Category: Bruce Gregory’s Resource List

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Issue #114

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Naazneen H. Barma and James Goldgeier, “How Not to Bridge the Gap in International Relations,” International Affairs, 98, no. 5 (September 2022). Barma (University of Denver) and Goldgeier (American University) develop four “bridging standards” to mitigate problems that occur when academics and practitioners navigate between the dangers of irrelevance and too cozy relevance. Influence: tactical tips and pitfalls to avoid in policy relevant research and too cozy relevance. Interlocutors: finding the right contacts and mix of analysis and prescription needed by government, private sector and civil society stakeholders. Integrity: think in advance about ethical issues in how research can be politically biased by the provider and misinterpreted by the user. Inclusion: consideration of gender and racial diversity, and variations in access and privilege between the Global South and the rest. The authors support their arguments with two case studies: democratic peace theory and peace-building in post-conflict states.

Thomas Carothers and Benjamin Press, Understanding and Responding to Global Democratic Backsliding, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 20, 2022. In this paper, Carnegie’s Carothers and Press focus much of their attention on three drivers of democratic backsliding, which they argue is confined almost entirely to countries in the Global South, former countries in the Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe, and the United States. First, political leaders who mobilize grievances against existing political systems. Second, opportunistic authoritarians who come to power by democratic means but who turn against democracy to maintain power. Third, entrenched interest groups, often the military, that use undemocratic means to regain power. More than other explanations, such as disruptive technologies and the roles of Russia and China, these drivers point to the need for democracy supporters to focus more on “identifying ways to create significant disincentives for backsliding leaders and bolstering countervailing institutions.” Their approach emphasizes differentiation of strategies to take into account diverse motivations and methods in responding to democratic backsliding.

Costas Constantinou and Fiona McConnell, “On the Right to Diplomacy: Historicizing and Theorizing Delegation and Exclusion at the United Nations,“ Cambridge University Press Online, September 16, 2022. Constantinou (University of Cyprus) and McConnell (University of Oxford) open this imaginative article with brief descriptions of Iroquois Six Nations Chief Deskaheh seeking to speak formally at the League of Nations in 1923 (and being blocked by the UK and Canada) and indigenous nations protesting exclusion from COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. Do the varieties of observer states, non-sovereign polities, NGOs, and minority groups claiming representation status or special competency at the UN have a “natural right” to be recognized or just a moral right that may be recognized occasionally? Constantinou and McConnell answer by arguing for a right to diplomacy (R2D). They build their case on three related lines of inquiry: (1) the need to broaden application of the right of legation in international law, (2) the rise of polylateral diplomacy and pluralism in diplomatic practice beyond legal sovereignty, and (3) increasing support by the UN for expansion of diplomatic representation. Their carefully reasoned article does not offer R2D as a solution to issues of legitimacy in polylateral diplomacy. But it raises important ideas that have potential to achieve greater inclusivity and equitable representation in a state-centric world order.

Larry Diamond, “All Democracy is Global,” Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2022, 182-197. Diamond (Hoover Institution, Stanford University) argues that democracy faces a “formidable new problem” in addition to the sixteen years of global democratic recession documented by Freedom House. “Over the past dozen years,” he states, “the United States has experienced one of the biggest declines in political rights and civil liberties of any country measured by the Freedom House annual survey.” Diamond challenges critics who argue America can no longer competently promote democracy abroad until it attends to its democracy problems at home. He advocates both the urgent importance of strengthening democracy in the United States and, now more than ever, “a more muscular and imaginative approach to spreading” democracy abroad. Democracy promotion needs a “reset.” Starting over requires (1) military strength to keep democracies secure against authoritarian encroachment, (2) economic strength and technological edge, (3) “a supercharged international public engagement campaign to win over hearts and minds through innovative multilingual media operations,” (4) a campaign to empower and sustain independent media, and (5) bipartisan support for a “global information campaign with the vision, stature, and authority to think boldly.” Diamond calls the demise of USIA “one of the biggest mistakes of American global engagement since the end of the Cold War.” However, like others who lament the loss, he offers little in the way of a 21st century approach beyond calling for “a general” to lead a “global information campaign with the vision, stature, and authority to think boldly.”

Edward Elliott, U.S. Sports Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Elliott (SportsDiplomacy.org) argues sport is an “underplayed, undervalued, and understudied aspect of public diplomacy” and the US lacks a “sports diplomacy strategy.” His report, based on interviews, detailed analysis, and a literature review, is structured in four sections: the infrastructure of sports including the State Department’s Sports Diplomacy office, values inherent in and transmittable through sports, sports as an economic driver, and links between sports, national security, and geopolitics. His 113-page report concludes with a series of organizational and policy recommendations intended to enhance sports diplomacy leadership in the US government, increase relevant training in the State Department, encourage sports diplomacy as a function in the international affairs offices of US cities, create a sports diplomacy hub, and strengthen partnerships between sports organizations and government departments at the state, city, and federal level.

Alisher Faizullaev, Diplomacy for Professionals and Everyone, (Brill Nijhoff, 2022). This is an ambitious, imaginative, and important book by a writer whose career combines scholarship in psychology and political science with assignments as Uzbekistan’s ambassador to the EU, NATO, Belgium and Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Faizullaev examines diplomacy’s variety of meanings in the context of a core distinction between (1) the traditional “politically” motivated diplomacy of states and other entities and (2) “social diplomacy” by which he means “using the diplomatic spirit and the instruments of diplomacy in social life, including everyday situations.” These are not compartmented binaries; they are treated as predominant tendencies with overlapping characteristics. His book is a deeply researched inquiry into essential concepts; performative means and norms; categories of diplomatic actors; and diplomatic functions, methods, skills, and mindsets. Social diplomacy is a trending area of study. Faizullaev’s contributions lie particularly in his exhaustive examination of the literature and clear exposition of current thinking on social interactions, relationship building, and what he calls “the diplomatic spirit” in social diplomacy. Pages of clear graphics illuminate his ideas. A central theme is that diplomacy is essentially “a peaceful endeavor.” Diplomacy that uses deception, manipulation, and threat of force “is not genuine diplomacy.” 

His book raises questions. If the concept of diplomacy is expanded to include most or all human relationships beyond the family, does it lose its particularity and analytical usefulness? Should argument that broadens diplomacy to include “professionals” and “everyone” need to explain more clearly by analysis and example what is not political and social diplomacy? If diplomatic actors are categorized as “primarily” political and “primarily” social actors, what are useful operational criteria for determining relative priorities in contingent circumstances? Faizullaev takes objections to his thinking into account, but he leaves open the door to critique and debate. This too is a contribution. See also Alisher Faizullaev, “On Social Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, September 2022.

Jennifer Homans, “George Balanchine’s Soviet Reckoning,”  The New Yorker, September 12, 2022, 20-26. The New Yorker’s dance critic takes us inside the experiences of George Balanchine and the New York City Ballet in the Soviet Union during an exchange arranged by the State Department in October 1962. Balanchine’s perceptions of his native country. Disconnects between the grimness of Soviet security and wildly enthusiastic audiences at performances in Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Tbilisi, and other cities. Contingency evacuation plans after news of the Cuban missile crisis. Balanchine’s reunification with family and personal memories. And his reflections on the meaning of exile after a trip viewed by critics and sponsors as an artistic and political success. Homans’ book, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century will be published in November.

Michael Mandelbaum, The Four Ages of American Foreign Policy, (Oxford University Press, 2022). Mandelbaum (Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, SAIS) adds to his impressive body of work with this sweeping history, valuable for its clear prose, provocative analysis, and clearly presented ages and characteristics of American foreign policy. He divides his history into four ages: weak power (1765-1865), great power (1865-1945), super power (1945- 1990), and hyperpower (1990-2015). The US is now embarked on a fifth age, he argues, its features still murky. Three characteristics constitute what he calls “distinctive properties:” an American desire to disseminate a set of political ideas embodied in institutions and practices, repeated recourse to economic power to achieve its goals, and the influence of the nation’s diplomatic character on the making of foreign policy. These themes are perceptively analyzed and well documented. But his history has little to say about diplomatic practice. A few superstar diplomats make brief appearances (Benjamin Franklin, George Kennan, Henry Kissinger). His book does not address colonial foundations during the century and a half before 1765. The roles of public opinion and America’s democratic institutions in the making of foreign policy are a strength of the book. Unfortunately, diplomacy’s public dimension in the implementation of American foreign policy is largely ignored.

National Security Strategy, The White House, Washington, DC, October 2022. National Security Strategies, required by law, signal strategic goals, values, interests, and broad policy priorities. They do not provide clear guidance on the means needed to achieve them. The Biden Strategy is no exception. It lists three “key pillars” for instruments – itemized as “diplomacy, development cooperation, industrial strategy, economic statecraft, intelligence, and defense” – the absence of a dividing line between foreign policy and domestic policy, the indispensability of alliances and partnerships, and recognition that China is “America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge.” In a section on sharpening tools of statecraft, a single sentence is devoted to diplomacy: “Strengthening American diplomacy by modernizing the Department of State, including through the recent creation of a new bureau for cyberspace and digital policy and a special envoy for critical and emerging technologies.” The Strategy continues a longstanding White House approach to treating diplomacy’s public dimension as an unmentioned integrated element of diplomacy. Disinformation and people-to-people exchanges are name checked in the context of advancing an international technology ecosystem through the US-EU Trade and Technology Council and the Indo-Pacific Quad. The Strategy states it is “a roadmap” for achieving “the future we seek.” It is a vision document, but it is not a road map to the reforms and cost/benefit tradeoffs needed to make hard operational choices. See also, “Around the Halls: Assessing the 2022 National Security Strategy,” Brookings, October 14, 2022.

R. Eugene Parta, Under the Radar: Tracking Western Radio Listeners in the Soviet Union, (Central European University Press, 2022). When asked about key precepts of practice in diplomacy’s public dimension, many practitioners mention “listening” before placing greater emphasis on advocacy, dialogue, relationships, and other categories. Gene Parta, who retired as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) director of Audience Research and Program Evaluation, and who was for many years RL’s director of Soviet Area Research, shows convincingly what can be achieved when a community of practice takes “listening” seriously. His impressive “personalized narrative” is the well written story of how US-funded surrogate home service radios worked to understand Soviet attitudes, media use, behavior, and public opinion when most research tools used in Western societies were unavailable. It is a vivid first-hand account of who these practitioners were and the innovative methods they used: traveler interviews, audience segmentation, émigré interviews, samizdat literature, computer simulation, focus groups, and more. RFE/RL’s immense and admired body of research – indispensable to program choices and evaluation methods of broadcasters, and decisions of lawmakers and oversight boards – is archived at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. It is available to researchers seeking to understand Soviet attitudes and the role of Western broadcasters during the Cold War. Although Under the Radar’s focus is historical, Parta also offers informed views on building broadcaster credibility and trust, how disinformation can be countered, recommendations for a new research center, and a brief afterword on today’s war in Ukraine. An electronic version of the book can be downloaded at no charge.

Mark G. Pomar, Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty,  (Potomac Books: 2022). Rarely are the politics more consistently intense in the practitioner communities that comprise American diplomacy’s public dimension than in the foreign language services of US international broadcasters. Pomar (University of Texas, Austin) is a respected Russian studies teacher and scholar, former director of VOA’s Russian Service and USSR Division, and executive director of RFE/RL’s oversight board. In this superb book, he analyzes the understudied policies and program content of US broadcasting’s Russia services in the context of high stakes domestic and international politics during the Cold War. Although attentive to organizational issues and US broadcasting’s origins, the strength of the book is its treatment of personalities, émigré politics, Russian audiences, and program decisions. Topical chapters focus on human rights, culture and the arts, religion, and glasnost. A riveting chapter tells of his interview with Russian novelist and dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn and controversies surrounding VOA’s airing of his readings. Cold War Radio explores a broad range of issues: differences between VOA and RFE/RL, broadcasting’s firewalls, surrogate broadcasting’s characteristics, acrimonious editorial meetings, ideological tensions between different generations of Soviet émigrés, and a fundamental divide between “an aggressive stance and a neutral voice” in US broadcasting strategies. Pomar brings the insights of a practitioner and the critical distance of a scholar to a book that is part analysis, part memoir, part advocacy – and overall a rewarding read.

Anthony C. E. Quainton, Eye on the World: A Life in International Service, (Potomac Books, 2022). Ambassador (ret.) Tony Quainton tells the story of his 38-year career as a US Foreign Service officer followed by sixteen years as a professor at American University. Memoirs of career diplomats typically offer insights based on their experiences, the people they encountered, and the policies that provided context for their service. Quainton’s book is no exception. But his book also rewards for other reasons. The variety of his assignments. Field postings in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. Four ambassadorships (Central African Republic, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Peru). Senior State Department positions: Office for Combating Terrorism, Deputy Inspector General, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, and Director General of the Foreign Service. His candor about mistakes as well as achievements. His clear writing. His recognition that the Foreign Service, mired in hierarchy and tradition, needed to adapt to new technologies, greater diversity, and 21st century globalization. Practice theory scholars, Foreign Service aspirants, and all interested in diplomacy reforms will find Quainton’s Eye on the World useful, because its insights remain relevant to what is changing and needs to change. 

Targeted Inspection of the U.S. Agency for Global Media: Editorial Independence and Journalistic Standards and Principles,  Office of Inspector General, US Department of State, October 2022. State’s OIG report is useful for its (1) background information on USAGM’s mission, functions, and five broadcasting networks; (2) timeline of legislative, regulatory, and leadership changes; (3) summary of whistleblower complaints, alleged violations of editorial independence, litigation, and court decisions based on managerial actions during the tenure of Trump-appointed USAGM CEO Michael Pack; and (4) OIG’s findings and recommendations regarding policies, actions, procedures, and training relating to editorial independence and firewall requirements for the brief period April 30 to June 5, 2020 just prior to Pack’s tenure. OIG’s key judgments focus on unclear and inconsistent definitions of editorial independence and the firewall in “legislation, regulations, grant agreements, and guidance governing network editorial independence;” the need to update firewall guidance and procedures; and increased training and staff guidance. Four recommendations relate to issues in the Office of Cuba Broadcasting. Two address needed reforms in VOA’s annual language service program reviews. The OIG’s “targeted inspection” leaves many questions unanswered. It did not reach conclusions regarding the Pack era events, stating they are still subject to ongoing review by “independent experts” hired by USAGM’s leadership. It did not speak to the substance of what definitional clarity might entail with regard to editorial independence and the firewall. Nor did it address what organizational and regulatory changes might be required to avoid repetition of abuses. See also Courtney Ruble, “A Watchdog Says the Global Media Agency Lacks Clear and Consistent Policies to Ensure Editorial Independence,” Government Executive, October 17, 2022.

Recent Items of Interest

Goli Ameri and Jay Wang, “How US Leaders Can Best Support Protesters in Iran,”  October 1, 2022, The Hill.

Sohaela Amiri, “Reimagining Cross-Border Ties Through Feminism,”  October 13, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Jonathan V. Ahlstrom, “Higher Education and the New Scramble for Africa,” September, 2022, The Foreign Service Journal.

Matt Armstrong, “You’ve Told Us Why the Voice, But You Haven’t Told Us What It Is,”  October 21, 2022;  “Followup,”  October 23, 2022;  “We Don’t Have an Organizational Problem, We Have a Leadership Problem,”  September 21, 2022; “Into the Gray Zone,”  September 12, 2022, MountainRunner.us; “Issues Related to Responding to Foreign Language Influence Activities in the U.S.,”  August 30, 2022, Mountainrunner.substack.com.

Kadir Jun Ayhan, Efe Sevin, Christina Florensya Mandagi, “Conversation on Methodological Approaches to Public Diplomacy,”  October 10, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Nicolas Bouchet, Ken Godfrey, and Richard Youngs, “Rising Hostility to Democracy Support: Can It Be Countered?”  September 1, 2022, Carnegie Europe.

“Bruno Latour, French Philosopher and Anthropologist, Dies Aged 75,”  October 9, 2022, The Guardian.

“Chairman Meeks Issues Statement on Introduction of the State Department Authorization Act,”  September 9, 2022, House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Courtney Bublé, “VOA’s Leader Talks About Navigating Employee Morale, International Crises, and More,”  August 23, 2022, Government Executive.

Anthony J. Blinken, “Naming Ambassador Nina Hachigian as Special Representative for Subnational Diplomacy,”  October 3, 2022, US Department of State.

Sarah Cook, Agneli Datt, Ellie Young, and BC Han, “Beijing’s Global Media Influence 2022: Authoritarian Expansion and the Power of Democratic Resilience,”  September 2022, Freedom House; Liam Scott, “China’s Global Media Influence Campaign Growing, Says Freedom House,”  September 8, 2022, VOA.

Deidi Delahanty, “FSO Selection: Changing the Path to the Oral Assessment,”  October 2022, Foreign Service Journal.

David Ellwood, “From Elizabeth II to Charles III: A Triumph of British Ceremonial and Soft Power,”  September 26, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Christine Emba, “The World Is Taking America’s Decline Seriously. We Should Too,”  August 29, 2022, The Washington Post. 

David Folkenflik, “Trump’s VOA Chief Paid ‘Extravagantly’ to Investigate Critics: Watchdog,”  August 19, 2022, NPR.

