Europe – IPDGC Smart Power

PD in Practice: U.S. Facilitates Religious Dialogue on the Central African Republic Crisis

January 13, 2014Africa, in the field, public diplomacyLeave a Comment

Michel Djotodia resigned on Jan. 10 amid rising conflict between Christians and Muslims in the country, leaving thousands dead. Credit: AFP/Getty via DW.de — Michel Djotodia resigned as president of the Central African Republic on Jan. 10 amid rising conflict between Christians and Muslims in the country, leaving thousands dead. Credit: AFP/Getty via DW.de

Note: I have noticed that much of the commentary and academic literature on public diplomacy tends to focus on the leadership, structure, funding, and theory of public diplomacy, with much less attention on the actual conduct of activities and programs in the field. In an effort to help redress that imbalance, I hope this will be the first of a series of blog posts that highlight current or recent U.S. public diplomacy efforts around the world.

The ongoing crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) has attracted little attention in Washington over the last several weeks. The news last week that the CAR president agreed to resign has sparked hopes for a possible peaceful resolution to a situation that has already claimed a thousand lives in the last month alone and displaced almost a million people from their homes.

The African Union and France have led efforts to stabilize the situation and broker a solution and senior U.S. officials, including Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power and Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield, visited last month and pledged U.S. support as well.

In addition to our traditional diplomatic efforts, we have also brought public diplomacy efforts to bear on the problem. Some have been concerned that the conflict could exacerbate tensions between the majority Christian and minority Muslim populations, as well as other groups. With a view towards promoting dialogue and connecting religious leaders with their American counterparts, the U.S. Department of State, led by U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Rashad Hussain, hosted an interreligious dialogue last week on the crisis that included the Archbishop of Bangui, the President of the National Islamic Association, the President of the Evangelical Association, and the Mayor of Bangui.

According to a U.S. Department of State press release, “The religious leaders from CAR described their efforts to end the ongoing violence and promote peace, thanked the United States for its assistance and efforts, and called for further international humanitarian and security assistance in CAR. The panelists from the United States praised the religious leaders in CAR for their efforts to promote religious tolerance and reconciliation, noted examples of successful interfaith cooperation in the United States, and proposed further collaboration with their counterparts. Both sides agreed to continue the discussion further, to work together to increase education and training on reconciliation and peacebuilding and to seek opportunities to support the travel of religious leaders to CAR to support peace and inter-religious cooperation.”

As always, it is difficult to measure the value of such public diplomacy efforts, but I think there is little doubt that these are exactly the type of people-to-people contacts that can help defuse tensions and contribute to a long-term resolution of the conflict. U.S. Special Envoy Hussain, the Department’s Bureau of African Affairs, and the U.S. Embassy in Bangui should be commended for their efforts in this regard.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the State Department or the U.S. government. The author is a State Department officer specializing in public diplomacy, currently detailed to the IPDGC to teach and work on various Institute projects.

Routine Health Care in Europe: Superior—and Much Less Expensive

October 24, 2013UncategorizedLeave a Comment

This is the fifth in a series of posts on life, culture, and politics in the U.S. and E.U. by Robert Entman, who spent 2012 as a Humboldt Research Prize Scholar at Freie Universität in Berlin. Read more posts here.

During our year in three different European countries, my wife or I had occasion to obtain medical care in each. Of course I didn’t do a systematic study but I saw no evidence that the taxpayer-funded and government-administrated European health care systems resembles the nightmare of many Americans’ imagination. From everything I saw, Europeans don’t experience nasty old clinics with long lines of miserable patients endlessly hassled by bureaucrats so they can get access to nameless overworked and under-trained doctors using outdated technology and drugs. Instead the experience of visiting a doctor is much like it is in America, only better and cheaper.

In our experience with routine medical care in Germany, France and Spain, care was competent, wait times and lines were shorter than in the US, and doctors paid close personal attention. For instance, on every visit, doctors left their desks and personally called out the name of the next patient and escorted him or her into the exam room. That’s never happened to us in the US, where clerks or nurses usher you around until the doctor comes into the exam room. It’s not a crucial difference, but it does illustrate the distance between stereotypes and reality.

