International Development – IPDGC Smart Power

Beyond Zero Sum Cultural Diplomacy

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…

Democracy and 21st Century Statecraft

By Rebecca Woodward The recent presidential elections in Kenya served as a platform to showcase mobile technology as a medium for transparent and fair processes in a country troubled by election violence and fraud in the recent past. There are roughly six billion mobile phones in the world, in Kenya…

21st Century Visual Culture, NGOs, and Public Diplomacy

December 20, 2012 Cultural Diplomacy Global Communication public diplomacy 1 Comment

An early Christmas present arrived in the mail today – a new book called Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism (Meg McLagan and Yates McKee, eds., Zone Books, 2012.) The “visual culture of nongovernmental activism” seems like an important topic for U.S. public diplomacy practitioners to consider. Even…

New Wine in Old Bottles: Relationships in Public Diplomacy

October 12, 2012 Cultural Diplomacy in the field public diplomacy 1 Comment

Take Five’s blog post series on Public Diplomacy in the Field — Part Two Background: As a State Department Fellow at GWU’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication (IPDGC), I’ve observed that a frequently missing piece of the academic puzzle is concrete discussion and analysis of what public diplomats…

Everybody’s Talking About World Press Freedom Day

May 3, 2012 Africa in the field public diplomacy 1 Comment

World Press Freedom Day – celebrated today, May 3, with the centerpiece UNESCO event held in Carthage, Tunisia – is one of those global phenomena, like soccer, that seizes Americans only peripherally. Yes, the main event last year was held in New York, and yes, U.S. organizations such as the…

African-Americans in Africa in the 1960’s: an early example of the New Public Diplomacy

April 23, 2012 Africa Cultural Diplomacy public diplomacy 1 Comment

Searching online for details about the life of Dr. Marie Gadsden, a ground-breaking African-American internationalist who was my husband’s dear friend and mentor, we discovered intriguing threads linking her to a complex and deeply fascinating story: the story of African-American political and cultural engagement with newly independent Africa in the…

Fear and Loathing in Development Journalism

April 14, 2012 Africa Global Communication public diplomacy Social Media 3 Comments

Three items on development journalism in Africa came across my radar screen yesterday, and it was fascinating to read such a diversity of views. It seems that harnessing media in the service of development has been used, at times, as a strategy to repress free speech and democracy, and yet…

Opportunity is Calling – How Mobile Phones Can Increase Entrepreneurship among Women in Developing Countries

March 15, 2012 Global Communication 7 Comments

“I get more respect now,” she says. “Before people in the village wouldn’t talk to me but they do now.” ~Jamirun Nesa on owning a business (BBC News, October 2002) Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), especially mobile phones, can have a huge impacton the business opportunities available to women in developing…