This new journal seeks “to analyze America’s conduct on the global stage” and “examine what American policy should be.” Edited by Adam Garfinkle, its editorial board is chaired by Francis Fukuyama and includes Anne Applebaum, Peter Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Eliot Cohen, Josef Joffe, and Walter Russell Mead. Articles of interest in this first issue include its defining statement, a collection of short articles on the sources of American conduct, and a conversation with Secretary of State Rice.
Kwame Anthony Appiah. The Ethics of Identity, (Princeton University Press, 2005).
Princeton professor and African studies scholar Appiah examines claims of individuality and identity in a book that links moral obligations with collective allegiances. Appiah asks probing questions about culture, diversity as a value, and the rhetoric of human rights. He concludes by making a case for rooted cosmopolitanism that reconciles a kind of universalism with the legitimacy of some forms of partiality.
APSA Political Communication Conference on International Communication and Conflict, August 31, 2005.
This day-long conference, cosponsored by the American Political Science Association, George Washington University, and Georgetown University included panels on public diplomacy, public opinion and the Iraq war, the presidency and the press, and global news coverage of conflict. The conference was organized by Steven Livingston, Chair of GWU’s Public Diplomacy Institute and Diana Owen, Georgetown Professor of Political Science.
Hannah Arendt. The Promise of Politics, (Schocken Books, 2005). Edited and with an introduction by Jerome Kohn. This collection of Arendt’s essays and previously unpublished writings helps to connect her thinking in The Origins of Totalitarianism and The Human Condition. Her reflections, written half a century ago, on the meaning of politics, the importance of communicative interaction, the implications of human plurality, and the problems of using force to “create” freedom have continuing relevance.
Nicholas Beecroft. The British-Syrian Relationship on the Psychiatrist’s Couch, April 2005. The author, a British consultant psychiatrist, draws on relevant literature and 49 interviews with diplomats, political leaders, journalists, and a variety of government and non-governmental professionals to develop a psychological analysis and strategy to improve relations between the UK and Syria. His paper also discusses a psychological framework for assessing and managing relationships between peoples. Available online at the Defence Academy’s Conflict Studies Research Centre.
Paul Berman. Power and the Idealists, (Soft Skull Press, 2005). The author of Terror and Liberalism examines the political evolution of 1960s leftists, the moral logic that led to their support for the Kosovo War, their uses of state and NGO power to achieve humanitarian objectives and their arguments over the Iraq War. Berman tells the stories of German foreign minister Joschka Fischer; Green party parliamentarian Daniel Cohn-Bendit; Iraqi political writer and architecture critic Kanan Makiya; Dr. Bernard Kouchner, founder of Doctors Without Borders; Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran; Poland’s Adam Michnik; France’s Regis Debray; and others.
I. M. Destler. “The Power Brokers: An Uneven History of the National Security Council,” Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2005. The Director of the University of Maryland’s Program on International Security and Economic Policy reviews David Rothkopf’s recent book, Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (Public Affairs, 2005). Destler finds much to admire in the stories and insights drawn from Rothkopf’s 50 interviews with former National Security Advisors and other officials. He finds, however, that the book falls short as a comprehensive analysis of the NSC.
Amitai Etzioni. From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). In his latest book, Etzioni, a University Professor at The George Washington University and director of the Communitarian Network, explores ways to deal with transnational problems. Diverging on the one hand from a “core values” approach argued by Michael Mandelbaum, Fareed Zakaria, and others, and on the other hand from an “antithetical civilizations” approach held by Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis, Etzioni argues for an emerging synthesis he calls “soft communitarianism.”
Joshua S. Fouts. Rethinking Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century: A Toolbox for Engaging the Hearts and Minds of the Open Source Generation, Paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference on International Communication and Conflict, August 31, 2005. The Director of the University of Southern California’s Public Diplomacy Center highlights a generational shift in the way technology is being used as a venue for and facilitator of intercultural dialogue. Fouts explores the high degree of international exchange that now occurs in virtual worlds and the potential of massively multiplayer online games as tools of public diplomacy.
F. Gregory Gauze III. “Can Democracy Stop Terrorism,” Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2005, pp. 62-76. University of Vermont professor Gauze argues there is no evidence that democracy will reduce terrorism or produce governments more willing to cooperate with the United States. The author contends that rather then push for quick elections, the U.S. should focus on encouraging secular, nationalist, and liberal political organizations that can compete with Islamist parties.
German Marshall Fund. Transatlantic Trends, September 7, 2005. The Fund’s press release states “A new survey of Americans and Europeans released today finds that six months after George W. Bush’s ambitious outreach to Europe, European public opinion toward the United States remains unchanged. Both Americans and Europeans feel relations have stayed the same (52% EU9, 50% Americans). The survey also reveals that 55% of Europeans (EU9) desire a more independent approach from the United States on international security and diplomatic affairs. While opinion toward the United States has not improved, there seems to be no increase in anti-Americanism as some had feared.”
