In the second part of our interview with Dr. Sherry Mueller, PDx interviewer and SMPA graduate student Victoria Makanjuola learns what college students and young professionals can do to develop a global career.
In Dr. Mueller’s book titled, Working World: Careers in International Education, Exchange, and Development , she and her coauthor Mark Overmann have put together pointers, resources and useful anecdotes for college students and young professionals to use. They both push job seekers to challenge assumptions about what it means to pursue a career in international relations and to recognize that the path to career success is rarely straight.
To the university student or young professional listening to this PDx podcast, Dr. Mueller gives more insight into how they can better prepare for such a future. Go to the podcast HERE.
Dr. Sherry Mueller heads the Public Diplomacy Council, a non-profit organization that supports the practice, academic study and advocacy for public diplomacy. The Council looks at the engagement by U.S. Government, especially the State Department and U.S. international broadcasting, but it also observes and learn from the experience of other nations.
Dr. Mueller talks about the Council, its activities and membership.
She promotes the role of PDC as a champion for better US engagement: “I’m a real believer that for any organization, it’s not enough to deliver good programs and services, you’ve got to try to impact the policy environment within which you function.”
At the same time, PDC is looking to encourage and support a new generation of professionals in the field: “If we’re not drawing new young people into the field and into professional associations that serve that field, we’re missing what I would call an opportunity for multi-generational leadership.
“In my view, it’s, it’s so important that any vibrant organization have active members of every generation, and the real art of leadership is bringing those generations together, getting them to work well together, and to tap into their complementary talents and skills.”
Please enjoy the conversation between PDx interviewer and SMPA graduate Victoria Makanjuola and Dr. Sherry Mueller HERE.
Review by Nikki Hinshaw, M.A. Global Communication, ’22
Within the field of international affairs, the metaphor of the chessboard has long been utilized to explain the strategic relationships between states. In “Global Complexity: Intersection of Chessboard and Web Trends,” Anne-Marie Slaughter (2016) emphasizes the importance of viewing the field not only as a chessboard, but as a web as well.
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Slaughter defines the web as “intersecting networks of people, groups, businesses, institutions, and governments.” While the chessboard assumes states are the main actors, interacting with one another through competitive actions and alliances, the web reflects the wide range of actors involved in the international system and their relationships to one another.
To support this view of the world, Slaughter provides several examples of chessboard and web trends – and how they intersect. In 2015, the largest trends on the chessboard included an increasing unpredictability with regards to international negotiations on pressing global issues, such as climate change and internet governance. Also on the chessboard was Iran as a rising power and the strengthening of the European Union. On the surface, all of these issues seem to deal with state-to-state relations and negotiations, but Slaughter also exposes a web of players that influence these overarching trends in the international system.
The latest book by a renowned foreign-policy expert, academic, and current CEO of New America, the think and action tank on American issues. .
Mass refugee migration rose as the most prominent web trend of 2015, intersecting with the chessboard through immigration measures of the EU and various nations. The web trend of nativist populism also intersected with anti-immigrant policies operating on the chessboard. “Franchise terrorism,” where organizations such as ISIL connect separate groups under their ideologies and goals, appeared as another prominent web trend. A common thread across all of the web trends was the use of social media as a form of communication, mobilization, and advocacy.
Slaughter’s description of the international system as both a chessboard and a web helps us better understand the great power that actors such as nonprofits, media, corporations, and publics can have on foreign policy. However, as the influence of such actors has continued to grow, I believe that Slaughter’s analysis can be taken even further. Thus, I pose the question of whether distinguishing between the chessboard and the web is still necessary, or if all actors should just be examined as a part of the web?
Slaughter’s main argument for the separation of the two playing fields is that actors operating on the chessboard can choose whether to connect with others, in contrast to web trends, which only exist to extent that they are connected with others. As web trends increase in prominence on the global stage, they are now deeply intertwined with the chessboard. Thus, states do not have as much of a choice in connecting as Slaughter assumes. Such choices are influenced heavily by public pressure and the media, as was showcased through her analysis of U.S. and E.U. citizens’ concerns over privacy and technology. Slaughter notes how this web trend could be expected to affect chessboard-level government relationships between the countries.