Here’s one case study: I had a chronic problem that the doctors I’d seen in DC and North Carolina hadn’t been able to help much, so I thought I’d seek a Euro-perspective. Berlin’s Charité Hospital is one of the leading medical research and teaching centers in Germany. By searching on the internet, I found the name of a doctor who specialized in my malady and had given papers at conferences in the US and participated in international research grants—he was obviously plugged into the latest developments in the field. Like so much else, medicine, at least in affluent countries, is globalized.

It happened that this particular G-I specialist was also Chief of the Internal Medicine division. I contacted his office for an appointment and got one within a couple weeks, without needing any referral. Try getting an appointment with the head of Internal Medicine at a major American teaching hospital and see if you get seen, without a referral, within two weeks.

Subsequently, I had two long office visits with him and three multi-hour tests. These yielded useful information that helped control my symptoms a little better. Here’s the key point: At my final visit, I had to ask my doctor’s secretary to please send me a bill. There was no upfront demand for my insurance papers or co-pay as is inevitable in the US. During my total of five visits, nobody had asked me to pay anything, or even raised the issue of billing.

The day after my fifth visit, I was leaving Berlin for Paris. The secretary was saying goodbye and even after telling her I was moving to Paris I had to remind her that I needed to pay. She said they’d figure it out and send a bill to my Paris address.

The total cost of the two doctor visits—with the chief of internal medicine at one of Germany’s leading medical institutions, no less—and three lengthy test procedures was 104 Euros, or about $130. In the US the cost would easily be 10 or 15 times greater.

Finally, the doctor at Charité wrote me a prescription for a particularly expensive drug that I take every day (a PPI if you must know). In the US, I had to make a special appeal to my insurance company to cover this drug and still had to pay a $40/month co-pay. For 90 pills (three months worth) I pay $120, and the insurance company paid about $1000, or $9.33 per pill. In Berlin, the total cost of 98 pills (three months plus one week’s worth)—with no payment by an insurance company—was $135, or $1.38 per pill. In other words this same drug cost nearly seven times more in the US than in Germany.

The cost differential arises because the US is the only affluent country that allows drug companies to charge individual patients whatever they can get away. This functionally results in American consumers and taxpayers subsidizing drug company profits (and, to be sure, drug research) for the entire world. Recognizing the serious market failures in the pharmaceutical industry, most every country regulates drug prices. US policy is one of my pet peeves, and one of many reasons Americans pay so much more for medical care.

Most importantly, US spending doesn’t yield better medical care or—and this is the bottom line—longer life. Below are life expectancies in some of the top countries in lifespan that are most comparable to US in affluence. The US ranks about 33^rd among all countries, according to the World Health Organization (2011), tied with Denmark, Chile, Bahrain and Costa Rica at 79 years and just ahead of Cuba, Czech Republic, Colombia and Barbados at 78:

World Bank, 2012

RANK	COUNTRY	(YEARS)	GDP per capita (equivalent purchasing power)*
1	Japan	83	$35,178
1	Switzerland	83	$53,367
4	Hong Kong	82	$51,946
4	Australia	82	$44,598
4	Italy	82	$33,111
4	Canada	82	$42,533
14	France	82	$36,104
15	Spain	82	$32,682
33	USA	79	$49,965

The US spends hugely more as a percentage of GDP on health care:

Beyond paying way more for prescriptions:

These aggregate data don’t deny that in certain respects Americans might be getting their money’s worth. For instance it’s often assumed that US spending enables more advanced medical treatments and higher survival rates for diseases like cancer. However, it turns out to be extremely difficult to compare survival rates while controlling for the many differences among countries’ populations, including their getting cancer in the first place (US ranks seventh in cancer incidence).