Robert Groves, “When Does A[n] Academic Field Become a Field?”  August 28, 2019, The Provost’s Blog, Georgetown University.

Jory Heckman, “State Dept’s Top HR Official Outlines Vision to Rebuild Diplomatic Workforce,”  August 18, 2022, Federal News Network.

“HJD Diplomacy Reading Lists,”  September 2022, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Robin Holzhauer, “More Americans Seem to Appreciate Diplomacy. Is That Enough?”  September 11, 2022, Diplomatic Diary.

Steve Kelman, “A U.S. Diplomatic Organization That Works,”  September 19, 2022, FCW.

David Klepper, “Russia Finding New Ways to Spread Propaganda Videos,”  October 5, 2022, Associated Press.

David Montgomery, “Can Antony Blinken Update Liberal Foreign Policy for a World Gone Mad,”  August 22, 2022, The Washington Post Magazine.

Ellen Nakashima, “Pentagon Opens Sweeping Review of Clandestine Psychological Operations,”  September 19, 2022, The Washington Post.

Raymond Powell, “DOD’s Diplomats Don’t Need More Rank, Just Less Disdain,”  August 18, 2022, Defense One.

Lee Satterfield, “Last Word,”  September/October 2022, Library of Congress Magazine (p. 28).

Christine Shiau, “A Decade After His Death, Ambassador Stevens’ Legacy is More Urgent Than Ever,”  September 8, 2022, The Hill.

Pete Shmigel, “From the UN to The Late Show, Ukraine’s Diplomats Are Winning,”  September 26, 2022, Atlantic Council.

Craig Simon, “Sinclair Lewis and City Diplomacy,”  September 20, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Matt Stevens, “The New ‘Monuments Officers’ Prepare to Protect Art Amid War,”  August 11, 2022, The New York Times.

Bruce Stokes, “The Decline of the City Upon a Hill,”  October 17, 2022, Foreign Affairs.

Zed Tarar, “Did Email Kill the Diplomat?”  August 16, 2022, ISD, The Diplomatic Pouch.

Tom Temin, “How To Improve the Foreign Service,”  September 26, 2022, Federal News Network.

“US Senate Approves Former VOA Chief to Head US Global Broadcasting,”  September 22, 2022, VOA News; “USAGM Applauds Bipartisan Confirmation of Amanda Bennett to be CEO,”  September 22, 2022, USAGM.

Gem From The Past  

Vincent Pouliot and Jérémie Cornut, “Special Issue: Diplomacy in Theory and in Practice,”  Cooperation and Conflict, 50, no. 3 (September 2015), 297-315. The articles in this seven-year-old compendium continue to provide relevant and interesting ideas as practice theory attracts greater attention in diplomacy studies. In their introductory article, “Practice Theory and the Study of Diplomacy: A Research Agenda,” Pouliot (McGill University) and Cornut (Simon Fraser University) frame two central questions. How can practice theory contribute to an understanding of diplomatic practice? How can what diplomatic practitioners do and say advance research and analysis? They go on to discuss how the dialogue stimulated by these questions contributes to research agendas in a wide variety of contexts. Although they define diplomacy in the vocabulary of authoritative representation of polities, relations between polities, and a political process linked to governing, their approach has plenty to offer trending research agendas in the societization of diplomacy.

Other articles include:

Geoffrey Wiseman, (DePaul University), “Diplomatic Practices at the United Nations.”

Andrew F. Cooper (University of Waterloo) and Vincent Pouliot, “How Much Is Global Governance Changing? The G20 as International Practice.”                                                                   

Christian Lequesne, (CERI – Sciences Po), “EU Foreign Policy Through the Lens of Practice Theory: A Different Approach to the European External Action Service.”                            

Merje Kuus, (University of British Coumbia), “Symbolic Power in Diplomatic Practice: Matters of Style in Brussels.”

Jérémie Cornut, “To Be a Diplomat Abroad: Diplomatic Practice at Embassies.”

Patricia M. Goff (Wilfred Laurier University), “Public Diplomacy at the Global Level: The Alliance of Civilizations As a Community of Practice.”

An archive of Diplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Posted on

Issue #113

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Kadir Jun Ayhan, “An English School of International Relations Approach to Public Diplomacy: A Public Diplomacy Framework for Global Governance Issues,” Journal of Public Diplomacy 2, No. 1 (July, 2022): 1-5. In his lead editorial in the Journal’s current issue, JPD’s editor-in-chief calls for public diplomacy scholars to place greater emphasis on “the political side of public diplomacy” and international relations theory. Specifically, Ayhan (Ewha Womans University, Seoul) advances a public diplomacy framework for global governance issues that builds on the English School in IR studies and James Pamment’s ideas on the intersection of international development and public diplomacy. His framework identifies priorities and implications for public diplomacy and global governance in the context of the English School’s core categories: the international system, international society, and world society. His intent is to stimulate discourse among scholars and practitioners on the value of supplementing a vast communications scholarship in public diplomacy with greater attention to IR theory and the interactive practices of national, international, and transnational actors in global governance.

Kudos to JPD as it launches its second year as a highly promising and well-regarded open access publication. The Journal seeks submissions (younger scholars are welcome) and ideas for special issues. It recently issued a call for a special issue on African public diplomacy. Articles in the current issue include:

Tugce Ertem-Eray (NC State University) and Eyun-Jung Ki (University of Alabama), “Foreign-Born Public Relations Faculty Members’ Relationship with their Universities as a Soft Power Resource in U.S. Public Diplomacy.”

Nicolas Albertoni (Catholic University of Uruguay), “Exploratory Insight into the (Un)intended Effects of Trade Policy in Public Diplomacy.”

Joyce Y.M. Nip (University of Sydney) and Chao Sun (Sydney Informatics Hub, University of Sydney), “Public Diplomacy, Propaganda, or What? China’s Communication Practices in the South China Sea Dispute on Twitter.”

Di Wu (Tongji University) and Efe Sevin (Towson University), “Neither External nor Multilateral: States’ Digital Diplomacy During Covid-19.”

Sohaela Amiri (USC Center on Public Diplomacy), “Understanding the Dynamics between U.S. City Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy.”

Rachel Naddeo and Lucas Matsunag (Tohoku University), “Public Diplomacy and Social Capital: Bridging Theory and Activities.”

Carla Cabrera Cuadrado (Universidad de Valencia), book review essay on City Diplomacy: Current Trends and Future Prospects (1st edition), edited by Sohaela Amiri and Efe Sevin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020; Urban Diplomacy: A Cosmopolitan Outlook, by Juan Luis Manfredi-Sánchez, Brill, 2021; City Diplomacy: From City-States to Global Cities, by Raffaele Marchetti, University of Michigan Press, 2021.  

Joel Day, Building a Citywide Global Engagement Plan, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, February 2022. In this thoughtful and well-organized study,Day (USC CPD and UC San Diego) presents three analytical categories through which to advance knowledge about city diplomacy. First, he argues the central motivation in today’s global engagement of cities is grounded in governance choices broader than traditional drivers of cultural exchange and protocol – (1) diplomacy that advances a city’s competitiveness in the international political economy or (2) diplomacy that seeks global relationships that improve the welfare of a city’s residents. Decisions rest on establishing priorities and the possibility of doing both. Second, he provides a list of five practical steps for local leaders contemplating a decision to engage globally. A “who, what, when, where, and why” guide for planners based on specific issues in modern cities. Third, his study develops a research agenda for scholars that emphasizes the importance of building a longitudinal data set that examines the actors, actions, targets, motivations, and outcomes of city diplomacy over time. Scholars and practitioners will find Day’s study a useful addition to the literature.

James Der Derian and Alexander Wendt, eds., Quantum International Relations: A Human Science for World Politics, (Oxford University Press, 2022). Science and technology not only shape diplomacy’s tools, they provide historically contingent metaphors for understanding diplomacy. Newton’s mechanistic physics gave meaning to government-to-government relations, balance of power, correspondence to an intrinsic reality “out there,” and rational choice diplomacy. When science becomes outdated, theorists adopt alternative vocabularies. Notably it was former Secretary of State George Shultz who introduced the term “quantum diplomacy” in 1997 (see Gem from the Past below). A quarter century later, quantum theory has emerged in international relations and diplomacy in the speculative insights of diplomacy scholar and filmmaker James Der Derian (University of Sidney), IR theorist Alexander Wendt (Ohio State University), and similarly inclined scholars in these essays. As the editors and former diplomat Stephen J. Del Rosso in his Foreword contend, their aim is to examine questions drawn from the application of quantum physics to world politics and diplomacy. What ideas are generated? How might quantum technologies interact with other technologies? How do they illuminate computing, communications, control, and artificial intelligence in ways of value to practitioners?  Are social media and data mining creating quantum effects in politics, war, and diplomacy? What are ethical consequences? Their multidisciplinary compendium looks cautiously and non-polemically at these issues. See also James Der Derian and Alexander Wendt, “‘Quantizing International Relations’: The Case for Quantum Approaches to International Theory and Security Practice,” Security Dialogue, 2020, Vol. 51(5), 399-413; and Stephen J. Del Rosso, “Making the Case for Quantum International Relations,” Carnegie Corporation of New York, June 2, 2022.

As scholars and diplomats lean into the quantum approach beyond metaphor, several practical concerns arise. What kinds and levels of subjectivity are embedded in data? How does big data create knowledge that can be incorporated effectively into diplomatic discourse and behavior? Hannah Arendt argued perceptively in The Human Condition (1958) that even if powerful technologies create potentially useful knowledge and thought, they can diminish agency and speech. Can we act on these technologies in politically meaningful ways? Consider also the qualities of good political judgment raised in Isaiah Berlin’s essay “On Political Judgment.” Politics and diplomacy require “practical wisdom, practical reason, perhaps, a sense of what will ‘work,’ and what will not.” A “great deal in practice,” Berlin argued, “cannot be grasped by the sciences.”

Peter Finn and John Maxwell Hamilton, “U.S. Was Targeted with Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation in WWI,” The Washington Post, June 4, 2022. Finn (the Post’s national security editor) and Hamilton (Louisiana State University and author of Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda) report on their discovery of American journalist Herbert Corey’s memoir in the Library of Congress, which they edited, annotated, and published as Herbert Corey’s Great War: A Memoir of World War I by the American Reporter Who Saw It All (LSU Press, 2022). Corey, considered “the dean of the correspondents with the American Army,” is interesting for his coverage of ordinary soldiers and civilians; his frustrations with the military’s press controls; and his insights into British influence directed at American officials and opinion leaders, particularly planted stories in the press and censorship achieved by “rewriting correspondents’ stories, a practice Corey exposed.” 

Zach Hirsh, “Elise Stefanik’s Defense of Trump Around Jan. 6 Clouds Her Pro- Democracy Work Abroad,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio (NPR), June 20, 2020. America’s democratizers have long been challenged by double standards: when the US simultaneously soft pedals democracy in some countries and vigorously supports it in others, or interferes in election outcomes for geopolitical or economic reasons. Now they face double standards at home. NPR’s case in point – US House Republican leader Elise Stefanik’s assault on the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and continued membership on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). See also Daniel Lippman, “Elise Stefanik’s post on democracy group board sparked a staff uproar,” Politico, June 17, 2021. Many on NED’s staff voiced strong written dissent. However, NED’s leadership and leading democracy scholars such as Larry Diamond argue removing Stefanik would threaten NED’s funding and work abroad. She remains on NED’s board (her membership renewed for a second term in January 2022) espousing its core values abroad while undermining them at home. See also Larry Garber and Edward McMahon, “US Election Deniers Promoting Democracy Abroad Defies Reason,” The Hill, July 16, 2022.

Learning Agenda 2022-2026, US Department of State, June 2022. The Department’s report was issued in response to Congress’s “Evidence Act” (2018) requiring federal agencies to answer questions relevant to achieving strategic objectives. It also seeks to bolster Secretary of State Blinken’s modernization goals. The report lists eight broad questions relating to diplomatic interventions, foreign assistance, climate, global pandemics, global disinformation, customer service for US citizens, risk management, and performance management and evaluation. Public diplomacy appears as a sub-question within the framework of diplomacy intervention. Tools identified for attention are “1) digital communication campaigns; 2) short-term and long-term cultural exchanges; 3) media literacy and journalism programs; and 4) methodological approaches to evaluating public diplomacy performance.” The report is interesting for its framing of US diplomacy, its generalizations and goals, and its structural implications. Missing is discussion of the leadership, hard choices, and cost-benefit tradeoffs required for an operational roadmap. The Learning Agenda was launched at Harvard’s Kennedy School by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.  See also the Learning Agenda of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ Evaluation Division. 

W. P. Malecki and Chris Voparil, eds., What Can We Hope For? Essays on Politics / Richard Rorty (Princeton University Press, 2022). Richard Rorty, an influential voice of American pragmatism, left a powerful legacy when he died in 2007. Teacher. Public intellectual. Cultural critic drawn to narratives and conversations. Skeptic of universal truths. Progressive democrat wary of identity politics but deeply committed to democracy, reduction of cruelty, and concrete political agendas. Author of Achieving Our Country (1998), Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1989), and many other books. In this collection Malecki (University of Wroclaw, Poland) and Voparil (Union Institute & University, Cincinnati) compile 19 of Rorty’s essays on American and global politics, four previously unpublished, others hard to find. Four stand out. In “Rethinking our Democracy” (1996), suspicious of alternatives, he argues the case for democracy in addressing global crises despite its current dysfunctions. In “The Unpredictable American Empire” (2003), he despairs of the “iron triangle that links corporations, the Pentagon, and the House and Senate Armed Services Committees,” but calls for an activist reform agenda around which leftist intellectuals and the American people might rally. His essay, “Looking Backward from the Year 2096” (1996) warns of “automatic weapons freely and cheaply available,” vulnerability to “dictatorial takeover,” and the breakdown of citizenship and democratic institutions. In “Does Being an American Give One a Moral Identity?” (1998), he connects a country that “has been racist, sexist, homophobic, imperialist” with a country capable of reform “over and over again.” Rorty’s essays are prescient and valuable in thinking about the problems of democracy, populism, climate, inequality, American exceptionalism, and other contemporary challenges.

Ilan Manor, Exploring the Semiotics of Public Diplomacy, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, April 2022. Manor (University of Oxford) looks at how diplomats use visuals on social media platforms to influence views of digital publics. His article opens with comments on how diplomats practice visual narration in online public diplomacy campaigns. Then, borrowing semiotics ideas of Roland Barthes, he investigates how diplomats use visuals “as ideological devices” to advance norms, values, and offline policy goals. Manor’s objective is to explore diplomats’ intent through interviews with practitioners associated with social media campaigns in foreign ministries in Israel, the UK, and Lithuania. The article contains a literature review and his account of how diplomats’ use of social media platforms “has advanced from reactive to proactive digitalization.” It also points to research opportunities: application of his methodology to other cases, assessment of links between online and offline outcomes in digital campaigns, and ways ministries of foreign affairs institutionalize visual narration practices. Researchers might also compare diplomacy’s use of digitalized visual narratives with earlier visual narratives used in analog technology platforms, the strengths and limitations of the Barthes semiotics ideas, and the wealth of empirical evidence generated by war in Ukraine.

Joyce Y.M. Nip and Chao Sun “Public Diplomacy, Propaganda, or What? China’s Communication Practices in the South China Sea Dispute on Twitter,” Journal of Public Diplomacy 2, no. 1, (July, 2022): 43-68. Nip and Sun (University of Sydney) explore how modes of communication on social media contribute to public diplomacy in the context of China’s #SouthChinaSea conversations on Twitter. Their article seeks to answer a primary research question: What model of public diplomacy best describes China’s communication? Sub-research questions include: “(1) Who are China’s key actors in the issue, and to what extent are non-state actors involved? (2) To what extent do China’s actors conduct monologic, dialogic, and network communication with other users? (3) How sustained is Chinese actors’ dialogic and network communication with the same users over time?” Their article blends a theoretical discussion of public diplomacy models – identified as “PD white propaganda,” “relational PD,” and “network/collaborative PD” – with empirical research on China’s use of Twitter in the South China Sea dispute.  

Michael S. Pollard, Charles P. Ries, and Sohaela Amiri, The Foreign Service and American Public Opinion: Dynamics and Prospects, (RAND, 2022). This report by RAND researchers, with support from the Una Chapman Cox Foundation, examines American public opinion relating to diplomacy and the Foreign Service. Methods included opinion surveys and moderated on-line focus groups. The report produced evidence that Americans overall had generally favorable attitudes toward US diplomats but also a “limited understanding of what diplomats actually do, how they are selected, and how diplomacy interacts with other elements of America’s national security establishment.” Among other findings: 

·      Greater awareness of “helping citizens abroad” than other diplomatic functions; 

·      High priority given to “understanding of global affairs” and “negotiating” as important diplomatic skills; 

·      Low priority given to “public speaking,” “bravery,” “discipline in following instructions,” and “empathy;”

·      Over 65% believe diplomacy contributes to national security;

·      More than 40% think it is “better for diplomats to lead efforts abroad” (compared with 20% favoring the military and the rest no opinion);

·      A preference for keeping spending on foreign affairs “about the same” with “relatively more support for cutting than adding to funding in 2020.” 

The report addressed implications for creating better understanding of diplomats and diplomacy.

