activities; and chapters with guidance for those interested in joining the foreign service and foreign affairs agencies.

Daniel W. Drezner, “Does Obama Have a Grand Strategy?” Why We Need Doctrines in Uncertain Times,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2011, 57-68. Drezner (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) asserts that grand strategies matter far less than national economic and military power and the actions taken by states.  He contends that grand strategies are important, however, as “cognitive beacons” or signals to others in times of “radical uncertainty” — i.e., during wars, revolutions, depression, or power transition.  Grand strategies for Drezner are communication strategies far more than planning and decision-making guides.  Drezner argues that although the Obama administration was wrong early on to assume that improved standing in the world would give the US greater policy leverage, it was right to pivot to a more assertive grand strategy of “counterpunching.”   Yet the administration has failed to clearly explain its grand strategy to Americans and to the rest of the world, which for Drezner defeats the whole purpose of having one.

For a critique of Drezner’s argument, a defense of the Obama administration’s worldview, and an argument that the search for grand strategies is misguided in “today’s multipolar, multilayered world,” see Fareed Zakaria, “Stop Searchng for an Obama Doctrine,” The Washington Post, July 6, 2011.  For Drezner’s reply, see “The Virtues of Grand Strategies” on his Foreign Policy blog, July 7, 2011.  See also, David Ignatius, “Obama’s Communications Gap,” The Washington Post, July 15, 2011.

Alexandra Dunn, “Unplugging a Nation: State Media Strategy During Egypt’s January 25 Uprising,” The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Vol.35:2, Summer 2011,15-24. Dunn (Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies) assesses the Egyptian government’s shifts from a strategy of content suppression to a “shutdown strategy” that sought to close entire media platforms and tools — and then to a strategy of “commandeering the country’s mobile phone networks to conduct a countrywide SMS message campaign directed at quelling protests.”  She concludes that Egypt’s strategies “alienated the business community, disproportionately impacted apolitical citizens, and inadvertently increased international focus on the crisis.”

“International Broadcasting,” PD Magazine, Issue 6, Summer 2011. Now in its third year, the online publication edited by graduate students at the University of Southern California’s Center for Public Diplomacy continues to provide useful articles by scholars and practitioners on issues in public diplomacy.  Articles in the sixth issue focus on international broadcasting in a transformational media environment and include:
– Simon Mainwaring, “Social Media and Business: Creating New Pathways in Diplomacy”
– Alan Heil, “VOA and BBC at a Crossroads”
– Shawn Powers, “R.I.P., Broadcasting”
– Philip Seib, “Al Jazeera English in Focus”
– Oliver Zollner, “International Broadcasting in the Social Network Era”
– Interviews with former members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors James Glassman and Ted Kaufman and current members Michael Meehan and S. Enders Wimbush
– Philip Wang, “Transformation of Radio Taiwan International”
– Alex Oliver and Annmaree O’Keefe, “Struggling to be Heard: Australia’s International Broadcasters Fight for a Voice in the Region”
– Kim Andrew Elliott, “In International Broadcasting, Even the Static Must be Credible”

Kristin M. Lord and Travis Sharp, eds., America’s Cyber Future: Security and Prosperity in the Information Age, Volumes 1 and 2, Center for a New American Security (CNAS), June 2011. In this detailed examination of cyber security issues, CNAS editors Lord and Sharp have organized the work of some 200 analysts in a project co-chaired by Robert E. Kahn (Corporation for National Research Initiatives), Mike McConnell (Booz Allen Hamilton), Joseph Nye (Harvard University), and Peter Schwartz (Global Business Network).  Volume 1 discusses findings and recommendations relating to interests, trends, risk assessments, policies, strategies, and government-private sector partnerships.  Volume 2 contains thirteen chapters by subject matter experts.  Includes chapters by Joseph Nye on “Power and National Security in Cyberspace,” Martha Finnemore (George Washington University) on “Cultivating International Cyber Norms,” and Richard Fontaine (CNAS) and Will Rogers (CNAS) on “Internet Freedom and Its Discontents.”

Marc Lynch, Upheaval: U.S. Policy Toward Iran in a Changing Middle East, Center for a New American Security (CNAS), June 2011. In this CNAS report, Lynch (George Washington University) argues that the US policy of “strategic patience” toward Iran, which until recently has had some success, can no longer be sustained.  In today’s environment, a viable Iran policy means “aligning the United States with the emerging empowered Arab publics and preserving key regional alliances, while denying Iran the ability to exploit the changing environment.”  Lynch’s recommendations include engaging with publics in the Arab world and Iran, a significantly increased focus on human rights in Iran, accommodating legitimate demands of Bahrain’s Shi’a population, continuation of lower level diplomacy and confidence building measures rather than a new public negotiating initiative, and a strategic communication campaign that highlights Iran’s failures.  He notes this does not mean calling for regime change or supporting subversion in Iran and that it is essential to disaggregate the challenge posed by Iran from local political problems.

Johannes Matyassy and Seraina Flury, Challenges for Switzerland’s Public Diplomacy: Referendum on Banning Minarets, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 4, June 2011. Matyassy (Switzerland’s Ambassador to Argentina) and Flury (Switzerland’s Department of Foreign Affairs) examine Switzerland’s communication strategy in dealing with the anti-minaret initiative.  Their paper examines the strategy’s strengths and limitations and provides practical “Do’s” and “Don’ts” for other countries.  They argue the strategy was successful in shifting a concentrated international focus on Switzerland to a focus on Europe as a whole in which the Swiss case was seen as part of a larger set of issues involving migration and integration.