There isn’t much empirical basis for assuming that Americans benefit in any way from their higher spending. But there is quite a bit of evidence that the excess spending is the cost of having a political system so uniquely and thoroughly dominated by wealthy organized interests, such as the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, whose lobbies heavily influence public policy agendas, options and decisions. The Rube Goldberg-like Affordable Care Act, though a step in the right (European) direction, reflects above all the less democratic nature of the US political process when compared to the governments of Western Europe.

Americans pay for their inferior democracy thrice over: their health care system costs more yet delivers inferior care and shorter lifespans. The health of democracy reflects and shapes the physical and fiscal health of its citizens.

Beyond Zero Sum Cultural Diplomacy

April 29, 2013Cultural Diplomacy, Global Communication4 Comments

By Max Entman

In a recent speech at the 2012 Institute for Cultural Diplomacy conference, former Canadian Minister of Foreign Trade Stockwell Day argues that cultural diplomacy can be used to advance certain broad principles that can help alleviate poverty around the world. Day posits that the existence of three essential freedoms – of enterprise, of religion, and of self-determined governance – can dramatically increase the likelihood that a given country will help its citizens out of poverty. Day suggests that the promotion of these principles by developed countries in developing countries is a cultural-diplomatic mechanism for sowing seeds of prosperity. Day’s assumption of consensus on these principles may be flawed, but it begs the question: is there a way for states to better coordinate cultural diplomatic efforts to achieve shared goals like poverty alleviation?

One answer to this question would be to create a new network of cultural diplomats that crosses national boundaries. Ideally, this “Conference of Cultural Diplomats” would be a diverse, collaborative network with the primary goal of sharing best practices in channeling cultural diplomatic efforts toward helping people in need. Admittedly, foreign ministries of many countries might have concerns about sharing their approaches with diplomats from other nations. However, cultural diplomacy is not a zero sum game. The whole point of such an initiative would be to find ways that the cultural diplomacy efforts of multiple nations can have positive impacts that are mutually reinforcing, not undermining. Such a network would take years to build, and would likely require the financial and organizational backing of an existing NGO in order to get off the ground. The potential benefits would dramatically outweigh these costs.

In recent years, much has been said about the power of “network public diplomacy,” as enabled by the Internet and other information and communication technologies. However, even advocates for this more relational approach have begun to recognize that it is not a catchall solution for all of the problems facing public and cultural diplomats. Professor Rhonda Zaharna of American University recently identified four fallacies in the prevailing discussion of “network public diplomacy.” In essence, she argues that “network public diplomacy” as an overarching concept is not valuable when it lacks specificity, and further that the network model is not always the best approach in all scenarios. In this spirit, let me be clear about the specific type of network approach I am proposing. In Zaharna’s typology, the “Conference of Cultural Diplomats” would be a “network of collaboration that strives to generate value-added information” for its members and the world at large. It would achieve this by leveraging the insights of its diverse membership. This network structure would not mean a dogmatic adherence to a “network communication” model of public diplomacy by members of the network.

In his 2002 book Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly argues that investment in the generation of knowledge has become especially valuable in the age of globalization, as knowledge is more likely than ever to leak from one person to another. These leaks can lead to “virtuous cycles,” which can dramatically speed economic development in poor countries. Cultural diplomats and the governments they represent are in a position to aid the creation of more of the “virtuous cycles” that Easterly discusses. Through networked collaboration, a “Conference of Cultural Diplomats” could amplify the effectiveness of existing cultural diplomacy efforts, while simultaneously spurring innovation. Moving beyond the zero sum cultural diplomacy paradigm will likely be difficult, but the rewards will be worth the trouble.

Max Entman is a graduate student at the George Washington University. His piece forms part of Take Five’s series of student reflections on aspects of cultural diplomacy as communication.

China, Northern Ireland, Kosovo, the Arab world, and the Vatican: New Books on Public Diplomacy Span the Globe.

April 18, 2012Global Communication, Middle East, public diplomacyLeave a Comment

New books on Public Diplomacy, December 2011 through April 2012

Take Five readers: Let us know if you like this resource, and we’ll make it a quarterly feature.