Maria Repnikova, “The Balance of Soft Power: The American and Chinese Quest to Win Hearts and Minds,”  Foreign Affairs, July/August 2022, 44-51. After a brief overview of the soft power ideas of Joseph Nye, Repnikova (Georgia State University) profiles the different ways in which the US and China interpret and operationalize the concept. For example, the US prioritizes democratic values and institutions. China focuses on integrating cultural and commercial agendas. Although many view the two soft power agendas as competitive, Repnikova argues people in many parts of the world view them as complementary. “They are perfectly happy to have both the Americans and the Chinese seduce them with their respective visions and values.” Both soft power agendas face problems she concludes. For China, concerns are raised about the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccines and the pedagogy of its education programs. The US suffers from inconsistency between its emphasis on democratic values and democratic erosion, racial discrimination, and attacks on reproductive rights at home.

Dan Spokojny, “Doctrine for Diplomacy: To Remain Relevant, the U.S. State Department Needs a New Statecraft,”  August 10, 2022, War on the Rocks.  Spokojny (founder and CEO of fp21) argues “It is time to start treating the conduct of diplomacy as a profession with its own standards, methodologies, and skills.” Building on US military ideas about doctrine, he observes that its power comes not from a single definition but “from its ability to help an organization achieve results.” Diplomats should feed experiences into a systematic body of knowledge that bridges divides between policymaking and research, and between thought and action. Spokojny’s persuasive article takes on the skepticism of diplomats who resist generalized learning, codified knowledge, and evaluation. “Creating a doctrine for diplomacy,” he maintains, “will improve the quality, accountability, and effectiveness of American foreign policy.

Dan Spokojny and Alexandra Blum, “Let’s Get Serious About Research for Diplomacy: A Proposal for a Foreign Policy-focused FFRDC,”  fp21, July 18, 2022. Spokojny (fp21 CEO) and Blum (UC Berkeley) argue that although the State Department is committed to responding to important research questions framed in its Learning Agenda, 2022-2026, it lacks capacity to do so. Most diplomats lack the time and training. No State office is equipped to support research of this scale. Their proposal: create a State sponsored Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for US foreign policy. FFRDCs – public-private research organizations funded by but located outside government – currently support the research needs of 15 departments, including ten sponsored by the Defense Department. Their proposal discusses structural issues, research needed for diplomacy and foreign policy, and a key separation between research and policymaking. 

Excellent idea. It has been recommended before in the context of diplomacy’s public dimension. Two year-long Defense Science Board Task Force studies in the 2000s – the work of career public diplomacy practitioners, military officers, and scholars – recommended an FFRDC for State, a Center for Global Engagement. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication (2008), pp. xiv-xv, 89-93 and Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication (2004), pp. 6-8, 69-70. Kristin Lord’s Brookings report, Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century (2010),pp. 17-30, called for a 501(c)(3) organization. 

In 2010, the Wilson Center convened a broad coalition of leading advocates in Washington to create a business plan leading to a Center for Strengthening America’s Global Engagement (SAGE). Former Secretaries of Defense and State, William Perry and Condoleezza Rice, were honorary co-chairs. These were serious voices. But their efforts did not prosper. The State Department and most career diplomats were not interested. The Wilson Center’s Sage project also provided a list of reports with similar recommendations prepared by the Council on Foreign Relations, Public Diplomacy Council, RAND Corporation, Heritage Foundation, and other organizations.

George Stevens, Jr., My Place in the Sun: Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington, (University Press of Kentucky, 2022). Diplomacy enthusiasts will find Stevens’ entire narrative of interest, especially the account of his years as head of the Motion Picture Service in Edward R. Murrow’s US Information Agency. There he oversaw the production of award winning documentaries that included Charles Guggenheim’s “Nine From Little Rock” (1964) and Bruce Hershensohn’s “Years of Lightening, Day of Drums”(1964). Stevens spoke about his years at USIA in an hour-long discussion with historian Nick Cull in an event co-sponsored by the Public Diplomacy Council of America and USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Zed Tarar, “The State Department Needs True Generalists to Succeed,” May 12, 2022; “The State Department’s Generalists are Withering on the Vine,” May 19, 2022; “For the State Department’s Generalists, When Is Quitting the Answer,” May 26, 2022, The Diplomatic Pouch Blog, ISD, Georgetown University. Career US diplomat Tarar continues his assessment of the State Department. His blogs in this miniseries make a case for three propositions. First, building on ideas in David Epstein’s book Range, generalists are good fits for domains without rigid rules. In 21st century international affairs, they often outcompete narrowly specialized colleagues. Second, diplomats in volatile and ambiguous settings, diplomacy’s normal context, require cognitive frames achieved through interdisciplinary professional development and diverse experiences outside government. A requirement unmet by the Department’s long-standing and continuing lip service to mid-career professional education. Third, for those who choose to leave diplomacy after 10-12 years, “Saying goodbye is hard,” but often “the best course of action for long term growth.” Experienced diplomats underestimate the considerable skills they bring to civil society and the private sector.

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “ACPD Official Meeting Minutes: June 1, 2022,” Transcript. The Commission’s meeting focused on business and cultural dynamics in city diplomacy. A panel, moderated by executive director Vivian S. Walker, included Tony Pipa, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institute, Center for Sustainable Development; Christopher Olson, Director of Trade & International Affairs, City of Houston; Vanessa Ibarra, Director of International Affairs, City of Atlanta; and Sherry Dowlatshahi, Chief Diplomacy & Chief Protocol Officer, City of San Antonio. The panel’s discussion expanded on issues developed in the Commission’s report, Exploring U.S. Public Diplomacy’s Domestic Dimensions: Purviews, Publics, and Policies, April 25, 2022.

Recent Items of Interest

Advance Articles, 2022, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

Sohaela Amiri, “Dynamics Between City Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy,”  August 8, 2022,CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Andy Blatchford, “Behind Joly’s Plan to Modernize Canadian Diplomacy,” May 31, 2022, Politico.

Broadening Diplomatic Engagement Across America,  Report of the Truman Center City & State Diplomacy Task Force, June 2022.

James Careless, “Hot Debate on Shortwave Revival Continues,”  May 12, 2022, RadioWorld.

Nicholas J. Cull, “Why the Office of War Information Still Matters,”  June 2022, The Foreign Service Journal.

Renee Earle, “A Salute to Cultural Diplomacy and Those Who Make It Possible,”  August 2022, American Diplomacy

Anastasia Edel, “The Door Between Russia and America Is Slamming Shut,”  June 9, 2022, The New York Times.

David Ellwood, “Narratives, Propaganda & “Smart” Power in the Ukraine Conflict, Part I: Narrative Clash,” July 19, 2022; “Narratives, Propaganda & “Smart” Power in the Ukraine Conflict, Part 2: Inventing a Global Presence,” July 21, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Willow Fortunoff, “Mayors Are Quickly Becoming International Diplomats. The US Can Help Them Thrive,”  July 6, 2022, Atlantic Council.

Jory Heckman, “State Department Rethinks How It Vets Foreign Service Candidates To Diversify Ranks,”  June 10, 2022, Federal News Network.

Jessica Jerreat, “Nomination Hearing Set for Biden’s Pick to Lead USAGM,”  June 7, 2022, VOA. 

Sam Knight, “Can the BBC Survive the British Government,”  April 18, 2022, The New Yorker.

Joseph Lieberman and Gordon Humphrey, “It’s Time to Open a New Front Against Putin Inside Russia,”  July 9, 2022, The Hill.

Michael Lipin, “Biden’s USAGM Nominee Bennett Wins Senate Committee Approval,”  June 23, 2022, VOANews

Larry Luxner, “Ambassador Oversight Act Aims For More Qualified US Diplomats Abroad,”  June 22, 2022, The Washington Diplomat; Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), “S.4205 –  Ambassador Oversight and Transparency Act.”

Williams S. Martins and Daria Gasparini, “OWI and the ‘Battle of Sweden,’”  June 2022, The Foreign Service Journal.

Michael T. McFaul (R-TX), Letter to Senator James Risch (R-ID) regarding Amanda Bennett’s nomination to be CEO, US Agency on Global Media, June 9, 2022. 

Lia Miller, “Why Exchange Programs Can ‘Make Dreams Come True,”  July 10, 2022, Diplomatic Diary.

Stephen Lee Myers and Eileen Sullivan, “Disinformation Has Become Another Untouchable Problem in Washington,”  July 6, 2022, The New York Times.

Christopher Paul and Matt Armstrong, “The Irony of Misinformation: USIA Myths Block Enduring Solutions,”  July , 2022, 1945 blog; Matt Armstrong, “False Myths About USIA Blind Us to Our Problems…And to Possible Solutions,” July 7, 2022, MountainRunner.us.

Michael Pollard and Charles P. Ries, “Do Americans Know Who Their Diplomats Are? Or What They Do?” June 18, 2022, The Hill.

Jimmy Quinn, “Senate Advances Biden’s Global-Media Nominee Amid Mounting Conservative Criticism,”  June 27, 2022; “Why is Biden’s Global-Media Nominee Getting the Kid-Glove Treatment?”  June 15, 2022; “The Campaign Against Biden’s Nominee to Head U.S. Agency for Gobal Media,”  June 6, 2022, National Review.

“Review of the Recruitment and Selection Process for Public Members of Foreign Service Selection Boards,” May 2022, Office of Inspector General, Department of State; Nahal Toosi, “Watchdog Raises Flags About Nepotism, Incompetence on State Department Promotion Panels,”  May 25, 2022, Politico.

Conor Skelding and Mary Kay Linge, “State Department Dumbing Down Its Diplomat Applications,”  May 28, 2022, New York Post.

“Special Issue: Moving Public Diplomacy Research Forward: Methodological Approaches,” 18, no. 2, September 2022, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy.

Tara Sonenshine, “America Could Use a Little Jazz Diplomacy,”  August 6, 2022, The Hill. 

Roger Stahl, “Why Does the Pentagon Give a Helping Hand to Films Like ‘Top Gun’?”  May 30, 2022, Los Angeles Times.

Jon Temin, “City and State Diplomacy Are Key To Saving U.S. Foreign Policy,”  July 2, 2022, The Hill.

John C. Thomson, “Restarting Educational Exchanges with China After the Cultural Revolution,”  August 2022, American Diplomacy.

Nahal Toosi, “A Netflix Show Starring Keri Russel Stirs Buzz Among U.S. Diplomats,”  July 31, 2022, Politico.

Tom Wadlow, “U.S. Dept of State: Keeping Diplomacy Connected,” August 4, 2022, B2eMedia.   

Walker, Vivian T., “‘The Wine-Dark Sea’ of the Information Age,”  July 7, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Samuel Werberg, “How to Communicate Official Policy to a Globalized World,”  May 29, 2022, Diplomatic Diary, Washington International Diplomatic Academy.

Lauren C. Williams, “Cyber Ambassador Pick Wants to Bring ‘Coherence’ to Tech Diplomacy Efforts,”  August 3, 2022, Defense One; Tim Starks, “Cyber Ambassador Could Soon Take on a World of Challenges,”  August 2, 2022, The Washington Post.

Gem From The Past  

George P. Shultz, “Diplomacy in the Information Age,” Keynote Addresses from the Virtual Diplomacy Conference, US Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, April 1, 1997. Precisely a quarter century ago the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) convened its Virtual Diplomacy conference in Washington on challenges posed by communication and information technologies. Former Secretary of State George Shultz spoke about what remained unchanged in diplomacy (a fundamental human activity conducted between people and governing entities by diplomats speaking with authority), what was new (pervasive, fast, and cheap mediated information), and an imagined future (diplomacy increasingly in the public domain). Influenced by Stanford University physicist Sidney Dell, Shultz coined the term “quantum diplomacy.” He pointed to the quantum theory axiom that “when you observe and measure some part of a system, you inevitably disturb the whole system.” The process of observation and selectivity (such as a TV camera in some chaotic event), he asserted, causes distortions in systems (such as diplomacy) in which information and knowledge are raw materials. Other still valuable keynote speeches were delivered by USIP president Richard Solomon, “The Information Revolution and International Conflict Management,” and former Citicorp / Citibank CEO Walter Wriston, “Bits, Bytes, and Diplomacy.”

An archive ofDiplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

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Issue #112

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Anne Applebaum, “There Is No Liberal World Order,” The Atlantic, May 2022, 9-12. Atlantic staff writer Applebaum makes five claims in the context of lessons from Ukraine. Four concern the necessity of enforcing liberal world order rules, downsides of trading with autocrats, dramatically shifting sources of energy, and serious attention to teaching, debating, improving, and defending democracy. A fifth is the “need to pull together the disparate parts of the U.S. government that think about communication, not to do propaganda but to reach more people around the world with better information and to stop autocracies from distorting that knowledge.” Her toolkit: a Russian language television station to compete with Putin’s propaganda; more programming in Mandarin and Uyghur; increased programming and research spending for RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Marti; rethinking education and culture (“So much of what passes for cultural diplomacy runs on autopilot.”); a Russian language university in Vilnius or Warsaw for thinkers and intellectuals leaving Moscow; and more spending on education in Arabic, Hindi, and Persian. Her organizational model is the way Americans “assembled the Department of Homeland Security out of disparate agencies after 9/11.”

Eliot A. Cohen, “The Return of Statecraft: Back to Basics in the Post-American World,”  Foreign Affairs, May/June 2022. Cohen (Johns Hopkins University) makes two arguments in this article. First, grand strategy and general principles are little help in devising policies and making decisions in a world shaped by contingencies, personalities, and events that surprise. Second, priority attention to US statecraft and an audit of its architecture are required for the quick pragmatic decisions needed in today’s chaotic reality. Cohen gives the US Marine Corps high marks as the only national security actor to engage in “harsh self-scrutiny.” His agenda for better diplomacy includes the following. The US “might revive the US Information Agency.” (As with most recent head fakes in this direction he offers no ideas as to its merits or feasibility.) More persuasively, he argues it is long past time to invest heavily in professional education and development – including “creating a state-run academy for foreign policy professionals from across government.” Cohen also calls for restoring procedural competence by repairing the “broken” system for appointing professionals to top posts in the State Department and Pentagon, and fewer political appointees to ambassadorships and the upper echelons of government.

Luiza Duarte, Robert Albro, and Eric Hershberg, “Communicating Influence: China’s Messaging in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS), American University, February 2022. The authors, researchers at American University’s CLALS, examine ways China has used soft power to expand its influence in the region. Their report focuses on four topics. (1) China’s public diplomacy “with Chinese characteristics” and the role of Confucius Institutes. (2) Technology and the “Digital Silk Road.” (3) China’s Covid-19 diplomacy in the region. (4) The growing presence of China’s state media. The authors conclude China’s government, state media, and corporations are promoting narratives in the region that are gaining sophistication in format and content – and point to the need for further research on their impact. The report was supported with funding from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and the Department of State. CLALS researchers and outside collaborators have written separate case studies on China’s engagement with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and El Salvador. Links can be downloaded here.

Natalia Grincheva, “Beyond the Scorecard Diplomacy: From Soft Power Rankings to Critical Inductive Geography,” Convergence: The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies, 2022,Vol. 28(1), 70-91. Grincheva (University of Melbourne) begins this article with a definition of data visualization: “a use of computation techniques to display data in order to illustrate relationships, phenomena, or causations.” She then offers a critique of Portland Soft Power 30, a ranking index that compares countries’ soft power resources based on metrics in six domains: political institutions, cultural appeal, diplomatic networks, higher education, economic models, and digital global engagement. Global ranking systems, she argues, suffer from “simplistic quantifications,” “inaccurate causality . . . from resources to outcomes,” and reduction of “complex reality to a preferred interpretation” that projects Western values and neoliberal policy reforms. To overcome problems of data visualization and pitfalls of ranking soft power through “whole country” measuring, she explores two alternatives. An inductive geo-visualization framework attentive to variables overlooked in soft power rankings. And a “Deep mapping” method used to integrate different types of data through cartographic display of multiple layers for each country, geographical spread and reach, and how actors’ soft power changes across different countries.

Marcus Holmes, Face-to-Face Diplomacy: Social Neuroscience and International Relations,(Cambridge University Press, Paperback, 2019). At a glance, this book seems a perfect fit for public diplomacy’s “last three feet” devotees. Then on first inspection, perhaps not, since its focus is on the summit diplomacy of leaders. But on a close read there is much that is relevant to concepts and practice in diplomacy’s public dimension even though this is not the book’s purpose. Holmes (College of William and Mary) is concerned to show how psychology and neuroscience can be used to challenge the “problem of intentions” in face-to-face diplomacy – meaning “it is difficult, if not impossible to look inside the minds of other people in order to experience what they are thinking.” His book offers a theory of how face-to-face interaction can overcome the problem by allowing participants to simulate the specific intentions of others using a “mirroring system” – a brain structure that “is able to pick up on microchanges in facial expressions and realize subtle shifts in the emotional states of others that conveys their levels of sincerity.” Holmes argues his theory is applicable in a wide range of diplomacy contexts. He explains his theory in the introduction and opening chapter. The rest of the book is devoted to discussing four case studies of summit diplomacy: interactions between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan at the end of the Cold War, George H. W. Bush’s and James Baker’s interactions with Gorbachev on the reunification of Germany, the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt mediated by Jimmy Carter, and the problem of deception in Neville Chamberlain’s face-to-face meeting with Adolph Hitler in Munich. These chapters reward both as evidence for his theory and as well-researched inquiries into summit diplomacy.

