Figueroa Press, Los Angeles, 2009, 62 p.
Public Diplomacy is a term much used but seldom subjected to rigorous analysis. This report provides succinct definitions for the core vocabulary of contemporary public diplomacy including ‘The New Public Diplomacy’ and ‘Soft Power.’ It sets out a simple taxonomy of public diplomacy’s components, their relationship one to another and their respective sources of credibility. These components are: 1) Listening (the foundation for all effective public diplomacy); 2) Advocacy; 3) Cultural Diplomacy; 4) Exchange; 5) International Broadcasting. The report also identifies 6) Psychological Warfare as a parallel activity that shares some key features of public diplomacy, but which has to be administered beyond a rigidly maintained
firewall. The central implication of this analysis is to underscore the essential wisdom of the present U.K. structure of Public Diplomacy, and also to highlight the need for these elements to be balanced within a Public Diplomacy bureaucracy rather than mired in mutual
infighting and a scramble for resources and dominance.
The main body of the report examines successful uses of each individual component of public diplomacy drawing from the history of U.S., Franco-German, Swiss and British diplomatic practice.
Each case is set out with a scenario section giving background to the problem, a narrative of the campaign and an analysis of the reasons for its success and the implications of that success. The cases considered are: the role of systematic foreign public opinion research in the re-branding of Switzerland since 2000; U.S. Public Diplomacy to support Intermediate Nuclear Force deployment in Europe in 1983; U.S. use of the Family of Man photographic exhibit
around the world during the years 1955–1963; the role of exchanges in the Franco-German rapprochement, 1945–1988; and the role of international broadcasting in British management of U.S. isolation between 1939 and 1941.
The report continues by examining five classic cases of failure in public diplomacy across the taxonomy arising chiefly from a discrepancy between rhetoric and reality: failure to listen in the
U.S. ‘Shared Values’ campaign of 2001/2; the failure of advocacy in Vietnam; the long-term failure of Soviet cultural diplomacy; the case of Sayed Qutb and the failure of exchange diplomacy; and counterproductive results of Free French broadcasting during the Second
World War. The author notes that the worst error is to wholly neglect public diplomacy altogether.
The final section applies the author’s taxonomy to the challenges of contemporary Public Diplomacy, and places especial emphasis on the need to conceptualize the task of the public diplomat as that of the creator and disseminator of ‘memes’ (ideas capable of being spread from one person to another across a social network) and as a creator and facilitator of networks and relationships.
The report concludes with a recommendation that a larger scale project be initiated to continue with the work begun in this report and gather past experience in PD practice from around the world into a ‘Public Diplomacy playbook’ as a mechanism to develop capacity at home and build the voices of those we wish to empower.