1) At the 2012 London Book Fair. Professor Zhao Qizheng is launching his two new books in English. They are Cross-Border Dialogue: the Wisdom of Public Diplomacy, published by the New World Press, and How China Communicates: Public Diplomacy in a Global Age, published by the Foreign Language Press (together constituting an English version of his Chinese book entitled Public Diplomacy and Cross-Cultural Communication, published by Remin University Press, 2011). Zhao says, “I’m trying to present a picture of the real situation in China, to reduce misunderstanding and eliminate the foreign reader’s sense of unfamiliarity with the country.”

2) The People’s Peace Process in Northern Ireland, by Colin Irwin (April 2, 2012) — From the book jacket: ‘I recommend this book to all those involved with peace making and peace building, political negotiations and public opinion polls, as well as those with a particular interest in Northern Ireland. … I am persuaded that the unique approach [Irwin] developed of running public opinion polls in co-operation with party negotiators contributed significantly to the successful outcome of our efforts. – Senator George J. Mitchell.

3) Cyberspaces and Global Affairs by Sean S. Costigan and Jake Perry (Jan 1, 2012). Note Part II: Web 2.0 and public diplomacy includes the following articles: – Call for power? Mobile phones as facilitators of political activism; – ICT infrastructure in two Asian giants: a comparative analysis of China and India; – Information (without) revolution? Ethnography and the study of new media-enabled change in the Middle East; – The political history of the internet: a theoretical approach to the implications for US power; – US identity, security, and governance of the internet; – Information and communications technologies and power; – Social media and Iran’s post-election crisis; – Viewpoint: combating censorship should be a foreign policy goal; – Viewpoint: an alternative prospect on cyber anarchy for policy-makers. About the editors: Sean S. Costigan directs MIT CogNet and teaches information technology at The New School, and Jake Perry is an independent scholar.

3) National Relations: Public Diplomacy, National Identity and the Swedish Institute 1945-1970 by Nikolas Glover (Jan 1, 2012). Says the author: “My study focuses on the Swedish Institute for Cultural Exchange with Foreign Countries, 1945–1970. … It postulates that identifying with and promoting a particular national identity in the post-war world has been a question of relating the nation to others … The concept of national relations leads me to engage with historical research on public diplomacy, the history of communication and the history of nationalism.”

4) Diaspora Diplomacy: Philippine Migration and its Soft Power Influences by Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III (Dec 27, 2011). The author talks about “the remarkable and untapped soft power that international migrants possess and how various actors—from governments, NGOs, business, the church, and international organizations—could tap this valuable resource to enhance global cooperation, development, and understanding. With detailed and intimate illustrations from the experiences of the Philippine diaspora in San Francisco, London, Dubai, Dhaka, and Singapore…”

New paperback editions:

5) The New Arab Media: Technology, Image and Perception by Mahjoob Zweiri and Emma C. Murphy (Mar 29, 2012; hardcover published January 2011). ISBS says “topics examined include: the impact of Al-Jazeera * implementation of the internet in the region * the use of the media for diplomacy and propaganda * image culture * the use of the internet by religious diasporas * information and communication technologies and the Arab Public Sphere * the influence of satellite television on Arab public opinion * the explosion of local radio stations in Jordan.” .

6) Kosovo’s Diplomacy: How can Public Diplomacy have an impact on Kosovo’s political and diplomatic position? by Alban Dermaku (Jan 23, 2012; hardcover published January 2011.) Book flap text: “The declaration of independence marked a new era for Kosovo and its relations with the countries that have recognized its independence. Since then Kosovo is striving in its diplomatic efforts to achieve broader international recognition and become a member of the United Nations. … In modern times, public diplomacy is receiving broad recognition as a crucial element for understanding and influencing foreign publics.”