Dimitra Kizlari and Domenico Valenza, “A Balancing Act? Inter-Ministerial Co-operation in the Work of Cultural Attachés,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 16 (2021), 493-518. Although Kizlari (University College London) and Valenza (Ghent University) place their research in three European cases – Italy, the Netherlands, and Sweden – their excellent article has broad global relevance to the study of cultural diplomacy. The authors analyze practices and discourses in the interactions of Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and Ministries of Culture (MoC) in five areas: appointments, hierarchy, funding, agenda-setting, and evaluation. In Italy, cultural attachés, exclusively linked to the MFA, cooperate with other ministries ad hoc. In Sweden and the Netherlands, the MFA and MoC create common conditions for cultural attachés in budgeting and planning. The MoC leads coordination in Sweden and the MFA in the Netherlands. Strengths of this article lie in how it frames enduring issues in cultural diplomacy and its use of practitioner interviews to support conceptual claims. Worthy of further study are its observations on how structural arrangements impact utilitarian perceptions of the role of culture in diplomacy and the critical importance of practitioners “on the ground.”

Christian Lequesne, ed., Ministries of Foreign Affairs in the World: Actors of State Diplomacy, (Koninklijke Brill, 2022). In this rich collection, Lequesne (Sciences Po, CERI, Paris) has compiled essays by leading scholars on the comparative roles of ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) in today’s diplomacy. His goal is to fill a literature gap created by preferences of researchers to study new diplomatic institutions, the rise of new actors and demise of the monopoly MFAs held previously, research challenges in non-democratic states, and MFAs’ characteristic low transparency. Some chapters were published in a special issue of The Hague Journalof Diplomacy in 2020. Others are original. 

— Christian Lequesne, “Ministries of Foreign Affairs: Crucial Institution to be Revisited.”

— Karla Gobo (Higher School of Advertising and Marketing, Rio de Janeiro) and Claudia Santos (Federal University of Paraná), “The Social Origin of Career Diplomats in Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Still an Upper Class Elite.”

— Birgitta Niklasson (University of Gothenburg), “The Gendered Networking of Diplomats.”

— Christian Lequesne, Gabriel Castillo (Sciences Po, CERI Paris), et.al, “Ethnic Diversity in the Recruitment of Diplomats: Why Ministries of Foreign Affairs Take the Issue Seriously.”

— Guillaume Beaud (Sciences Po, CERI Paris), “The Making of a Diplomatic Elite in a Revolutionary State: Loyalty, Expertise and Representatives in Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

— Geoffrey Wiseman (DePaul University), “Expertise and Politics in Ministries of Foreign Affairs: The Politician-Diplomat Nexus.” 

— Andrew F. Cooper (University of Waterloo), “The Impact of Leader-Centric Populism on Career Diplomats: Tests of Loyalty, Voice, and Exit in Ministries of Foreign Affairs.” 

— Jorge A. Schiavon (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico) and Bruno Figueroa (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico), “The Impact of Globalization and Neoliberal Structural Reforms on the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” 

— Kim B. Olsen (Danish-Arab Partnership Program, Tunis), “Implementing the EU’s Russia Sanctions: A Geoeconomic Test Case for French and German Ministries of Foreign Affairs.” 

— Pierre-Bruno Ruffini (University of Le Havre), “Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Challenge of Science Diplomacy.” 

— Jan Melissen (University of Leiden), “Consular Diplomacy in the Era of Growing Mobility.” — Casper Klynge (Microsoft, Brussels), Mikael Ekman, and Nikolaj Juncher Waedegaard (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark), “Diplomacy in the Digital Age: Lessons from Denmark’s TechPlomacy Initiative.” 

— Ilan Manor (University of Oxford) and Rhys Crilley (University of Glasgow), “The Mediatisation of Ministries of Foreign Affairs: Diplomacy in the New Media Ecology.” (full text) 

— Damien Spry (University of South Australia), “From Delhi to Dili: Facebook Diplomacy by Ministries of Foreign Affairs in the Asia-Pacific.” 

— Iver B. Neumann (Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo), “Approaching Ministries of Foreign Affairs Through Ethnographic Work.” 

— Marcus Holmes (The College of William and Mary), “Diplomacy in the Rearview Mirror: Implications of Face-to-Face Diplomacy Ritual Disruptions for Ministries of Foreign Affairs.” 

— Jason Dittmer (University College London), “Distributed Agency: Foreign Policy sans MFA.” (full text) 

— Thierry Balzacq (Sciences Po, CERI Paris), “The Site of Foreign Policy: A Field Theory Account of Ministries of Foreign Affairs.”

“Public Diplomacy for the 2020s and Beyond: Investment in Social Media and Artificial Intelligence Show the Way Ahead,” US State Department Diplomacy Lab, May 2022. This report was written by six American University School of International Service seniors (Nicholas Dohemann, Dexter Hawes, Jenny Jecrois, William Manogue, Bailey Shuster, and Jane Tilles) at the request of State’s Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources for the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. The students’ recommendations include humor in digital diplomacy, short form looping videos, influencer marketing, giveaway marketing, artificial intelligence, and general suggestions for State’s social media and AI strategies. (Courtesy of Sherry Mueller and Tony Wayne)

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “ACPD Official Meeting Minutes: February 24, 2022,”  The Commission’s virtual public meeting focused on public diplomacy practice from a field perspective and release of its “2021 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting.”  A panel introduced by the Commission’s Executive Director Vivian Walker featured three career diplomats: Ginny Elliott, PAO, US Embassy, Ghana; Shayna Cram, PAO, US Embassy, Kyrgyz Republic; and Tuck Evans, PAO, US Embassy, Guatemala. The Commission’s Senior Advisor Deneyse Kirkpatrick moderated a Q&A. The document is a transcript of their remarks. 

Vivian S. Walker, Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, and Jay Wang, “Exploring U.S. Public Diplomacy’s Domestic Dimensions: Purviews, Publics, and Policies,” US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, April 2022. This Commission report summarizes ideas and challenges in the US government’s increasing use of public diplomacy programs and resources to engage domestic audiences. It is based on a virtual workshop with 45 practitioners, scholars, policy analysts, and journalists in October 2021. The report includes three scene setter remarks: Jennifer Hall Godfrey (former State Department senior official for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs), “Engaging Americans through Public Diplomacy;” Nicholas J. Cull, (University of Southern California), “Public Diplomacy’s Domestic Dimension: Some Historical Notes;” and Richard Wike (Pew Research Center), “American Public Opinion and International Engagement.” Following are three working group reports. Vivian S. Walker (the Commission’s Executive Director) summarizes views on the scope, authorities, and strategic outcomes of domestic engagement. Kathy R. Fitzpatrick (University of South Florida) discusses the meaning of domestic publics and ways public diplomacy goals could be addressed through outreach to them. Jay Wang (Center on Public Diplomacy, USC Annenberg) summarizes policy and resource questions. The report floats good ideas and raises important unanswered questions. Particularly useful are Nick Cull’s cautions that connect needed rethinking of a hard binary between foreign and domestic with awareness of potential risks grounded partisan politics and historical concerns over domestic engagement.

“U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, Fact Sheet,” U.S Department of State, March 28, 2022.  Numbers tell a story. The combined White House request for State and USAID spending in FY 2023 is $60.4 billion, a 3% increase from FY 2022. The request for national defense spending is $813 billion (including $773 billion for the Pentagon), a 4% increase from FY 2022 and $30 billion more than approved by Congress for this year. State’s budget Fact Sheet itemizes a range of diplomacy and development priorities, including $7.6 billion to “recruit, train, and develop” a workforce that is more reflective of the diversity of the United States. Missing, as fp21 points out, is any mention of Secretary Blinken’s modernization agenda. The absence of any specific mention of public diplomacy is perhaps further evidence that State’s global public affairs and exchanges are mainstreamed in national discourse on diplomacy.

Zed Tarar, “Analysis | Is It Time to Delete Parts of the State Department,”  The Diplomatic Pouch, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, March 29, 2022. Tarar, a US Foreign Service officer serving in London, continues to publish imaginative blog posts with this argument for organizational subtraction. He borrows UVA professor Leidy Klotz’s idea that removing elements and frictions from systems can unlock latent productivity gains to make a case for subtraction’s advantage over additive solutions in the Department of State. His examples include reducing the number of Senate-confirmed positions, removing deputy assistant secretary positions, and State’s outsourcing of the task of cost-of-living adjustments. He points to the merger of USIA and State as one possible example of an addition that failed to create efficiencies. Tarar concludes by arguing that the goal is not subtraction per se or reducing complexity; “rather it is to unlock otherwise latent potential.” 

“Truth Over Disinformation: Supporting Freedom and Democracy,”  USAGM Strategic Plan 2022-2066, February 2022. The US Agency for Global Media’s new strategic plan is comparable in substance and format to its predecessor 2018-2022 plan. USAGM’s mission (supporting freedom and democracy) and long-term strategic goals (expanding freedom of information and expression, sharing America’s democratic experience and values), and lists of “impact” and “agility” objectives are similar with nuanced differences in language and context. There is a new impact objective: “Reach and engage underserved audiences, including women, youth, and marginalized populations.” USAGM’s strategic plans, written from a public relations perspective, are informative summaries of what US government media services are doing and what they hope to achieve. They are useful for the general reader, and they provide a long-term outlook that can assist in dealing with the unexpected. But the longer the time horizon, the more unlikely it is that broad strategies can help with practitioner choices on issues shaped by chance, unexpected contingencies, multiple issues, and what others do. Missing in this document is discussion of a strategy to address a repeat of the chaos that occurred when USAGM’s world turned upside down during the eight months of Michael Pack’s tenure as CEO in the Trump administration.

Geoffrey Wiseman, “Expertise and Politics in Ministries of Foreign Affairs: The Politician-Diplomat Nexus,” in Christian Lequesne, ed., Ministries of Foreign Affairs in the World: Actors of State Diplomacy, (Koninklijke Brill, 2022), 119-149. Wiseman (DePaul University) carries forward his contributions to practitioner-oriented diplomatic studies in this compelling examination of interactions of diplomats and political leaders in ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs). In the context of concerns about faltering democracies and politicization of MFAs, he makes three claims. (1) MFAs (and their embassy networks) are important complicated actors constituted by individuals with mixed backgrounds and complex motives and emotions. (2) Diplomats’ interactions with political leaders are consequential for policy formulation and shaping national identities. (3) MFAs and diplomats have an underappreciated capacity for agency and innovation. He develops these claims in exploration of roles MFAs play as policy messengers, shapers, producers, and resisters. The strengths of this well-written chapter are its clear definitions and concepts, evidence from a broad range of cases in pluralistic and authoritarian countries, an extensive bibliography, and numerous pointers to hard questions and agendas for further research. 

Marie Yovanovitch, Lessons from the Edge: A Memoir, (Mariner Books, 2022). Ambassador Yovanovitch’s memoir has value well beyond her celebrity role in Donald Trump’s first impeachment. It is her absorbing account of navigating the State Department’s bureaucracy, overcoming gender discrimination, and lessons learned, first in management and consular assignments in Somalia and London, and then as a political officer in Russia and Canada, DCM in Ukraine, and ambassador in Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Ukraine. The first eight chapters fascinate for her blend of the high politics of bilateral relations and challenges of building a Foreign Service career. We gain insights into the nuts and bolts of embassy life, her tribute to Alison Palmer’s pioneering sex discrimination class action lawsuit, the benefits of student and faculty assignments at the National Defense University, Russian disinformation, the importance of mentoring, her own and by others, and how a “rules follower to the core” coped with corruption and political demands. She is generous with praise for those she admires, discreet in comments on peers, and ready to settle a score or two in egregious cases of gender discrimination. The final ten chapters are devoted to her experiences during the Trump administration. Here her patriotism, courage, and grace under extreme pressure shine through. 

Yovanovitch’s interest in diplomacy’s public dimension turns largely on democratization, rule of law, and free market projects in the civil societies of authoritarian countries. As a self-described introvert, speeches and media contacts are not her comfort zone, but she rose to the occasion repeatedly when required. A single reference to cultural diplomacy (her speech celebrating the Kharkiv-Cincinnati Sister City connection) is included, because it was during her remarks that she first learned of the 9/11 attacks. This is not a book to learn about her views on exchanges, broadcasting, and the roles of PAOs. But it is an extraordinarily useful resource for understanding political risks and patterns of practice of career diplomats in modern diplomacy. 

R. S. Zaharna, “A Humanity-Centered Vision of Soft Power for Public Diplomacy’s Global Mandate,”Journal of Public Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 2, 27-48. Zaharna (American University) continues her research on a public diplomacy that goes beyond a competitive state-centric perspective and a “traditional diplomacy of imperialism.” Her goal is to expand a vision of soft power grounded in “humankind’s global heritages and evolutionary capacity for cooperation.” The article combines her argument that public diplomacy has failed the Covid-19 test with a comparative analysis of the soft power ideas of Alexander Vuving and Joseph S. Nye, Jr.  

Recent Items of Interest

“AFSA Foreign Service Reform Priorities,”  April 2022, American Foreign Service Association.  

Sohaela Amiri, “Can Los Angeles Help Kyiv?”  April 11, 2022; Mark Kristmanson, “Can City Diplomacy Help Ukraine? Continuing the Conversation,”  April 22, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Simon Anholt, “The Good Country Index: The End of the Selfish State,” and “The Good Country Index: Edition 1.5,” March 29, 2022, Diplomatic Courier. 

Denise Campbell Bauer, “Fostering Franco-American Exchange for Our Shared Future,”  April 5, 2022, Smithsonian Magazine.

“Franklin and Diplomacy,” Conversation moderated by Judy Woodruff with Ken Burns, Condoleezza Rice, and Nicholas Burns, PBS one-hour video; “Benjamin Franklin: A Film by Ken Burns,” May 2022, PBS four-hour documentary. 

“Bill Burns and the Bear,”  April 9, 2022, The Economist.

Morgan Chalfant and Rebecca Beitsch, “Biden’s CIA Head Leads the Charge Against Putin’s Information War,”  March 13, 2022, The Hill.

Geoffrey Cowan, “Our Secret Weapon Against Putin Isn’t So Secret,”  March 28, 2022, Politico.

M. J. Crawford and Keome Rowe, “Invest in the Next Generation: Ideas From the Entry-Level Group at Mission Pakistan,”  March 2022, The Foreign Service Journal.

Renee Earle, “Don’t Leave the Russian People Behind,”  May 2022, American Diplomacy.

“Exploring the Secretary’s Modernization Agenda: A Q&A with Policy Planning Director Salman Ahmed,” March 2022, The Foreign Service Journal.

Marci Falck-Bados, “SIS Global Leadership Dinner, Student Speech,”  May 2022, American University

Nicholas Cull, “Looking for God at the Dubai Expo,”  May 5, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Mark Hannah, “Why Is the Wartime Press Corps So Hawkish,”  March 30, 2022, Foreign Policy.

Drew Harwell, “Computer Programmers Are Taking Aim at Russia’s Propaganda Wall,”  March 17, 2022, The Washington Post.

Nikki Hinshaw – Recipient of the 2022 Walter Roberts Public Diplomacy Studies Award,  April 30, 2022, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, GWU.

Joe B. Johnson, “New Nonprofit Promotes U.S. Global Engagement: Two Washington-based Organizations Merge,”  April 16, 2022; “PDCA: Strengthening America’s Dialogue With the World,” Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Steve Johnson, “How a Magazine Called ‘Amerika’ Helped Win the Cold War,”  May 15, 2022, Politico. 

Peter Isackson, “Finding a Way to Diss Information,” March 16, 2022; “Try This Game to Evaluate Levels of Disinformation in Times of War,”  March 14, 2022, Fair Observer. 

Thomas Kent, “How to Reach Russian Ears,” March 8, 2022, Center for European Policy Analysis; Evelyn Kent, Quinata Jurecic, and Thomas Kent, “Getting Information Into Russia,” March 24, 2022, The Lawfare Podcast. 

Mark MacCarthy, “Why a Push to Exclude Russian State Media Would Be Problematic for Free Speech and Democracy,”  April 14, 2022, Brookings.

Jan Melissen: Recipient of 2022 ISA Distinguished Scholar Award in Diplomacy Studies, March 28, 2022, University of Leiden. 

Simon Morrison, “Canceling Russian Artists Plays Into Putin’s Hands,”  March 11, 2022, The Washington Post. 

Kiki Skagen Munshi, “Time to Reorient,”  (Letter, p. 11), May 2022, The Foreign Service Journal. 

“President Biden Announces Key Nominees [to the International Broadcasting Advisory Board and US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy],”  March 11, 2022, The White House.

Thomas Rid, “Why You Haven’t Heard About the Secret Cyberwar in Ukraine,” March 18, 2022, The New York Times;“Thomas Rid on Ukraine and Cyberwar,” March 23, 2022, The Lawfare Podcast.  

Philip Seib, “Why Russia is Losing the Information War,”  May 9, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

 “Seven-in-Ten Americans Now See Russia as an Enemy: Attitudes Toward NATO Increasingly Positive,”  April 6, 2022, Pew Research Center.