Furthermore, I argue that the actors operating within the web, such as media, are just as relevant foreign policy decision-makers as those operating on the chessboard. This idea was demonstrated through Baum & Potter’s (2008) visual representation of the interconnected relationships between various actors and their analysis of media as decision-making elites (41, 53).
Web trends have become too influential to separate from the chessboard. Instead, all foreign policy decision-makers – whether that be publics, media, or governments – should be thought of in terms of a web of interconnected priorities and opinions that exert influence over one another in the creation of foreign policy.
Works Cited
Baum, Matthew and Philip Potter. 2008. The Relationship Between Mass Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis. Annual Review of Political Science, 11. 41, 53.
Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 2016. Global Complexity: Intersection of Chessboard and Web. CIDOB, 5.
The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author. They do not express the views of the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication or the George Washington University.
With 193 member states, the United Nations is an intergovernmental organization that aims to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations.
The year 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and its founding Charter. This anniversary comes in a time of great disruption for the world, compounded by an unprecedented global health crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with severe economic and social impacts. But it is also a reminder that times of struggle can become an opportunity for positive change and transformation.
The Model UN is a simulation of the UN General Assembly and its other multilateral bodies where students from high school and college perform an ambassadorial role while debating globally important topics such as climate change, gender equality, and global health.
As an undergraduate at Sam Houston State University, Texas, SMPA graduate student Victoria Makanjuola participated in the Model UN Her faculty adviser was Dr. Dennis Weng.
PDx Interviewer Victoria Makanjuola (second from left) and her team at the UN General Assembly room, 2019
For this PDx episode, Victoria talks to Dr. Weng about the Model UN experience; learning how countries interact and engage at a multilateral organization.
Dr. Weng also emphasizes the importance of political science and international relations: “it’s not just a subject…not textbook knowledge. It’s life. (These) have a direct influence on (our) daily life because we are all connected.”
To celebrate UN Day, an annual concert is usually held in the General Assembly Hall. This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the concert will be prerecorded and screened in the GA Hall on Thursday, October 22, 2020, at 12.00 pm EST. This will be shown on UN Web TV (webtv.un.org), the UN Channel on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
IPDGC is proud to announce the 100th Issue of Bruce Gregory‘s collection of resources on public diplomacy (PD) and related subjects. First published in June 2002, Gregory’s list is an annotated bibliography of readings and other materials intended for teachers, students, and PD practitioners.
Gregory taught classes on public diplomacy, media and global affairs as an adjunct professor in the Global Communication MA program, at the Elliott School of International Affairs and School of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University (2002-2017). He is also the former director of IPDGC (2005-2008) and a former member of the Walter Roberts Endowment committee (2006-2018).
IPDGC and the Walter Roberts Endowment are pleased to be able to share the video of the full event and the photos of the recent Walter Roberts annual lecture featuring Dr. Joseph S. Nye.
As this year draws to a close, IPDGC would like to recap some of our activities of the Fall semester. We hope that you’ve had the opportunity to attend some of the events:
Mark your calendars for the 2020 Walter Roberts Lecture featuring Joseph S. Nye. The talk will be on “Do Morals Matter? Presidents and Foreign Policy”, to be held on Thursday, January 30, 2020, at the GW Elliott School of International Affairs.
Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement (credit: UNHCR)
The director of U.S. government-funded news organization Voice of America discussed VOA’s future and freedom of the press worldwide at the GWU Elliott School of International Affairs on Monday, May 6, 2019.
Amanda Bennett, who has headed VOA for three years, spoke about the news agency’s energetic work to transmit information to countries with limited freedom of the press and VOA’s new efforts with the population of refugee camps. About 100 people attended the event, hosted by the Public Diplomacy Council, the Public Diplomacy Association of America and the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy.
Bennett noted that VOA, which was founded during the Second World War and broadcasts news around the world in 46 languages today, is a nonpartisan and unbiased source of news, even though almost all of its funding comes from the U.S. government. The organization was originally created to broadcast Allied forces news into Nazi Germany during WW2.