Postgraduate Theses from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, new on Kindle eBook:

7) Prioritizing Efforts to Improve Foreign Public Opinion of America: Applying a Business Model to Discover and Create Customer Value by Anthony J. Sampson – Kindle eBook (published Apr 12, 2012; thesis written in 2007 for the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA). Author’s note: “Given the reality of fiscal and resource constraints, America could not possibly address all of the concerns of the foreign public; rather, America must focus its efforts on the factors that are likely to make the greatest impact. This study identifies negative factors that interfere with favorable foreign pubic opinion and suggests an analytic framework for prioritizing those factors.

8) The Holy See and the Middle East: The Public Diplomacy of Pope John Paul II by Ronald Patrick Stake – Kindle eBook (published March 31,2012; thesis written in 2006 for the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA). Author’s note: “This thesis considers changes in the diplomacy of the Holy See with respect to the Middle East … between 1990 and 2003. Policies … involved (1) establishing full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel; (2) convening the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for Lebanon, ending in the papal visit to Lebanon in May 1997; and (3) opposing the 1991 and 2003 U.S. led wars against Iraq. …{T}he thesis argues that new circumstances occasioned a rethinking of the Holy See’s interests in light of the development of modern Catholic social teaching.”

Learning Public Diplomacy in Europe — China: Still Center of Controversy

March 9, 2012public diplomacyLeave a Comment

In Paris, whenever I’m asked where I am from, I have difficulty in giving a short answer. I am a Chinese national, which is apparent from my Asian face, but I’m also on exchange to a French university from an American graduate school. For many, however, the fact that I’m studying public diplomacy (PD) in France, a fancy new subject that is coined by an American is more confusing than my trajectory of school life.

Here I am in Paris, attending a class called “Public diplomacy and international communication”. Unlike in the Elliott School where my classmates were mostly either from Asia or the US, here in my public diplomacy class in Sciences Po (Paris), the classroom is composed of students from all over the world including India, Canada, Columbia, Nigeria, France, Britain, the US, China, etc.

The benefit of a diverse class background is that I can always hear an insider explaining the public diplomacy of his or her country, as well as their views on China. These opinions, which arise in almost every class and form a fierce debate afterwards, however, have shocked me from time to time.

Controversy #1: “PD in a non-democracy never works.”

My first day of the class started with the comment “PD in a non-democracy never works” from an American classmate. I was sitting in the front row, blushed and shocked. I didn’t take it personally, but I was quite disappointed that in later classes, this sentiment was expressed repeatedly among my classmates.

When we covered the practice of nation branding in PD, the Olympics in Beijing was cited as an example. A Canadian classmate then negated China’s Olympics showbiz with reference to China dubbing the voice of the girl who sang a nationally reputed song. I was surprised to realize that for an emerging power like China, whenever it tries hard to prove itself, people in the west will still link its action with the governing ideology. Under such circumstances, they will be most easily impressed with the scandal the smears China’s entire image. Hence, China’s display of its ancient culture is swamped under such mindset.

Controversy #2: China + Syria = China’s failure in PD

Right after China vetoed the UN resolution to request the Syrian president to resign, every time I walked in the 13th quartier in Paris which is full of Arabs, I was afraid I would be kidnapped. This fear converts to the anxiety of being attacked verbally in my PD class. Neither of these happened, but China and Syria was constantly brought up in the class as well as the French media.

Once we had Bernard Kouchner as a guest speaker, who was the former French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, who is certainty furious at how “our friend China” has obstructed the French active negotiation to pass the resolution on Syria, and under this comparison, China is easily depicted as the irresponsible, self-interested power. I’m not defending China’s stance here, but I have to point out that the fact that the world lacks knowledge about why China is against international action against Syria IS an example of China’s failure in public diplomacy.

Comics on China and Russia vetoing UN resolution on Syria France 24, the French international news channel. Retrieved on 03/03/2012.

Though this is quite sad, I have found that people regardless of their nationality have formed their opinions on current affairs based on media coverage. Criticism against China is prevailing in the western media, while China’s voice of defense is usually ignored or given limited coverage. In fact, every non-Chinese I have talked to has a duplicated mindset of what’s on the media, that is, China is letting civilians dying in Syria while holding its vested geopolitical interests. In the United Nations, every country has been acting on behalf of itself, while concerned with the safety of others in the world. Do the western powers like France, which has been trying to reestablish itself internationally and the US have no individual agenda in mind?