Bruce Gregory. Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication: Cultures, Firewalls, and Imported Norms, Paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference on International Communication and Conflict, August 31, 2005. This paper argues that public diplomacy embraces a variety of instrumental elements: diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, international broadcasting, political communication, democracy building, and open military information operations. Each imports discourse norms and requires limited firewalls. Because U.S. public diplomacy is characterized by episodic commitment, organizational stovepipes, tribal cultures, and “accidental” personalities, reforms of unusual duration and scale and a business plan to transform report recommendations into action are required.
Jim Holt. “Say Anything: Three Books Find Truth under Cultural and Conceptual Assault,” The New Yorker, August 22, 2005, pp. 69-74. The author assesses Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt’s recent bestseller, On Bullshit; Canadian professor Laura Penny’s Your Call is Important to Us: The Truth about Bullshit; and Cambridge University philosopher Simon Blackburn’s reading of Ludwig Wittgenstein, W. V. Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Donald Davidson, and Richard Rorty in Truth: A Guide.
Kristin M. Lord. [http://cct.georgetown.edu/apsa/papers/lord.doc What Academics (Should Have To) Say About Public Diplomacy, Paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference on International Communication and Conflict, August 31, 2005. George Washington University Professor Lord discusses the substantial record of scholarship in a range of disciplines that holds insights for public diplomacy. Her goals are to spark a dialogue between practitioners and scholars and “to show why academics should care about public diplomacy and why practitioners should listen.”
Donna Oglesby. A Pox on Both Our Houses, Paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference on International Communication and Conflict, August 31, 2005. Eckerd College’s Diplomat in Residence and former USIA Counselor argues that a fragmented political culture is causing the loss of America’s international standing in a globalizing and more highly politicized world. To reestablish credibility, the U.S. will need to engage vigorously at the level of ideas, not images. Oglesby contends that public diplomacy is best conceived, not as an element of soft power, but as the way the nation engages in international politics.
Max Rodenbeck. “The Truth About Jihad,” The New York Review of Books, August 11, 2005, pp. 51-55. A writer on the Middle East for The Economist suggests a consensus on the causes and best means of dealing with radical Islam is emerging “from outside the US policymaking establishment.” Rodenbeck reviews Jonathan Randal’s The Making of a Terrorist, Olivier Roy’s Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, Gilles Kepel’s The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, Marc Sageman’s Understanding Terror Networks, and Faisal Devji’s Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, and Modernity.
J. P. Singh. Managing Cultural Diplomacy: Framing and Coalition Building in the Cultural Industry Disputes Between the United States and Europe, Paper delivered at the American Political Science Association Conference on International Communication and Conflict, August 31, 2005. Georgetown University professor Singh examines challenges to cultural diplomacy in the exchange of cultural resources. Because cultural exchanges speak to identities and preferences that are easily politicized, the task of cultural diplomacy is not “just to spread culture and values but also to anticipate its effects through . . . framing, coalition building, and interpersonal skills.”
Ronald Steel, “Birth of a Salesman,” The New Republic, September 5, 2005, pp. 34-37. Walter Lippmann’s biographer and USC professor Steel reviews Thomas Friedman’s, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. After looking at Friedman’s career and earlier writings, Steel argues his new book is “either wrong or superficial” on the wider significance of “a wired, out-sourced, in-sourced, open-sourced, supply-chained world.”
Dan Steinbock. “Mobile Service Revolution: CNN Effect Goes Mobile,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Summer/Fall, 2005, pp. 133-139. The Director of the Center of Business Research and Education at Finland’s Academy of Sciences argues that global discourse is facing another upheaval due to the advent of global real-time television, which will be driven by new mobile services including advanced mobile voice, Internet, messaging and content services. These services will be available to a wider range of people at different income levels in more countries.
Stephen Walt. “Taming American Power,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005, pp. 105-120. The Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government looks at recent polls on America’s image and at American power from the contrasting perspectives of U.S. policymakers and the rest of the world. He argues the U.S. must resume its traditional role of “offshore balancer” and defend its international legitimacy through a sustained campaign to shape perceptions. The article is adapted from Walt’s book listed below.
Stephen M. Walt. Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, (W.W. Norton & Company, 2005). Professor Walt’s new book examines the problem of American power and strategies other states use to counter it. Public diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find especially useful his analysis of the reasons U.S. primacy arouses concern, fear and resentment (Chapter 2) and his discussion of ways to maximize the benefits of primacy and minimize the resistance that power provokes (Chapter 5).