Elizabeth Shackelford, “How to Lead With Diplomacy, and Not Just in Ukraine,”  March 24, 2022, Chicago Tribune. 

Aaron Shaffer, “It’s a Big Day at the State Department for U.S. Cyberdiplomacy,”  April 4, 2022, The Washington Post. 

Dan Spokojny, “It’s Official: All Foreign Service Officers Must Learn Data,”  March 21, 2022, fp21. 

Ian Thomas, “The Value of Soft Power & Cultural Approaches to International Heritage Protection,”  April 26, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Vivian S. Walker, “Analysis | ‘Glory to the Heroes’: Ukraine’s War for Narrative Credibility,”  March 17, 2022, The Diplomatic Pouch, Georgetown University. 

“2022 Walter Roberts Congressional Award Given to Sen. Chris Murphy,” March 31, 2022, Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, GWU. 

Gem From The Past  

Ole Jacob Sending, Vincent Pouliot, and Iver Neumann, “The Future of Diplomacy: Changing Practices, Evolving Relationships,”  International Journal, Vol. 66, No. 3, June 2011, 527-542. About a decade ago, Sending (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs), Pouliot (McGill University), and Neumann (Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo) published a pathbreaking article. Their goal was to locate traditional and nontraditional diplomacy actors in an evolving pattern of social relations. They identified two areas of change: (1) compatibilities and tensions in diplomacy’s evolving relationship between representation and governance, and (2) the territorial-nonterritorial character of relations between diplomatic actors and the constituencies they represent. 

Their article surveys the literature of the day and pays close attention to ways the practice of diplomacy informs theory. They also discuss how nontraditional diplomats make nonterritorial authority claims and how representation is increasingly shaped by governance. As today’s scholars and practitioners turn increasingly to the “societization of diplomacy,” this article continues to resonate. “When all is said and done,” they argue, “we can be certain of one trait that the future of diplomacy will inevitably share with its past: it will remain a key practical grounding of ever-changing configurations of social relations beyond the state.” In assessing the evolution of diplomacy practices, we should keep in mind that “diplomacy is a social form deeply embedded in historically and culturally contingent contexts that produce meanings and politics. 

An archive ofDiplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy, and the Public Diplomacy Council of America.

Posted on

Issue #111

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Sohaela Amiri, “City Diplomacy: An Introduction to the Forum,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Online Publication Date, February 11, 2022. Amiri (USC Center on Public Diplomacy, RAND Corporation) provides a needed and useful framework for shaping city diplomacy research and an introduction to five articles in the HJD’s March 2022 edition. Key parameters in her well-organized framework are (1) contextual factors (relational, instrumental, and discursive) “that affect the success or failure of a city’s international affairs” and (2) five interdependent functions of city diplomacy understood as an instrument of “non-coercive statecraft.” Cities are an “in-between power in global governance,” she argues. They draw authority from their role in governance. They have legitimacy based on close proximity to the people they serve. Essays in the forum include: Max Bouchet (Brookings Institution), “Strengthening Foreign Policy Through Subnational Diplomacy;” Alexander Buhmann (BI Norwegian Business School), “Unpacking Joint Attributions of Cities and Nation States as Actors in Global Affairs;” Antonio Alejo (Galego Institute for the Analysis of International Documentation, Spain), “Diasporas as Actors in Urban Diplomacy;” Rosa Groen (The Hague University of Applied Sciences), “Understanding the Context for Successful City Diplomacy;” and Peter Kurz (Mayor of Manheim, Germany), “A Governance System That Supports City Diplomacy: The European Perspective.”

Andrew Bacevich, After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed, (Metropolitan Books, 2021). Bacevich (Boston University, founder of the Quincy Institute, and author of many books on US diplomatic and military history) writes with passion and clarity in this challenge to the idea that America’s global military primacy is the basis for a stable and sustainable world order. Readers will find familiar themes – his critiques of American exceptionalism, cumulative policy failures, and ill-advised adventurism abroad. What’s new in this book is his assessment of today’s “apocalyptic calamities” and his call to transform American statecraft “on a scale not seen since the outbreak of the Cold War.” Whether or not one agrees with his overall analysis, his argument that numbers tell the story of the nation’s subordination of diplomacy to military power is compelling. “Leading with diplomacy” and persuasive diplomacy reforms recommended by think tanks and respected senior diplomats cannot escape the headwinds of huge disparities between Pentagon and diplomacy budgets, some eight hundred military bases worldwide, massive military contracts in every state, and America’s long-standing prioritization of hard power instruments over soft power.

Shawn Baxter and Vivian S. Walker, “Putting Policy & Audience First: A Public Diplomacy Paradigm Shift,” US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy Special Report, December 2021. In 2017, the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs expanded a review of position descriptions for overseas locally employed staff to create a “Public Diplomacy Staffing Initiative” (PDSI) intended to restructure public diplomacy operations overseas. Described by the Commission as “one of the most important transformations” in US public diplomacy since the merger of USIA and State, the PDSI is a staffing structure for US embassy public diplomacy sections organized around audiences and policies with updates to content development and resource distribution. It replaces the traditional PAO/Information/Cultural Programs field post model with a PAO and three “clusters” of collaborative work units. A Public Engagement cluster seeks to influence the actions and opinions of established opinion leaders, emerging voices, and press and media. A Strategic Content Coordination cluster focuses on planning, audience analysis, research, digital production, and community management. A Resource Coordination cluster encompasses budget development and aligning resources to policy priorities. The goal is to give field practitioners “universal access to the data, tools, and organizational structures needed to effectively conduct public diplomacy.” By March 2022, 73 overseas missions had fully implemented PDSI.  

The Commission’s report includes a statement about its methodology, the Commission’s recommendations, and an overview of the PDSI’s origins and development. Especially helpful are sections summarizing the views and critiques of field officers, locally employed staff, and Washington based public diplomacy practitioners. Key Commission recommendations include: more and improved training, greater access to support materials and resources, precise and targeted guidance to the field, and more information sharing among key State Department stakeholders. Although intended to improve public diplomacy collaboration across the US mission, the project’s dominant focus is on the public diplomacy section, not the public engagement responsibilities of other mission elements. Case studies are needed that show how PDSI enables mission X to respond more effectively to complex problem Y in carrying out policy Z in the context of whole of government diplomacy. Still to be determined is whether the new model can be replicated in Washington. See also “Review of the Public Diplomacy Staffing Initiative,” Office of the Inspector General, US Department of State, April 2021. 

Masha Gessen, “The War That Russians Do Not See,”  The New Yorker, March 4, 2022, print edition, March 14, 2022.New Yorker staff writer Gessen reports on the “plainly Orwellian” view of the world in Russia’s state-controlled media, the dominance of broadcast television for older Russians, cessation of operations by independent media platforms, and Russia’s block of Facebook, the BBC, and Radio Liberty. Her article briefly assesses the Russian government’s use of framing terms to shape its narrative – and the effects of fines and closure of media outlets for dissemination of “false information.”   

Jing Guo, “Crossing the ‘Great Fire Wall’: A Study With Grounded Theory Examining How China Uses Twitter as a New Battlefield for Public Diplomacy,” Journal of Public Diplomacy, Vol. 1, No. 2, 49-74.Jing Guo (The Chinese University of Hong Kong) examines China’s digital and public diplomacy strategies in the 2020s through analysis of Chinese Foreign Spokesperson Zhao Lijiang’s Twitter posts and global responses to them. Her article includes an explanation of “grounded theory” and its utility in the data collection and analysis of Zhao’s tweets. Jing Guo acknowledges the study’s limitations and that more research is needed. But she concludes her study provides new insights into China’s digital diplomacy as a hybrid of state propaganda and self-performance.

“Putting Subnational Diplomacy on the Map,” The Foreign Service Journal, January-February, 2022, 9 and 20-34. The FSJ under editor Shawn Dorman’s leadership continues to look at trending issues in diplomatic practice. Articles in this issue focus on the subnational diplomacy of cities and states. 

— FSJ Editorial Board, “On a New Approach to City and State Diplomacy.” The FSJ welcomes the ideas and enthusiasm of proponents of subnational diplomacy and raises legal and policy-related questions that call for discussion.

— Maryum Saifee (career FSO), “Subnational Diplomacy: A National Security Imperative.” Saifee makes a case for the State Department to mainstream sub-state actors into policies, programs, and processes.

— William Peduto (former mayor of Pittsburgh), “The Benefits of International Partnerships.” Peduto shows how Pittsburgh has benefited from partnerships and mutual learning from international cities on climate change, food systems, social equity, and economic diversification.    

— Frank Cownie (mayor of Des Moines, Iowa), “Using Subnational Diplomacy to Combat Climate Change.”Cownie, who serves as president of Local Governments for Sustainability, discusses how US diplomats and subnational actors can collaborate in transitioning to clean energy in line with global agreements.

— Emerita Torres (former FSO, Democratic state committee member for the Bronx), “The Future of Diplomacy is Local.” Torres argues substate diplomacy can promote US values and influence abroad and build local community trust in diplomacy and foreign policy priorities at home.

— Nina Hachigian (deputy mayor of Los Angeles), “Local Governments are Foreign Policy Actors.” Hachigian calls for an Office of City and State Diplomacy in the State Department and argues breaking down barriers between foreign and domestic policies will make international affairs more relevant for Americans. 

J. Simon Rofe, “Sport Diplomacy and Sport for Development SfD: A Discourse of Challenges and Opportunity,”  Journal of Global Sport Management, December 9, 2021; J. Simon Rofe and Verity Postlethwaite, “Scholarship and Sports Diplomacy: the Cases of Japan and the United Kingdom,” Diplomatica, 3 (2021), 363-385. In two recent articles, Rofe (SOAS University of London) continues his excellent scholarship on sports diplomacy. In the Journal of Global Sport Management, he examines complementary and conflictual interests and practices in relations between sport diplomacy and sport for development. He focuses his analysis on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Importantly, he argues practitioners, not only scholars, are vital to the study of sport diplomacy’s evolution. In Diplomatica,Rofe and Postlethwaite examine scholarship and practice in ways sport and hosting international sport events constitute a key dimension in diplomatic relations between nation-states, non-state actors, and individuals. His Japan and UK case studies focus on three issues: Olympic dominant discourse, Western-dominant discourse in “East” and “West” sport diplomacy, State-dominant discourse and the role of knowledge exchange and elite networks that transcend the state. 

Philip Seib, Information at War: Journalism, Disinformation, and Modern Warfare, (Polity, 2021). Books by the University of Southern California’s longtime journalism and public diplomacy professor Philip Seib can be counted on to be timely and well-written. They are filled with illuminating stories, insightful information, and grist for debate. His latest is no exception. Seib surveys the importance of mediated information in warfare from the Trojan War to today’s armed conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Along the way, he discusses a huge variety of technologies and media forms, and the roles in different contexts of journalists, leaders, soldiers, diplomats, and citizens. His dominant focus is on modern warfare. Themes include uses of social media in conflict, Russia’s weaponization of information and diverse national responses to it, the evolution of media manipulation and media literacy, and a brief closing look at China’s “Three Warfares” strategy grounded in psychological, public opinion, and legal forms of conflict. Current relevance and vivid examples are strengths of this book. But its broad canvass comes at a price. Time and again analytical judgments are conveyed in a sentence or two that prompt interest in a deeper dive, something Seib is well able to provide. Perhaps in his next book.

Zed Tarar, “Analysis | When a Crisis Ensues, Embrace Dynamic Teams: Why the U.S. State Department Needs to Rethink Bureaucracy,”  The Diplomatic Pouch, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, February 15, 2022. In this short, compelling blog, Tarar (a career US diplomat serving in London) draws on two sources to argue the State Department needs agile, dedicated teams to handle problems and tame bureaucracy in the context of constant change: former Ebola “Czar” and now Biden chief of staff Ron Klain’s oversight of government efforts to contain the virus and views of business professor Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, author of The Harvard Business Review Project Management Handbook. Tarar’s advice is to create temporary “project focused” teams and strategies for hard problems, not the deconstruction of State’s hierarchy. To critics of special envoys and ambassadors-at-large, he argues project teams with capable leaders should not be new parallel bureaucracies. To those who say State already does “task forces” in emergencies, he responds that they are “limited in scope and reactive in nature.” Ad hoc dynamic teams are proactive. They can respond to crises and unexpected contingencies. They should disband when objectives are met.

Ian Tyrrell, American Exceptionalism: A New History of an Old Idea, (The University of Chicago Press, 2021). The accomplished Australian historian Ian Tyrell (University of New South Wales) has written a carefully argued and perhaps the best account thus far of the meanings and evolution of American exceptionalism from the era of settler colonialism to the present. His book examines differences in the interpretations of historians (from rejection of the theory to qualified acceptance) and a range of opinions in public discourse (from minority opposition to a contested idea to majority belief and conflation with patriotism). Tyrell discusses American exceptionalism’s manifold meanings: political, religious, material plenty, the “American way,” the “American dream,” and its recent manifestations as a bipartisan “indispensable nation” rationale for foreign policy, a right-wing nationalist ideology, and a left-wing critique of the Trump presidency. Exceptionalism cannot be proved by logical reasoning or empirical evidence, he concludes, its existence “can be understood only as a cumulative set of beliefs.” It is a deep and entrenched “set of sedimentary deposits on American memory,” which have long informed personal and community beliefs about America’s role in the world. An idea that “is not about to die.” 

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, “2021 Comprehensive Annual Report on Public Diplomacy & International Broadcasting,” February 20, 2022. The Commission’s 361-page report presents data collected by the State Department and US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) on activities, funds spent, and budget requests for public diplomacy and international broadcasting in FY 2020. Organized by Washington bureaus and offices, US embassy Public Affairs Sections, and USAGM entities, the report’s granular detail and superb graphics make it an excellent resource for scholars, practitioners, public policy analysts, and Congressional staff. Although the report’s overwhelmingly dominant focus is on budgets and programs, the Commission’s “COVID spotlight” and 28 recommendations at pp.19-34 deserve a close look. The following are of particular interest and worthy of further explanation and debate: (1) Establish an NSC Information Statecraft Policy Coordination Committee to share best practices on information management and outreach strategies. (2) Update laws to allow public diplomacy funding “to be used for programs directed at both domestic and foreign audiences.” (3) Designate the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs as “the government-wide coordinating authority for public engagement with foreign publics.” (4) Integrate the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs leadership more fully into senior level strategic planning processes. (5) Provide an impact assessment of the merger of the Public Affairs and International Programs Bureaus into the Bureau of Global Public Affairs.

Mario Vargas Llosa, Harsh Times, (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2019, translated by Adrian Nathan West, 2021). This novel by Vargas Llosa, Peru’s Nobel Prize winner for literature, recently translated into English, is about the US-backed military coup that overthrew Guatemala’s democratically elected government in 1954. Filled with historically accurate and fictional characters, it is a story of political intrigue, diplomacy, and covert action. What brings the novel to this list is the underlying theme that blends commercial interests of the United Fruit Company, the heavy-handed complicity of US ambassador John E. Purifoy, and the media strategy developed for United Fruit by Edward Bernays, often portrayed as the “father of public relations.” His books: Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923), Propaganda, (1928), Public Relations (1945).The first chapter sets the stage. Bernays quickly discovered the danger of communism wasn’t real, but he argued it would be convenient if people thought it was. The democratic and agrarian reforms of Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Árbenz were the real threats to United Fruit. Bernays organized a public relations strategy. Scholarships, first aid centers, and travel grants for Guatemalans. A media campaign to convince North Americans that Guatemala was about to become the first Soviet satellite in the new world. Vargas Llosa’s novel demonstrates how events long past matter in modern diplomacy’s public dimension and that much depends on how stories get told. 

R. S. Zaharna, Boundary Spanners of Humanity: Three Logics of Communication and Public Diplomacy for Global Collaboration, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022). Zaharna (American University) is renowned in public diplomacy and communication studies for her scholarship, attention to professional practice, and willingness to mentor and chair panels for younger scholars. This book, the product of years of research, represents her considered break from a state-centric public diplomacy perspective, Battles to Bridges: US Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy After 9/11 (2010). Her intellectual journey has taken her to a humanity-centered diplomacy driven by the shared needs and goals of human societies. In the company of diplomacy scholars Costas Constantinou, James Der Derian, and Iver Neumann, she stretches diplomacy’s meaning beyond mindsets of separateness and interests to a humanistic mindset of connectivity and diversity that exists in a dialectic with statecraft. Her book focuses on “boundary spanners” who are driven by an “ability to identify commonalities,” not bridging or negotiating the interests of separate entities. Much of the book centers on examination of three foundational “communication logics” that, she argues, have been present since pre-history and offer insights for the digital era: “Individual Logic” (the public square of Aristotle’s Athens), “Relational Logic” (the reciprocal exchanges of the ancient Near East), and a “Holistic Logic” (cosmologies used to explain a relational universe). Her claims are supported by images, graphics, and evidence-based arguments. Zaharna’s book will prompt debate. Does diplomacy lose meaning if it is stretched to include relations between almost any individual or group in almost any setting? Diplomacy’s boundaries are expanding, but we still need them if diplomacy is to have meaning. Diplomacy’s particularity is that it is an instrument of political intercourse in the context of governance defined by representation of collectives that increasingly are configured above, below, and beyond states.