I try to explain things in China to my classmates when they express hostile opinions. Their overwhelmingly negative evaluation of China is due to China’s Communist root (usually perceived as contrary to democracy), one-party system, and the lack of a strong, credible international media. As an exchange student studying abroad, I myself is part of the practice of public diplomacy. And at present, I’m enjoying my role that transcends Chinese media such as CCTV (China Central Television) English and the 24-hour English Channel CNC (China Xinhua News Network Corporation) who are perceived to be propagandists among those who have heard of them.

Baby You Can Drive My Car. Please.

March 7, 2012public diplomacy1 Comment

Americans tend to think—and politicians tell them at almost every opportunity—that theirs is the greatest, richest, freest country in the world. Leaders seem to consider this description so self-evident that they rarely provide evidence, nor do their audiences demand it. A major reason is the absence of truly “global communication” in most American households. Most Americans seem utterly unfamiliar with the public polices, political practices, daily lives and living standards even of this country’s closest allies. When messages about France, Germany, Norway, Spain and even the UK do reach US media, their main purpose is often to disparage these countries—again without much evidence.

A lot could be said about this but for now consider the car. I just spent 6 weeks in Madrid and had time to ponder why so many European cities seem so much more charming and livable than just about any American city. I think it’s got a lot to do with cars, specifically the paucity thereof.

In Madrid, just like DC, there are plenty of wide boulevards, where car traffic is heavy at rush hour. But there are also many, many pedestrian passages, plazas and narrow medieval streets that cars never or rarely traverse. At least in the center, you can walk for several blocks, or sit out at a café on a plaza like the one I lived on (Plaza de la Paja, the oldest in Madrid—see picture) for an hour and not see or hear a car. You can enjoy being outside, as Madrileños do even when it’s cold, soaking in sun and (fairly) fresh air, communing with other people. No need as in DC to will yourself to block out the noise and aesthetic assaults generated by automobiles and trucks. In this dimension, Madrid offers a great, rich (indeed priceless, unobtainable) experience in daily living, one most Americans are not free to enjoy whatever their income level.

Of course there are a hundred reasons for the greater charms of European capitals (not to mention the smaller towns). Some relate to cars and public policy (high gasoline taxes, heavy investment in mass transit enabled in part by far lower investment in military infrastructure), most to history, climate and many more factors.

My points in bringing up cars and comparative living standards are three: 1) The arguments for Americans reducing reliance on cars are numerous and thoroughly familiar to readers of blogs like this: augmenting national security; reducing the trade deficit; cutting the indirect funding that guzzling gas provides to terrorist organizations and nasty regimes; slowing climate change. What’s significant is how marginalized—to the point of invisibility—such reasoning is in the public discourse of 2012.

2) This in part reflects one area where America may indeed be the leader among affluent countries. I’d hypothesize (I’m not sure) that we enjoy the dubious distinction of the greatest isolation of citizens from globally communicated information and globally shared (at least among the wealthy democracies) cultural assumptions. Among many other areas, this manifests itself in the political impossibility of even mentioning the option of raising gasoline taxes to, say, half of what Europeans pay. Gasoline here in Berlin runs about 1.6 Euros, around $2.12, per liter—about $8 a gallon. The difference between that number and what Americans pay is mostly tax.

3) Americans’ isolation from two-way global communication both reflects and reinforces their impoverished sense of such words as “greatest,” “richest,” and “freest” when applied to the US.

I’m not saying this is anyone’s fault. Politicians and media can’t attack conventional notions of the normal until enough citizens share some assumptions and perceptions to make sense of the attacks. But citizens can’t develop such thinking unless their leaders and media provide the basis. If Americans could somehow plug into global communication more than they do now, perhaps the vicious circle might be interrupted.