James Pamment, The Limits of the New Public Diplomacy, PhD thesis, 2011. In his thesis, available by pdf download, Pamment (Stockholm University) compares ways in which British, Swedish, and American diplomats plan and evaluate media campaigns. He argues that “old” and “new” public diplomacy models are not distinct categories in which the latter has replaced the former.  Using comparative empirical data, Pamment explores the extent to which the new public diplomacy is truly new, practical constraints that foreign ministries face in adapting to the new diplomacy, and the value of the “new public diplomacy” as an explanatory concept.

Christopher Paul, “Getting Better at Strategic Communication,” Statement Before the Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, US House of Representatives, July 12, 2011. In his statement, Paul (RAND Corporation) builds on his recent book, Strategic Communication: Origins, Concepts, and Current Debates (2011), and his earlier publications in the field.  His testimony examines tensions and conceptual issues in what scholars and practitioners mean by strategic communication as well as his own views on its “unassailable core.” He summarizes common themes in a decade of reports on strategic communication and public diplomacy discussed in his study Whither Strategic Communication? A Survey of Current Proposals and Recommendations (2009).  Paul concludes with comments on finding the right balance between civilian and military capacity, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s SAGE effort to create a business plan for a civil society entity that will strengthen public-private partnership, and his seven recommendations for improving strategic communication.

Pew Research Center, China Seen Overtaking U.S. as Global Superpower, Global Attitudes Project, July 13, 2011. Pew’s survey finds that in most regions of the world attitudes toward the United States continue to be more favorable than during the George W. Bush administration, but in 15 of 22 nations majority opinion holds that China has or will replace the US as the world’s leading economic power.  This view is particularly prevalent in Western Europe.  The survey also finds that global opinion is consistently negative regarding China’s capacity to match the US in military power.  Key findings are summarized in the report’s overview.

Lawrence Pintak, “Breathing Room: Toward a New Arab Media,” Columbia Journalism Review, May/June, 2011, 23-28. In CJR’s cover story, Pintak (Washington State University) looks at how journalists in the Arab world are “warily testing boundaries, adjusting to new realities, and daring to dream of the possibilities.”  He sees potential for independent, nationally focused television channels to challenge regionally focused channels, the possible the rise of an “Egypt effect” from more open Egyptian media, a redefinition of the role of Arab journalists, and more citizen journalism on the part of young Arabs skeptical of traditional media organizations.

Giles Scott-Smith, “The Heineken Factor? Using Exchanges to Extend the Reach of U.S. Soft Power,” AmericanDiplomacy.org, June 23, 2011. Scott-Smith (Leiden University and author of Networks of Empire, 2008) looks at the “continuing use-value of exchanges for favorably altering the opinions of international visitors coming to the United States.”  His article focuses on the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program and the use of exchanges in three case studies:  (1) overcoming diplomatic tensions with Iran, 2006-2009; (2) overcoming prejudices through the 1983 “Pluralism in U.S. Society” regional project; and (3) efforts to connect with second and third generation immigrants through the Muslim Incentive Program in Western Europe, 2003-2010.  Scott-Smith’s article and previous scholarship on exchanges is useful for its examination of the strengths, limitations, risks, lessons, and situational relevance of exchanges in public diplomacy.   Among his conclusions:  “Be wary of running exchange programs with an obvious connection to foreign policy goals.”

Mary Beth Sheridan, “Low-key U.S. Diplomat Transforms Syria Policy,” The Washington Post, July 12, 2011. Post reporter Sheridan profiles US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford’s trip to Hama, his greeting from cheering protestors, his Facebook page comments on Syria’s anti-demonstration policies. and his career-long interest in public outreach.

Geoffrey Wiseman, “Theorizing Diplomacy and Diplomats on Their Own Terms,” Review of Paul Sharp’s Diplomatic Theory of International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2009) in International Studies Review (2011), 13, 348-350. Wiseman (University of Southern California) provides a brief summary, probing questions, and generous praise for Sharp’s (University of Minnesota, Duluth) wide ranging study of diplomatic theory.  Wiseman commends the book to “international relations theorists and their graduate students” and to “reflective diplomats interested in theorizing themselves.”

Sharp’s Diplomatic Theory of International Relations was annotated in “Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites #50,” March 2, 2010.

Tim Wu, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010). Wu (Columbia University and the New America Foundation) uses his sweeping history of modern telecommunications to raise central questions about the future of the Internet.  His well-written narrative focuses on the progression of the telegraph, the telephone, film, radio, and television from “somebody’s hobby to somebody’s industry” — from a freely accessible medium to control by large corporations and cartels in a process he calls “the Cycle.”  Wu’s book raises critical questions.  “Is the Internet really different?”  Is the “net neutrality” of the Internet, with its indifference to content, destined to replace single medium industries?   “Which is mightier:  the radicalism of the Internet or the inevitability of the Cycle?”

Gem from the Past

Edward T. Hall, Beyond Culture, (Anchor Books paperback edition, 1981, originally published in 1976). The scholarship of American anthropologist Edward T. Hall (1914-2009) and his insights into intercultural relations and nonverbal communication have long been useful for diplomats, foreign aid professionals, Peace Corps volunteers, and other practitioners.   Beyond Culture — which sits on the shelf with The Silent Language The Hidden Dimension, and other works — examines culturally influenced “unconscious” attitudes that shape thoughts, emotions, communication, and actions.  In Beyond Culture, Hall developed his views on high context cultures (where many things are left unsaid and are explained by the cultural context) and low context cultures (where words and verbalization are more important to communication).   Hall taught at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute from 1950-1955.

*Brice Gregory is an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University and Georgetown University, and publishes this list periodically via mailing list.  We reprint it here as a service to our readers.  Bruce can be reached by email via bgregory at gwu dot edu

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