Amy B. Zegart, Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence, (Princeton University Press, 2022). Including a book on intelligence in a diplomacy resource list may seem odd. But there are good reasons. Zegart (Stanford University) has studied the history, organizations, and practice of the US intelligence community in ways that are instructive for understanding American diplomacy’s public dimension. Her landmark book, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (2000), remains a compelling account of the modus operandi of rival practitioner communities and the enduring influence of the National Security Act of 1947. Zegart’s body of research and clear prose help us understand the reorganizations, reform impulses, adaptations to new technologies, cognitive biases, evolving patterns of practice, and ways of intelligence that are deeply rooted in America’s past. Intelligence is a distinct instrument of statecraft that often overlaps with diplomacy. Understanding its past, present, and future sheds light on cultural and institutional forces in diplomatic practice.

Recent Items of Interest

Matt Armstrong, “The Rhyming of History & Russian Aggression,”  February 26, 2022; “Gross Misinformation: We Have No Idea What We’re Doing or What We Did,” February 2, 2022; “It is Time To Do Away With the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy,”  January 14, 2022, MountainRunner.us. 

Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper, “U.S. Battles Putin By Disclosing His Next Possible Moves,”  February 12, 2022, The New York Times. 

Peter Beinart, “When Will the U.S. Stop Lying to Itself About Global Politics?”  January 13, 2022, The New York Times. 

Donald M. Bishop, “Seven Modern Wonders,”  January 26, 2022, American Purpose. 

Corneliu Bjola, “Public Diplomacy and the Next Wave of Digital Disruption: The Case of Non-fungible Tokens (NFTS),”  March 1, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Beatrice Camp, “Captive Nations Once, NATO Allies Now,”  Februrary 2022, American Diplomacy.  

Brian Carlson, “The Ukrainian Porcupine Needs More Public Diplomacy,”  January 10, 2022, Public Diplomacy Council.

John Dickson, “History Shock: Too Many Diplomats Are Ignorant of the Past,” January 23, 2022, Diplomatic Diary. 

Renee M. Earle, “Public Diplomacy in Newly Independent Kazakhstan,”  February 2022, American Diplomacy.  

Jane Harmon, “To Defend Ukraine, Fortify Our Public Diplomacy,”  March 1, 2022, The Hill.  

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2020-present, Government of Ukraine website.

Luigi Di Martino, Lisa Tam, Eriks Varpahovskis, “As Trust in Social Media Crumbles, Are These Platforms Still Adequate for Public Diplomacy?”  January 20, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy; Link to video (about 1 hour). 

Daniel W. Drezner, “Why Bridging the Gap is Hard,”  January 27, 2022, The Washington Post. 

Alberto M. Fernandez, “The American Public Diplomacy Vacuum,”  February 9, 2022, MEMRI Daily Brief. 

Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD), “Hagerty, Cardin Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Create Commission on State Department Modernization and Reform,” January 18, 2022. 

Shane Harris and Olga Lautman, “The Information War in Ukraine,”  (58 minutes), February 24, 2022,

The Lawfare Podcast. Patricia H. Kushlis, “From Soviet State to Independent Estonia,” February 2022, American Diplomacy. 

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “Has Putin’s Invasion Changed the World Order,”  March 1, 2022, The Spectator. 

Bryan Pietsch, “Radio Free Europe Says It Was ‘Forced’ To Shutter Russia Operations Amid Putin Crackdown on Media,”  March 6, 2022, The Washington Post. 

Sudarsan Raghavan, “Suspension of Afghan Fulbright Program Shatters Dreams for 140 Semifinalists Now Stuck Under Taliban Rule,”  February 15, 2021, The Washington Post. 

John Sipher, “Evacuating U.S. Embassies in a Crisis Just Leaves Us Uninformed,”  February 19, 2022, The Washington Post. 

Ryan Scoville, “An Important Development in the Law of Diplomatic Appointments,”  January 31, 2022, Lawfare. 

Robert Silverman, “Is Diplomacy a Profession?”  January 2022, The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune. 

Larry Schwartz, “A New Season for Public Diplomacy,”  January 13, 2022, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Volodymyr Sheiko, “The Cultural Voice of Ukraine,”  February 24, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.  

Zed Tarar, “Analysis | Optimizing Foreign Service Assignment Rotations,” ISD, The Diplomatic Pouch. 

Yoav J. Tenembaum, “International Society and Uncertainty in International Relations,”  January 12, 2022, Blog Post, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. 

Vivian S. Walker, “A Public Diplomacy Paradigm Shift,”  January 24, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

Vivian S. Walker, “Case 331 – State Narratives in Complex Media Environments: The Case of Ukraine,” 2015, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Case Study, Georgetown University. 

“VOA, BBC Vow to Keep News Flowing Despite Russian Ban,”  March 4, 2022, VOA News. 

R. S. Zaharna, “Envisioning Public Diplomacy’s Global Mandate”  January 26, 2022, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Gem From The Past  

Barry Fulton, “Leveraging Technology in the Service of Diplomacy: Innovation in the Department of State,” The PricewaterhouseCoopers Endowment for the Business of Government, March 2002. Change agents in the State Department and foreign policy-oriented think tanks are devoting increasing attention to harnessing the power of data, analytics, emerging technologies, and evidence-based diplomacy practices. (fp21,  “Less Art, More Science: Transforming U.S. Foreign Policy Through Evidence, Integrity, and Innovation;” Atlantic Council and fp21, “Upgrading US Public Diplomacy: A New Approach for the Age of Memes and Disinformation;” US Department of State, “Enterprise Data Strategy: Empowering Data Informed Diplomacy.”)   

Two decades ago, Barry Fulton, a retired and IT savvy Foreign Service officer who had risen to the top ranks in USIA, wrote a pioneering report on using technology more effectively in the service of diplomacy. He argued technology and diplomacy intersect at three levels: administrative practices, support for core diplomatic practices, and in the context of environmental forces that drive the substance of diplomacy. He summarized twelve case studies that focused on the second level. Five key judgments stand out. Almost all technology innovations were initiated and developed by individuals in State’s user communities. Most innovations occurred in areas of State thought to be out of the mainstream (e.g., consular affairs, public diplomacy, office of the geographer). State should decentralize development and support of IT applications, encourage a cadre of IT-literate diplomats whose specialty is foreign affairs with IT competence, and promote innovation by funding pilot projects and recognizing excellence. Fulton wisely put the diplomacy horse before the technology cart. His report is worth re-reading today. 

An archive ofDiplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy,  the Public Diplomacy Council,  and MountainRunner.us.

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Issue #110

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome. 

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

Michele Acuto, Anna Kosvac, and Kris Hartley, “City Diplomacy: Another Generational Shift,”  Diplomatica, 3 (2021), 137-146. Michele Acuto (Melbourne University) writes often and thoughtfully about concepts and practice in city diplomacy. In this article, he and his colleagues Anna Kosvac (Melbourne University) and Kris Hartley (University of Hong Kong) examine generational shifts in city diplomacy and new ways of understanding a domain in governance and diplomacy that remains an academic niche. They argue the COVID-19 pandemic is opening a new window into city diplomacy, raising interesting questions about its relevance to complex global problems and different diplomatic styles. They point to opportunities for multidisciplinary research and provide a helpful literature survey. Importantly, they address boundaries and gray areas between city diplomacy, city networks, and global urban governance.

“Antony J. Blinken on the Modernization of American Diplomacy,” Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State, October 27, 2021. President Biden’s promise that the US would “lead with diplomacy” meant expectations were high when Secretary Blinken spoke at the Foreign Service Institute about what this would mean for “the future of the State Department.” His plan has five pillars.

(1)  Build capacity and expertise in critical areas, “particularly climate, global health, cyber security and emerging technologies, economics, and multilateral diplomacy.” Actions: a new bureau for cyberspace and digital policy, a new special envoy for critical and emerging technology.

(2)  “Elevate new voices and encourage more initiative and more innovation.” Actions: a new policy ideas channel, a revitalized dissent channel, heightened engagement with stakeholders in American civil society.

(3)  “Build and retain a diverse, dynamic, and entrepreneurial workforce.” Actions: create a demographic baseline, improve transparency in assignment bidding, review assignment restrictions, work to add more positions to a training float, more opportunities for professional development.

(4)  Modernize State’s technologies, communications, and analytical capabilities. Actions: a 50% increase in the technology budget request, benefit from what can be learned from the experience in Afghanistan.

(5)  “Reinvigorate in-person diplomacy and public engagement.” Actions: accept and manage risk, engage more outside embassy walls, extend reach beyond national capitals, “leave no stone unturned” in investigating anomalous health incidents.

Unobjectionable goals and measures to be sure. But much in the speech is aspirational, and it falls short of the scale of changes called for in recent studies by distinguished former practitioners and analysts. And much depends on Congressional action. Public diplomacy enthusiasts will welcome the Secretary’s strong support for strengthening “public engagement” by all US diplomats. They will note this further confirmation of its centrality in diplomatic practice even as the term “public diplomacy” continues to wane in the rhetoric of presidents and cabinet level officials. See also, Lara Jakes, “‘Zero Risk’ Security Constraints Puts U.S. Diplomats at a Disadvantage, Blinken Says,”  October 27, 2021, The New York Times and Dan Spokojny, “fp21 Applauds Blinken’s Modernization Steps But Urges Deeper Reforms,” October 28, 2021, fp21.

Costas M. Constantinou, Jason Dittmer, Merje Kuus, Fiona McConnell, Sam Okoth Opondo, and Vincent Pouliot, “Thinking with Diplomacy: Within and Beyond Practice Theory,” International Political Sociology, Volume 15, Issue 4, December 2021, 559-587. The scholars in this important “Collective Discussion” take the measure of practice theory in diplomacy studies. By practice theory they mean “a broad family of approaches that share a common unit of analysis: practices as socially meaningful patterns of action.” Their central question turns on how empirical, methodological, and values-related disagreements about the meaning of diplomatic practice can be used to develop or revise practice theory. For scholars, their discourse and extensive references illuminate conceptual issues and opportunities for research. Practitioners, especially those focused on transformational change in diplomatic practice and “citizen diplomacy,” will find this worth a close read. International Studies Association members will find the full article on the ISA website.

Vincent Pouliot (McGill University), “Beyond the Profession, Into the Everyday? Grasping the Politics of Diplomatic Practices.” Among several compelling overview arguments, Pouliot points to the need for boundaries. He cautions against equating diplomacy with human relationships in everyday life. Diplomacy deals “with public matters of governance,” and it is a form of social intercourse that involves representation of entities larger than the individual. 

Merje Kuus (University of British Columbia), “The Know-Where of Diplomatic Sociability: Expanding the Spaces of Practice Theory.” Kuus calls for expansion of diplomacy to include transnational spaces beyond government where diplomatic work can “create local relationships of trust” – “coffee diplomacy, lunch diplomacy, golf diplomacy, sauna diplomacy, and so on.” 

Fiona McConnell (University of Oxford) “Diplomacy as Performative Practice from/for the ‘Margins.’” McConnell urges more attention to performative practices and the legitimating dynamics of where diplomacy occurs, particularly in digital space and “in marginalized communities seeking to mimic official diplomacy.”

Jason Dittmer (University College London), “Between Practice and Assemblage: Bodies, Materials, and Space.” Dittmar states current practice theory does not go far enough. Citing cases in digital diplomacy, China’s “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, and redesign of the 19th century British Foreign Office, he argues for greater attention to how the presence or absence of material objects shape diplomatic practices.

Sam Okoth Opondo (Vassar College), “Pharmakon: Amateur Diplomacies and/as Decolonial Practice.” Opondo faults practice theory for failing to question the values and valuation practices that define what is or is not diplomatic and worthy of scholarly attention. The decolonial approach, he argues, reveals diplomatic and colonial world orders and questions what counts as diplomatic theory and practice.

Costas M. Constantinou (University of Cyprus), “Beyond Strategy: Diplomacy and the Practice of Living.” Constantinou calls for a holistic vision of diplomacy that includes experimental and experiential modes of diplomacy typically left out of foreign policy analysis – the errant “trajectories of everyday life” – an approach, he concedes, that risks “conceptual overstretching and analytical disutility.” His contribution draws on analysis of Mahatma Gandhi’s diplomacy as “an orthodox unified practice and a heterodox amalgamation of practices.”

Alina Dolea, “Transnational Diaspora Diplomacy, Emotions, and COVID-19: The Romanian Diaspora in the UK,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, October 26, 2021. In this perceptive case study, Dolea (Bournemouth University) adds helpful research and analysis to the growing literature on diaspora diplomacy. The pandemic, she writes, accelerated the digitalization of diaspora communication in the UK. The website and Facebook pages of the Romanian embassy and consulate in London became primary sources of official information. Communication between Romania’s diplomatic institutions and the diaspora changed from a dominant one-way flow to greater engagement and collaboration, which doubled the number of followers. Digital platforms of Romania’s diplomats and online Romanian communities in the UK became arenas of debate regarding both countries’ policies on the pandemic, vaccination, and the diaspora. Dolea examines the diaspora’s diversity, civic engagement, political activities, frustrations, and exposure to British media and political campaigns against immigration. Brexit and COVID-19 increased feelings of alienation and rejection by Romania and the UK, but they also contributed to stronger feelings of community within the diaspora. She concludes that these dynamics warrant a change in public diplomacy scholarship: from its focus on the apparent “‘uniformity’ of diaspora and homeland loyalties,” and from perceptions of diasporas as instruments and partners, to recognition that they are also “disruptors” whose tensions and conflicts deserve greater attention.

James J. F. Forest, Digital Influence Warfare In the Age of Social Media, (Praeger / ABC-CLIO, 2021).Forest (University of Massachusetts Lowell) has been writing for two decades on topics related to counterterrorism and information warfare. His edited three volumes, Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century (2007) remain a foundational compilation of essays on hard power, soft power, and public diplomacy in the early post 9/11 years. In this book, he defines “digital influence warfare as “online psychological operations, information operations, and political warfare through which a malicious actor (state or non-state) achieves its goals by manipulating the beliefs and behaviors of others.” His chapters seek answers to a series of questions. What are the goals of influence warfare? What are its tactics and tools? What are relevant principles from the literature on the psychology of persuasion, social influence, and strategies of persuasion? What are digital influence silos? And what are differences between “information dominance” in authoritarian countries and “attention dominance” in democracies? He provides a range of case studies and examines ways to think about and counter malicious digital influencers.

César Jiménez‐Martínez, “The Public As a Problem: Protest, Public Diplomacy and the Pandemic,”Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, October 26, 2021. Jiménez‐Martínez (Cardiff University) argues public diplomacy scholars and practitioners should give more attention to protests occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic; perceived loss of personal freedoms; structural class, gender, and racial inequalities; and other grievances with domestic and transnational impact. Analysis of the “public” in public diplomacy, he contends, is limited in two ways. First, publics are typically viewed through a top-down version of imposed national identity. Second, they are treated as a problem to be dealt with in negotiations and conflict or as a resource to be exploited. He urges rejection of “the fantasy that a perennial national ‘essence’ can be communicated” and acknowledgement that “social actors, beyond the institutions of the state, may be equally valid representatives of the nation.” He asserts that “chaos, conflict, and transformation” are more at the core of nationhood than “homogeneity, stability and authenticity.” Jiménez‐Martínez’s thoughtful article prompts debate and questions. What are meaningful analytical and operational boundaries between governance and civil society? Between chaos and stability in political entitles?

Harry W. Kopp and John K. Naland, Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the US Foreign Service, (Georgetown University Press, fourth edition, 2021). In this revised edition of Career Diplomacy,completed in the early weeks of the Biden presidency, veteran diplomats Kopp and Naland provide a clear, comprehensive, and knowledgeable practitioners’ guide to the US Foreign Service. They present their narrative as descriptive, not prescriptive, albeit with a point of view on the damage done by the Trump administration. Sections frame the Foreign Service as an institution, a profession, and a career followed by a closing chapter on tomorrow’s diplomats. Experts will find much that is interesting and new. Particularly useful are their insights on how to enter the Foreign Service and advance through the ranks. The book’s dominant focus is on the Department of State, although there are brief sections on USAID and the Foreign Commercial and Agricultural Services. The authors are champions of the Foreign Service as a highly skilled, indispensable, and underappreciated instrument of diplomacy, but their views on its limitations as well as its strengths reflect a welcome degree of analytical distance. Three pages are devoted to public diplomacy as a separate category of diplomatic practice. Yet they also maintain that in the 21th century all US Foreign Service officers engage leaders and groups “throughout societies.” The public dimension of diplomacy warrants closer examination. The book also would benefit from considered assessment of the role of the Foreign Service in whole of government diplomacy where actors in domestic departments and agencies, military services, cities and states, and some NGOs also are diplomacy practitioners. Kopp and Naland conclude by arguing repair of the damage done in the Trump years is an opportunity to look anew at the Foreign Service and attend to long-standing problems. But for the most part they don’t argue for specific reforms. Too bad. They are well suited to offer informed judgments on the many recommendations now in play.