Bennett said that VOA’s reputation rests on the separation of powers between VOA journalists and politic interests. “We are independent of the U.S. government,” she said. “That underlies our credibility. Because as you know from other state-funded organizations, they do not enjoy that same credibility.”
Bennett said VOA hopes to help reverse the current trend of declining press freedom around the world by highlighting the role of journalists and their impact. Global press freedom declined to its lowest point in 13 years in 2016, according to a 2017 report from Freedom House. “We’re going to be covering free press in all its intricacies with our journalists around the world,” Bennett said.
Bennett said VOA officials and journalists have recently added a new focus: delivering fair and free information to populations in refugee camps, where access to news is scarce. She said VOA has implemented two pilot projects in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, which houses 165,000 refugees from Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia, and also in camps in Bangladesh harboring Rohingya people fleeing Myanmar, where they are persecuted.
Bennett said the people she spoke to at refugee camps are desperate for information about events around the world, and in their countries of origin. She added that VOA officials have tentative plans to introduce VOA programming into every major United Nations refugee camp. She noted that keeping refugees well-informed not only helps their own security and welfare but also encourages them to return home when it is safe to do so. Bennett said interactions she had in 2014 with refugees inspired her to expand VOA’s Learning English Program, which features daily broadcasts in English spoken at a slower pace to promote comprehension among English language learners.
She said that last month, VOA further increased these efforts by introducing person-to-person contact between VOA volunteers and refugee children and adults aiming to learn English. The program has a force of almost 5,000 English language instructors in the Rohingya camps, Bennett said. She said the program will benefit children and adult refugees by teaching them to speak a language that makes them more attractive to employers worldwide.
“I tell the young interns at Voice of America,” Bennett concluded, “That one day you’re going to be walking through a street someplace in America or Southeast Asia and a 25-year-old is going to come up to you and say, ‘I was a refugee, in the Rohingya camps, and I got a job in Indonesia or Thailand or Canada and escaped poverty all because you taught me English.”
Whether fighting on the frontlines of freedom of speech in global hotspots or in providing new opportunities to abandoned refugees, VOA continues telling America’s story to the world and advancing U.S. national interests, one listener at a time.
Western policy makers and diplomats need to understand more about Islam when engaging with journalists in Muslim Southeast Asia.
IPDGC Director Janet Steele at the Sydney Southeast Asia Center in Sydney, Australia.
Over spring break, IPDGC Director Janet traveled to Australia to give talks at the University of Sydney, Australian National University and Monash University, on the topic of “The journalisms of Islam: contending views in Muslim Southeast Asia”. She was also interviewed by Natalie Pearson at the Sydney Southeast Asia Center while at the University of Sydney.
Writing in the Atlantic Monthly in 1990, Harvard Professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr., stated that “the richest country in the world could afford both better education at home and the international influence that comes from an effective aid and information program abroad. What is needed is increased investment in soft power, the complex machinery of interdependence.” He added in 2003 that neither hard power (coercion and payment) nor soft power (attraction) can produce effective foreign policy — what is needed in the modern world is a strategy the combines the tools of both into smart power.
This blog is an attempt to highlight the most thought-provoking articles, commentary, and graphics related to smart power – the world of public diplomacy and global communication. We welcome your suggestions of links and your own contributions and comments. There are many sites on the world wide web that look at public diplomacy, public affairs, and foreign policy. Our vision is that this site serves as a gathering place that helps inform and educate you about the opportunities and issues every modern nation faces, and how smart power can help them pursue their goals and overcome their challenges.
As Nye wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine in July 2009, “Despite its numerous errors, the United States’ Cold War strategy involved a smart combination of hard and soft power. When the Berlin Wall finally collapsed, it was destroyed not by an artillery barrage, but by hammers and bulldozers wielded by those who had themselves lost faith in communism. In today’s information age, success is the result not merely of whose army wins, but also of whose story wins.”
We hope this blog will help you follow that amazing story.