Elizabeth C. Matto, et al., Teaching Civic Engagement Globally, (American Political Science Association, 2021). Matteo (Rutgers University) and five co-editors have compiled a comprehensive book on global and multi-disciplinary approaches to civic engagement education in an era of ascending populist values and authoritarian governance. Forty-five contributors in 21 chapters discuss educational models and experiences intended to promote civic engagement knowledge, skills, and values in democratic, authoritarian, and mixed systems. Section 1 contains case studies on collaboration between local, national, and international organizations. Section 2 examines teaching practices that have and have not worked. Section 3 contains country case studies on teaching civic engagement education. Section 4 explores global issues, research gaps, and challenges going forward. The full collection is available online. A related website provides supplementary syllabi, assessment models and other resources. See also Matto, “Teaching Civic Engagement Globally – Spreading the Word,” December 13, 2021, Political Science Today. (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

“Public Diplomacy Modernization Act,” Title LVI, Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, pp. 1970-1980. In what can be read as an indicator of America’s traditional inattention to diplomacy compared to its military, the first comprehensive State Department authorization bill in twenty years is embedded in this year’s huge Defense Authorization bill. It authorizes an estimated $24 billion more than President Biden requested, much of it for planes, ships, and other hard power initiatives. State’s authorization contains a short, but significant section on public diplomacy. Provisions now in law include:     

  • A requirement to avoid “duplication of programs and efforts.” 
  • Appointment of a Director of Research and Evaluation in the Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
  • Limited exemptions to the Paperwork Reduction Act and Privacy Act for purposes of audience research, monitoring, and evaluation.
  • Creation of a Subcommittee on Research and Evaluation in the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
  • Permanent reauthorization of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.
  • Guidance for closure of public diplomacy facilities.
  • Definitions of audience research, digital analytics, and impact evaluation. 
  • Delineation of State’s public diplomacy bureaus and offices: The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Bureau of Global Public Affairs, The Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, The Global Engagement Center, and public diplomacy activities within the regional and functional bureaus.
  • A working group tasked with exploring a “shared services model” for HR, travel, purchasing, budget planning, and all other support functions for these designated public diplomacy bureaus and offices.

Strengths of this legislation include practical upgrades for research and evaluation, and restoration of “continuing” authorization for the Advisory Commission – a legal provision that reinforces its independent oversight role. It is consistent with the Commission’s original authority in 1948 and decades of past practice. Sections on the working group to study so-called “streamlining of support functions” in a “shared services model” and definition of public diplomacy’s bureaus and offices raise challenging questions. How should public diplomacy be integrated throughout the Department? And what is State’s role in whole of government diplomacy? For the public diplomacy section in this 2,165-page law, scroll down to pages 1970-1980.

“Open Doors 2021 Report on International Educational Exchange,” US Department of State and Institute of International Education, November 15, 2021. Open Doors’ annual report shows a 15% decrease in international students attending US colleges and universities during the 2020-2021 school year from the previous year.  First-time incoming students fell 45 percent. US students studying abroad declined by 53%. The State Department and IIE attributed the changes to effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Fast Facts 2021” and information about the survey can be downloaded from the Open Doors website. The lengthy full report can be purchased online. See also Susan Svrluga, “After Decades of Increases, a Drop in the Number of International Students in the United States,” November 15, 2021, The Washington Post.

“Training the Department of State’s Workforce for the 21st Century,” Subcommittee on State Department and USAID Management, International Operations and Bilateral International Development, United States Senate, November 2, 2021. In this Subcommittee hearing, chaired by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), three witnesses addressed issues relating to training in US diplomacy. In her statement, Ambassador Joan Polaschik, Deputy Director of State’s Foreign Service Institute cautiously outlined State’s training policies, priorities, and goals. Her focus was entirely on tradecraft, language and area studies training. Missing was any assessment of professional education. In his innovative statement, however, Joshua J. Marcuse, former executive director of the Defense Innovation Board, called for “a significant overhaul” of State’s education, training, and professional development. He urged State to create a learning culture, embrace new paradigms of foreign service, and adopt new delivery mechanisms for digital learning. In his ambitious statement,Ambassador David Miller, President of the Diplomatic Studies Foundation, also called for changes in State’s massive shortcomings in the “education and training” needed for diplomatic excellence. “I have never seen an institution,” he stated, “work so hard to select people and do so little to train them once on board.” See also Natalie Alms, “Training the Diplomats of the Future,”  November 3, 2021, FCW Magazine.

“U.S. Agency for Global Media: Additional Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Broadcasting Networks,” United States Government Accountability Office, GAO-22-1014017, October 2021. GAO summarizes the effects of amendments to the US International Broadcasting Act of 1994 on the structure and authorities of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), formerly the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). Helpful graphics and careful prose provide a clear summary of changes in law, the dismissal of senior broadcasting appointees by Trump-appointed CEO Michael Pack, their reappointment by the current Acting CEO, and concerns regarding the “firewall” intended to protect editorial independence and the CEO’s authority to select members of USAGM’s grantee boards. GAO identified two matters for Congressional consideration. (1) An amendment to the 1994 Act that gives the USAGM’s Advisory Board a role in the appointment and removal of grantee board members. (2) Legislation that defines the parameters of USAGM’s “firewall” by describing what is and is not permissible regarding network editorial independence.   

US Agency for Global Media, “FY 2021, Performance and Accountability Report,” November 15, 2021. USAGM’s annual report describes the Agency’s mission, strategic goals, organizational structure, and programs; presents audience growth claims; highlights the year’s accomplishments; and identifies current and future challenges. Its “measurable performance goals” are divided into two categories: seven impact objectives focus on mission performance; four agility objectives focus on agency management. The 230-page report contains an abundance of empirical data and carefully constructed arguments about government journalism and a media organization adapting to change. It is a valuable document. It should be read, however, in conjunction with independent evaluations and advisory reports: the Office of the Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office, Congressional committee and staff reports, the Congressional Research Service, and the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Missing in USAGM’s report is discussion of the chaotic events that beset the Agency in the waning months of the Trump administration, figured significantly in the Agency’s operations in FY 2021, and raised leadership issues that remain unresolved.

“USAGM and the Future of Public Funded-International Broadcasting,” US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Minutes and Transcript, Public Meeting, September 17, 2021. Speakers at the Commission’s quarterly meeting, moderated by executive director Vivian Walker, presented informed and diverse views on the US Agency for Global Media’s strategic objectives, challenges facing US global media, and ideas about what needs to change.  

Shawn Powers (USAGM’s Chief Strategy Officer) discussed USAGM’s “democratic mission,” what is needed to build trust with audiences, and “purpose driven journalism.” 

Michael McFaul (Stanford University) offered two “radical ideas.” (1) Make all US media services, including VOA, independent grantees with non-partisan boards, not bipartisan boards, to achieve stronger “firewalls” and greater distance from the executive branch. (2) Radically restructure all US government strategic communication and invest substantially in the ideological struggle, which the US is losing to the Russians and the Chinese. 

Sarah Arkin (Policy Director and Deputy Staff Director, Senate Foreign Relations Committee) stressed “the power of truth,” Congressional unwillingness to support US government deception in combating disinformation, and making sure USAGM’s networks and grantees “are not tied too closely to the State Department and . . . the White House. 

Helle Dale (The Heritage Foundation) called for the US to “up its game in public diplomacy and in international broadcasting,” clarify missions, and “maybe” create a new agency “in coordination with” or “within” the State Department for “the part that tells America’s story.

Sophie Vériter, “European Democracy and Counter-Disinformation: Toward a New Paradigm?”Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 14, 2021. Vériter (Leiden University) argues European governments are entering a new phase in efforts to counter disinformation. They are reckoning with an increasingly obsolete distinction between domestic and foreign disinformation, and they are focusing more on the democratic character of their countermeasures. Her research findings suggest human agents more than bots are primary amplifiers of propaganda. Domestic sources drive most COVID-19 disinformation. Effective response strategies call for “more transparency from and accountability over online platforms” and “a comprehensive and borderless approach rooted in international collaboration.” (Courtesy of Len Baldyga)  

“What People Around the World Like – and Dislike – About American Society and Politics,” Pew Research Center, November 2, 2021. Richard Wike and his colleagues at Pew continue to provide excellent survey data on how the US is viewed abroad. In this report on attitudes in 17 advanced economies, they find high regard for America’s technology, entertainment, military, and universities. Views about American living standards are mixed, and the US health care system gets very low marks. A median of 17% believe American democracy is a good example to follow; 72% say it used to be a good example but has not been in recent years. The full report can be downloaded online. See also Annabelle Timsit, “‘Very Few’ Believe U.S. Democracy Sets a Good Example, Global Survey Finds,”  November 2, 2021, The Washington Post.

R.S. Zaharna, “The Pandemic’s Wake-up Call for Humanity-Centered Public Diplomacy,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, October 27, 2021. Zaharna (American University), makes several claims in this essay. The pandemic reveals a growing gap between “state-centric” and “humanity-centric” public diplomacy, a concept which she develops in her new book, Boundary Spanners of Humanity (Oxford, forthcoming). State-centric public diplomacy fails, she contends, because its “individual-level, power-focused, and competitive perspective” is unable to meet the collaborative requirements of the concerns of global publics about the “growing frequency and severity of crises affecting humanity.” Public diplomacy actors need to move beyond listening as gathering information to a “perspective-taking” that processes information from a humanity-level perspective.

Recent Items of Interest 

Matt Abbott, “Our Cities and States Can Be Relentless Diplomats,”  November 10, 2021, Inkstick Media. 

Marcos Aleman, “US Diplomat in El Salvador [Jean Manes] Critical of Government Leaves Job,”  November 22, 2021, AP; Erin Brady, “U.S. Diplomat in El Salvador Leaves, Says Country Has No Interest in Improving Relations,”  November 22, 2021, Newsweek. 

Anca Anton and Raluca Moise, “Going Back to the Public in Diplomacy: Citizen Diplomats and the Nature of Their Soft Power,”  December 2, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

John Bader, “At 75, the Fulbright Deserves More Respect and More Funding,”  November 11, 2021, The Hill. 

Laura Bate and Matthew Cordova, “Technology Diplomacy Changes Are the Right Start,”  November 29, 2021, Lawfare. 

Corneliu Bjola, “Digital Diplomacy as World Disclosure: The Case of the COVID-19 Pandemic,”  September 9, 2021, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 

Enrico Ciappi, “Transatlantic Relations and Public Diplomacy: The Council on Foreign Relations, Jean Monnet, and Post-WWII France and Europe,” December 3, 2021, History of European Ideas. 

Nick Erickson, “Retired Vietnam Ambassador Ted Osius: Diplomacy is About Building Trust and Taking Risks,”  October 27, 2021, Walter Roberts Endowment Lecture, GWToday. 

Paul Farhi, “Biden Favorite to Run Voice of America Parent Agency Could Face Trouble with Senate GOP,”  October 28, 2021, The Washington Post. Robbie Gramer, “Donors for Ambassador Posts,”  December 20, 2021, Foreign Policy; Dennis Jett, “Are Ambassadors Rarely Useful Relics? Discuss!”  December 19, 2021, Diplomatic Diary. 

Robbie Gramer and Anna Weber, “Washington Runs on Interns: So Why Are Most of Them Not Paid Enough—and Some Not Paid At All?”  December 16, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Natalia Grincheva, “Cultural Diplomacy Under the “Digital Lockdown”: Pandemic Challenges and Opportunities in Museum Diplomacy,” October 26, 2021, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 

Stuart Holliday, “Lee Satterfield to Serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs,”  November 2021, Meridian International Center. 

“How Politicians Project Their Status in Virtual Meetings,”  December 20, 2021, Lund University. 

David Ignatius, “The State Department Gets Serious About the Global Technology Race,”  October 27, 2021, The Washington Post; Maggie Miller, “Lawmakers Praise Upcoming Establishment of Cyber Bureau at State,”  October 26, 2021, The Hill.

“Independent Auditor’s Report [of the US Agency for Global Media],” November 15, 2021, Kearney & Company. 

Joe B. Johnson, “Lessons From Afghanistan – Two Ambassadors Speak,”  December 14, 2021, Public Diplomacy Council. 

Letter to Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer  [expressing concerns about increased visa fees in the House passed version of the Build Back Better Act], December 3, 2021, Alliance for International Exchange. 

Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren, “Understanding the Pro-China Propaganda and Disnformation Toolset in Xinjiang,”  December 1, 2021, Lawfare. 

Larry Luxner, “Global ‘Changemakers’ Mark 75th Anniversary of Fulbright Program,”  December 6, 2021, The Washington Diplomat.  

Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer, “Foggy Bottom Bristles at Proliferation of Special Envoys,”  December 6, 2021, Foreign Policy. 

Tania Mahmoud and Anna Duenbier, “UK Cities: A Global Network in Support of an Outward Looking Nation,”  November 2021, British Council. 

Ilan Manor, César Jiménez-Martínez, and Alina Dolea, “An Asset or a Hassle? The Public as a Problem for Public Diplomats,”  November 16, 2021, Blog Post, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. 

Ilan Manor and James Pamment, “From Gagarin to Sputnik: The Role of Nostalgia in Russian Public Diplomacy,”  October 26, 2021, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. 

Ilan Manor, “The Metaverse and Its Impact on International Relations,”  November 3, 2021; “Effective Government Communication During Covid19: What Governments Can Learn from Diplomats,”  October 26, 2021; “What Are the Future Challenges for Digital Diplomacy?”  September, 9, 2021, Diplo. 

Joseph Nye, “American Democracy and Soft Power,”  November 2, 2021, Project Syndicate. 

Michael Pack, “The Death of Democracy,”  November 15, 2021, The Washington Examiner. 

Charles Ray, “Why Are Soldiers Treated Better Than Diplomats?”  November 5, 2021, Washington International Diplomatic Diary. 

Dan Spokojny, “We Are Not Capable of Learning the Lessons of Afghanistan,”  October 19, 2021, The Duck of Minerva. 

Zed Tarar, “Analysis | How New Ideas Can Reboot the State Department,”  November 10, 2021, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy’s “A Better Diplomacy” Blog Series. 

US Department of State and US Department of Education, “A Renewed U.S. Commitment to International Education,”  Joint Statement of Principles, October 21, 2021. 

Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey, “State to Have New ‘Policy Ideas’ Channel,”  October 26, 2021, Politico.    

Jim Wyss, “Barbados is Opening a Diplomatic Embassy in the Metaverse,”  December 14, 2021, Bloomberg. 

Gem From The Past 

Gordon Adams and Shoon Murray, eds., Mission Creep: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy, (Georgetown University Press, 2014).  Eight years ago, Adams and Murray (American University) compiled essays by scholars and former diplomacy practitioners that examined “a growing institutional imbalance at the heart of the foreign policy and national security process.” Earlier this year Adams updated the argument in his excellent and granular “Responsible Statecraft Requires Remaking America’s Foreign Relations Tool Kit,” Quincy Institute Brief No. 9, February 2021. As numerous practitioners and analysts frame proposals for diplomacy reforms, his central claim is worth revisiting. Americans place overwhelming emphasis on military perspectives, priorities, and instruments even though solutions to today’s biggest challenges do not lie in the use of military force. Chapters of particular interest in Mission Creep include: Charles B. Cushman (Georgetown University), “Congress and the Politics of Defense and Foreign Policymaking;” Brian E. Carlson (Public Diplomacy Council), “Who Tells America’s Story Abroad;” Shoon Murray and Anthony Quainton, (American University), “Combatant Commanders, Ambassadorial Authority, and the Conduct of Diplomacy;” Edward Marks (American Diplomacy), “The State Department;” and Gordon Adams, “Conclusion.” Attention to diplomacy’s modernization will remain in the shadow of the nation’s overwhelming commitment to military power. Compare the 2022 Defense budget, recently authorized at nearly $770 billion, with the $72 billion appropriation for the State Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs enacted in July 2021. 

An archive ofDiplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy,  the Public Diplomacy Council,  and MountainRunner.us.  

Posted on

Issue #109

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome. 

Bruce Gregory can be reached at BGregory@gwu.edu

John Arquilla, Bitskrieg: The Challenge of Cyberwarfare, (Polity, 2021). Twenty years ago, John Arquilla (Naval Postgraduate School) and his frequent collaborator, David Ronfeldt (RAND) asked, “What If There Is a Revolution in Diplomatic Affairs?” Diplomacy scholars and practitioners may recall their influential paper presented by the US Institute of Peace in its Virtual Diplomacy Series in 2000. They also-co-authored The Emergence of Noopolitik: Toward an American Information Strategy (RAND, 1999, 2007). In Bitskrieg, a play on the German military’s blitzkrieg tactic, Arquilla draws on decades of research to discuss how cyber technologies are changing warfare, infrastructure vulnerability, what he calls “strategic crime,” and political disruption. Although he emphasizes military strategy, his well-written and relatively small book, accessible to general readers, will be useful to diplomats who need to learn the “language” of cyber issues, frame them in public discourse, and participate in discussions leading to cyber arms control agreements. 

Marta Churella, Wren Elhai, Amirah Ismail, Naima Green-Riley, Graham Lampa, Molly Moran, Jeff Ridenour, Dan Spokojny, and Megan Tetrick, “Upgrading US public diplomacy: A new approach for the age of memes and disinformation,” Atlantic Council, September 15, 2021. The authors of this excellent report, published in collaboration with the think tank fp21, are current and former State Department practitioners. They begin with three assumptions. New global threats and challenges are creating confusion about public diplomacy’s mission. Public diplomacy is a vital capability spread too thin. Doing better means listening more to practitioners in the field. Their recommendations, general and specific, traditional and innovative, divide into four categories. (1) Appoint and empower leadership that sets a clear strategic direction, leads on diversity and inclusion, and matches resources to priorities. (2) Build campaign design and evaluation capacity based on evidence-based learning, digital analytics, ready-made audience listening tools, and incentivized honest reporting when programs fall short of objectives. (3) Enhance capacity of overseas staffs through upgrades for American Spaces, programs for exchanges alumni, and spokespeople with foreign language and on-camera media skills. (4) Build public diplomacy’s domestic dimension through increased outreach, virtual programs, and expanded university partnerships. A report that conflates US public diplomacy with State’s public diplomacy, however, raises a central question. Today’s foreign ministries are important, but they are far from the only actors in whole of government diplomacy. Strong recommendations about what the State Department can do and do better are well taken, but its diplomats must do more to convene and connect – and leverage to diplomatic advantage what others (in government agencies, cities, civil society, and corporations) often can do better. 

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, University of Leiden, Website. HJD, one of the world’s leading research journals in diplomacy studies, is well known to readers of this list. Founded in 2005 by its editor-in-chief Jan Melissen (University of Leiden) and long-time former co-editor Paul Sharp (University of Minnesota Duluth), its easily navigated website, hosted at the University of Leiden, offers a number of useful informational and bibliographic resources. Particularly helpful are its “Diplomacy Reading Lists,” which are categorized by topics. Other resources include a Blog Archive, Book Reviews, The Hague Diplomacy Podcasts, and Diplomatic Studies Book Series. All have source links.  

H.R. 1253, “Public Diplomacy Modernization Act of 2021,” Referred to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, February 23, 2021. H.R. 1253, co-sponsored by Rep. Dan Meuser (D-PA) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), would streamline State’s public diplomacy capabilities, reduce duplicative functions, improve research and evaluation of programs, enhance planning for public diplomacy’s physical presence abroad, and restore permanent statutory authority for the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy (ACPD). Specific proposals include: a mandate to appoint a director of research and evaluation in the Office of Policy, Planning, and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs; an exemption of State’s audience research, monitoring, and evaluation from the “Paperwork Reduction Act;” a mandate for the ACPD to establish a Subcommittee on Research and Evaluation; and a mandate to require guidelines in the Foreign Affairs Manual on notifications and impact assessments relating to closure of American Spaces and other public diplomacy facilities. 

Dan Lips, “A New Strategy for Public Diplomacy: Using Virtual Education and Incentives to Promote Understanding of American Values,” Lincoln Network, June 2, 2021. Lips, Director of Cyber and National Security Policy at the Lincoln Network, profiles in broad brush strokes US public diplomacy’s history since the early Cold War, outlines current challenges, and offers recommendations for using digital technologies to promote American values. They include: (1) use digital learning and incentives, such as prioritization or reduced fees for student visas, to encourage students to learn about the US and democracy; (2) leverage USAID’s international education programs to incorporate digital instruction to promote US values; (3) encourage the National Endowment for Democracy and its grantees to use digital learning and incentives to promote learning about the US and democracy; and (4) pass legislation to require the NSC or the State Department to prepare a national strategy for virtual education programs. Lip concludes by raising and answering anticipated criticism of his proposals.  

Jessica T. Mathews, “American Power After Afghanistan: How to Rightsize the Country’s Global Role,”September 17, 2021, Foreign Affairs. Mathews (Carnegie Endowment) looks at America’s over reliance on military power and lack of confidence in diplomacy in the decades after the Cold War. She begins with a brief assessment of the Afghanistan exit, which “matched past experience.” Policymakers treat the history, culture, and values of countries in which the US intervenes as context rather than critical factors in failure or success. What happened in Afghanistan was not due to lack of good intelligence; it was a failure to use good intelligence. The US cannot rely on the military to achieve a mission that is unachievable. She then points to a different approach. First, take a hard look at American exceptionalism. The “power of our example” today is a dubious claim. Second, reconsider the practice of refusal to recognize or engage in diplomacy with adversaries, precisely where diplomacy is needed most. Third, end overreliance on sanctions. Fourth, recognize that US policies, spending, and rhetoric foster belief that the only meaningful engagement is military commitment. Fifth, address the grotesque gap between the military budget and spending on diplomacy and other foreign operations. Finally, rethink democracy promotion and the belief that the US is under generalized attack from authoritarianism. It overlooks the extent to which both democracies and authoritarian states must address climate change, global health, cybercrime, financial stability, and other problems.  

Michael McFaul, “The Biden Administration Needs to Up Its Game on Public Diplomacy,” October 11, 2021, The Washington Post. Stanford University professor and former US Ambassador to Russia McFaul summarizes his public diplomacy reform agenda published in several articles earlier this year. His central argument: President Biden and his team need to “take public diplomacy and global communications far more seriously.” He proposes the following. (1) Nominate an undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs and a new chief executive for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). (2) Radically restructure and upgrade USAGM’s funding. (3) Make all USAGM broadcasting entities independent of the executive branch with Congressional funding and oversight from nonpartisan boards. (4) Make the Open Technology Fund an independent organization. (5) Pledge massive resources to the Independent Fund for Public Interest Media at the Summit for Democracy in December. (6) Put the parts of VOA that broadcast news into counterpart and independent regional organizations; reform the rest of VOA to more effectively explain US foreign policy. (7) Reconstitute a more nimble and flexible US Information Agency. (8) Elevate public diplomacy within the State Department. (9) Massively increase funding for educational and cultural exchanges.  

“Modernizing the State Department for the 21st Century,” Subcommittee Hearing, US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, July 20, 2021. In this hearing, chaired by Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), three expert witnesses presented testimony and discussed State Department reform proposals. Former Deputy Secretary of State Stephen E. Biegun called for a zero-based review of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 and every element of the Department, and for Congress to form a bipartisan commission to review every aspect of US diplomacy. Former Ambassador to Bulgaria and Albania Marcie B. Ries summarized key findings of the Harvard Kennedy School’s report, “A US Diplomatic Service for the 21st Century.” New America CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter updated her proposal to overhaul the Foreign Service and create a new “Global Service” in which “official representatives,” in addition to diplomats, would provide expertise in business, technology, climate, cities, education, science, sports, arts, and religion for multi-stakeholder diplomacy. She called on Congress to create a “Goldwater-Nichols model” commission to study her proposal and then legislate change. Copies of their statements can be downloaded at the links. 

Ronald E. Neumann, “Intervention: Unlearned Lessons, or the Gripes of a Professional,”  Foreign Service Journal, September 2021, 39-42. Ambassador Neumann continues to combine a distinguished diplomatic career with perceptive insights into what needs to change in US diplomacy. Here he offers four lessons for how diplomats staff interventions in civil-military operations. (1) A 70-year pattern of short tour lengths and unwillingness to use failure as a basis for learning. (2) Inability to understand whether problems lie in the policy or its implementation. (3) Intellectual arrogance in policy formulation and disregard for ground reality. (4) The State Department’s (and Congress’s) failure to create the means to surge staffs in stability operations. (A quick check shows at least seven reports on US diplomacy reform in the past two decades, four in the past two years, have urged creation of a diplomacy reserve corps and diplomacy “go teams.”) The logistics, funding, and mental shifts required for these changes are hard. But future complex contingencies operations – that will be driven by climate change, pandemics, disasters, migration, and military interventions – require acting now on Neumann’s lessons. 

Laura Portwood-Stacer, The Book Proposal: A Guide for Scholarly Authors, (Princeton University Press, 2021). Younger scholars looking to publish will find this book indispensible. Published scholars will also find much good advice in this guide by Portwood-Stacer, developmental editor, founder of Manuscript Works consultancy, and former professor of media and cultural studies at NYU and USC. Her book is a clear and concise guide to a range of topics: selection of appropriate publishers, audience identification, drafting a book proposal package, stating a thesis or core idea that drives the book, distilling a one paragraph summary to one or two strong sentences, writing an effective overview and chapter summaries, the importance of titles and a strong voice, and navigating the submission, peer review, contract, production, and promotion processes. 

Paul Sharp, “Domestic Public Diplomacy, Domestic Diplomacy, and Domestic Foreign Policy,”  in Gunther Hellman, Andreas Fahrmeir, and Milo Vec, eds., The Transformation of Foreign Policy: Drawing and Managing Boundaries from Antiquity to the Present, Oxford Scholarship Online, August 2016. Sharp (University of Minnesota Duluth) performs a considerable and increasingly relevant service in this analysis of boundaries and constitutive elements in his chapter title’s three terms. Why examine these terms, he asks? First, each term challenges conventional inside and outside distinctions. Second, they “might” signal a transformation in foreign policy and international relations. Third, does the modifier “domestic” alter the traditional distinction between foreign policy as boundary-making and marking, and diplomacy as a boundary spanning practice? In his clear and logically argued chapter, he first discusses the concept and practices entailed in domestic public diplomacy. Then he examines its implications for the evolving ideas of domestic diplomacy and domestic foreign policy. He is cautious in reaching conclusions about whether we are in a transformational moment. The chapter concludes with a nuanced assessment of each term’s value. His overall argument, drawing on numerous examples, bestows greater analytical advantage on the idea of “domestic diplomacy” than, for different reasons, “domestic public diplomacy” and “domestic foreign policy.” Scholars and practitioners will benefit from close consideration of his thinking.

Dina Smeltz, et al., “A Foreign Policy for the Middle Class – What Americans Think,” The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, October 2021. This new study by Smeltz and her colleagues provides data to support the claim that most Americans now find what happens at home matters more for the country’s international influence than what it does abroad. The report’s key takeaway: “Majorities of Americans consider improving public education (73%), strengthening democracy at home (70%), and reducing both racial (53%) and economic (50%) inequality as very important to maintaining America’s global influence. Similarly, Americans are more concerned about threats within the United States (81%) than threats outside the country (19%).” In other findings, 58% say trade with China does more to weaken national security (up from 33% in 2019), 68% view globalization as mostly good, and 64% want the US to lead in addressing such global challenges as climate change and COVID-19. 

US Department of State, “Enterprise Data Strategy: Empowering Data Informed Diplomacy,” September 2021. The goal of State’s first data strategy is to empower “its world-class global workforce” with the “skills and tools to derive actionable mission insights from data,” secure and effectively manage data assets, and equip the Department to “lead America’s foreign policy in the 21st century.” The report frames four goals: cultivate a data culture, accelerate decisions through analytics, establish mission-driven data management, and enhance data governance. It discusses supporting objectives and a set of guiding principles. The well-intended strategy is full of generalities. It offers a broad orientation to an “evolving global landscape” and the essential need to make data a critical instrument of diplomacy. It falls short, however, in several respects. First, strategies involve real choices (cost/benefit tradeoffs) in a roadmap for moving realistically to the next stage, not just statements of goals and a desired end state. Second, it could have made clear that qualitative analysis and judgments also are essential in diplomacy. Third, it could usefully have provided examples of what data-informed diplomacy means operationally for specific diplomacy functions, e.g., knowledge management, consular affairs, public diplomacy, understanding cultures, diplomatic security. See also Dan Spokojny, “State’s New Data Strategy: A (potentially) historic step,” fp21, September 2021. His constructive critique points to other limitations of the strategy, such as the potential for turf battles within State over access to information and treatment of data as a “product rather than central to the policy process.” 

Craig Whitlock, The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War, (Simon & Schuster, 2021).New York Times journalist Whitlock’s investigative reporting joins Carter Malkasian’s The American War in Afghanistan: A History as a foundational early account of the war’s two decades. Whitlock’s book – based on Office of the Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction interviews, GWU’s National Security Archives, oral histories, and other documents – seeks to explain what went wrong and how the administrations of three presidents and their military commanders failed to tell the truth. Underappreciated is the extent to which Whitlock’s research also highlights verbatim insights and critiques of US diplomats: Ambassadors Ryan Crocker, Karl Eikenberry, Robert Finn, Marc Grossman, Richard Holbrooke, Ronald Neumann, and Zalmay Khalilzad; diplomats Lakhdar Brahimi, Richard Boucher, James Dobbins, Todd Greentree, Michael Metrinko, and Richard Norland; journalists Sarah Chayes and Carol Leonig; and numerous civilian advisors. Whitlock provides an abundance of lessons taught, if not necessarily learned. Not least, James Dobbins’ observation that “There was a continuous tension in both our messaging and our actual behavior.” 

Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest 

Joseph Bernstein, “Bad News: Selling the Story of Disinformation,”  September 2021, Harper’s Magazine. 

Munqith Dagher, “Middle East Public Opinion on the American Dream after Afghanistan,”  August 23, 2021, Gallup International. 

Departments of State and Education, “A Renewed U.S. Commitment to International Education,” Joint Statement of Principles, July 2021. 

Patricia Goff, “Featured Review | Museum Diplomacy in the Digital Age,” by Natalia Grincheva, October 14, 2021, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. 

George Hovey, “Why Some of America’s Diplomats Want to Quit,”  September 3, 2021, War on the Rocks. 

Loren Hurst, “Virtual Programming is a Key Tool in Cultivating Your Public Diplomacy Garden,”  September 11, 2021,  Public Diplomacy Council. 

Joe Johnson, “Public Diplomacy’s Leading Edge – Field Operations,” September 7, 2021,Public Diplomacy Council.  

Joshua D. Kertzer, “American Credibility After Afghanistan,”  September 2, 2021, Foreign Affairs. 

Olga Krasnyak, “Jack F. Matlock and American Diplomacy with Russia,”  August 2021, American Diplomacy, Daniel Lippman, “Journalists Sue U.S. Broadcasting Arm for Wrongful Dismissal Under Trump,”  October 4, 2021, Politico. 

Carter Malkasian, “Why Didn’t We Leave Afghanistan Before Now? A Fear That Presidents Could Not Ignore.”September 19, 2021, Time Magazine. 

Josh Rogin, “The U.S. Government Left Its Own Journalists Behind In Afghanistan,”  August 31, 2021, The Washington Post; Esha Sarai, “Congressman Slams Failure to Evacuate USAGM Journalists From Afghanistan,”  August 31, 2021, VOA News. 

Theresa Sabonis-Helf, “The Paris Accord: An Experiment in Polylateralism,” October 2021, The Foreign Service Journal. 

Louis Savoia, “State Department Recruiters Aim to Expand Foreign Service,”  October 3, 2021, WIDA. 

Ben Smith, “How the U.S. Helped, and Hampered, the Escape of Afghan Journalists,” September 19, 2021, The New York Times. 

Tara D. Sonenshine, “Can the United States Be Trusted Anymore?”  August 31, 2021, The Hill. 

Richard Stengel, “Two of America’s Leading Historians Look at the Nation’s Founding Once Again – To Understand It in All Its Complexity,”  September 21, 2021, The New York Times. 

Cameron Thomas-Shah, “How Embracing Rights Movements Enhances Public Diplomacy and Advances U.S. Foreign Policy,”  August 26, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Natalie Thompson and Laura Bate, “The Right Way to Structure Cyber Diplomacy,”  August 25, 2021, War on the Rocks. 

Lera Toropin and Jennifer Soler, “Assessing the Playing Field for a Boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics,”August 12, 2021, American Security Project. 

Jay Wang, “Why Dubai World Expo Matters,” September 29, 2021, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 

Gem From The Past 

Ellen Huijh, ed., “The Domestic Dimension of Public Diplomacy.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 7, No. 4, 2012. Today, public diplomacy’s domestic dimension is a hot topic, the subject of Zoom workshops, blogs, articles, and books. A decade before it was fashionable, Ellen Huijgh, then at the University of Antwerp and the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael, compiled a pioneering collection of essays in a special edition of HJD. Her prescient central claim: “Domestic constituencies have not been traditionally seen as part of the (public) diplomacy picture. In an increasingly mobile, virtually connected and interdependent world, however, this is no longer sustainable.”  

The scholarly articles she compiled framed important concepts and raised research questions that remain relevant. In addition to her lead essay, “Public Diplomacy in Flux: Introducing the Domestic Dimension,” they include: 

— Steven Curtis and Caroline Jaine (London Metropolitan University), “Public Diplomacy in the UK: Engaging Diasporas and Preventing Terrorism,” 

— Ellen Huijgh and Caitlin Byrne (Griffith Institute), “Opening the Windows on Diplomacy: A Comparison of The Domestic Dimension of Public Diplomacy in Canada and Australia,” 

— Kathy R. Fitzpatrick (University of South Florida), “Defining Strategic Publics in a Networked World: Public Diplomacy’s Challenge at Home and Abroad,” and 

— Teresa La Porte (University of Navarra), “The Impact of ‘Intermestic’ Non-State Actors on the Conceptual Framework of Public Diplomacy.” Ellen left us way too soon. Two years ago, Jan Melissen (Leiden University) took the lead in compiling a comprehensive collection of her work, which was published posthumously in her name. Ellen Huigh, Public Diplomacy at Home: Domestic Dimensions, Brill | Nijhoff, 2019. Her book and her HJD special edition are essential to ongoing scholarship on diplomacy’s domestic dimension. 

An archive ofDiplomacy’s  Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites  (2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.  Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy,  the Public Diplomacy Council,  and MountainRunner.us. 

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