Public Diplomacy

Foundations for Global Engagement in the Digital Age

Nicholas J. Cull

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780745691237
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie politique

New technologies have opened up fresh possibilities for public diplomacy, but this has not erased the importance of history. On the contrary, the lessons of the past seem more relevant than ever, in an age in which communications play an unprecedented role. Whether communications are electronic or hand-delivered, the foundations remain as valid today as they ever have been.

Blending history with insights from international relations, communication studies, psychology, and contemporary practice, Cull explores the five core areas of public diplomacy: listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchanges, and international broadcasting. He unpacks the approaches which have dominated in recent years – nation-branding and partnership – and sets out the foundations for successful global public engagement. Rich with case studies and examples drawn from ancient times through to our own digital age, the book shows the true capabilities and limits of emerging platforms and technologies, as well as drawing on lessons from the past which can empower us and help us to shape the future.

This comprehensive and accessible introduction is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners, as well as anyone interested in understanding or mobilizing global public opinion.

1
Diplomacy through Foreign Public Engagement: Core Terminology and History

The small town of Muscatine, Iowa, USA is not one of the world’s great crossroads. With a population of 20,000, its only claim to fame was being the “Watermelon Capital of the World.” On the afternoon of February 12, 2012, however, the town was crowded. There were local well-wishers, international students in from Iowa City, police, camera crews, and protestors too. Spectators waved flags of the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and some carried homemade signs with slogans like “Iowa ❤ China.” At the appointed hour, the motorcade arrived. The guest of honor – Xi Jinping, then still China’s vice-president – made his way to a modest clapboarded home at 2911 Bonnie Drive. As cameras flashed, he greeted a row of civic dignitaries and an elderly couple – Eleanor and Thomas Dvorchak – who had flown in from Florida just for the meeting. This was not Mr Xi’s first visit to Muscatine nor his first meeting with the Dvorchaks. More than thirty years previously, in 1985, they had welcomed him to their home when he was part of a touring delegation of Chinese officials seeking to learn about life in the United States. China’s future president slept a couple of nights in their son’s old room surrounded by American football-themed wallpaper and Star Wars action figures. Returning in 2012, Xi Jinping spoke warmly of his happy memories of Muscatine, the Dvorchaks, and the positive view of ordinary American people that he had formed.¹

The original event in 1985 and its commemoration in 2012 only happened because people in power in Beijing and in Washington, DC understood that international relations are not solely a matter of government-to-government contact. Sometimes the best way to conduct foreign policy is for a government to engage a foreign public or, indeed, for foreign publics to engage one another directly. These kinds of activity are known in the United States as public diplomacy. For some observers, public diplomacy is simply a variety of propaganda; however, practitioners and scholars have learned to see the two as distinct. Propaganda is about dictating your message to an audience and persuading them you are right. Public diplomacy is about listening to the other side and working to develop a relationship of mutual understanding.

Terminology

There is no universally agreed vocabulary for the business of conducting foreign policy by engaging global publics. Israelis speak of “explaining” (hasbará); the current French term is “influence diplomacy” (diplomatie d’influence) and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office use the term “strategic communication.” Japanese officials tend to call the whole process “cultural exchange,” even if it includes neither culture nor much of any two-way exchange process. Chinese officials speak of xuānchuán, a compound word uniting the concepts of “declare” and “pass on/teach” which was adopted by the country’s communists as their translation for the western term “propaganda.” Canada at one point referred to its entire approach to the public as “advocacy.” Many smaller countries conceive of the whole process through the lens of “nation branding” or other commercial practices, such as international public relations or tourism promotion. All these terms are partial and some actively misleading. The preferred American term – “public diplomacy” – may be the least-worst term in common use.

The take-up of the term “public diplomacy” owes more to the coincidence of the need to explain the post-Cold War role of publics in foreign affairs with US preeminence than its theoretical perfection or otherwise. It has, however, achieved sufficient currency in the West to have been adopted within many bureaucracies beyond the United States, not only as the title for sections of foreign ministries and professional specializations but also by academics. As Eytan Gilboa has pointed out, while many scholars have examined public diplomacy, there is no overarching theory, but rather contributions from multiple disciplines. History, international relations, and communication have been especially significant, and scholars of psychology and public relations have been part of the discourse as well.² The term “public diplomacy” accordingly has found its way into the titles of articles, books, journals, academic organizations, professorial titles, and even one or two master’s degree programs.³

None of these terms comes without baggage; each carries within it a metaphor which consciously or unconsciously shapes the work and often represents its goal or claim to legitimacy. “Strategic communication” evokes the military realm and seems well chosen to please those who hold the purse strings and who understand the world in security terms above all else. “Cultural exchange” speaks of benign artistically focused conversations: ballet tours and biennales of art. “Diplomacy of influence” suggests an ability to manipulate an audience, summoning perhaps the mental picture of an extravagantly mustachioed stage hypnotist flourishing his hands to extend his magnétisme animal. “Nation branding” conjures up the realm of the urban creative professional with slick sales pitch, sample logos, and an open-plan office. “Public diplomacy” also paints its own picture. It courts an image of a seasoned foreign affairs professional – the diplomat – communicating for the ends of the state. The term “public diplomacy” is influential not only because of the ability of the United States to export its ways of thinking; there is also a special value in a term for foreign public engagement which locates the practice in the realm of civilian international relations. The world of diplomacy is better than the business world of state public relations, let alone the covert and manipulative realm which English speakers understand from the term “propaganda.” The term “public diplomacy” is helpful insomuch as it places the engagement process as a form of diplomacy, which is to say, one of the ways in which an international actor seeks to manage the international environment.⁴

The components of foreign public engagement

While the term “public diplomacy” is fairly new, wise rulers have always known the importance of public opinion and the value of avoiding the counterproductive currents that attend acts of violence, even for winners. Two-and-half millennia ago, a Greek thinker named Bias led the small democracy of Priene in Ionia on the coast of what is now Turkey. He had a reputation as a skilled advocate and in time would be famed as the wisest of the Seven Sages of Greece. His advice to fellows was unequivocal: “gain your point by persuasion, not by force.” ⁵ Making the same point through fable, Bias’s contemporary Aesop told the story of the bet between the North Wind and the sun over who could remove a certain traveler’s cloak. The North Wind blew and merely caused the traveler to draw his clothing closer, but a few minutes of sunshine soon saw him remove his cloak. Warmth had won. Part of the story is the understanding of the dynamics that Joseph Nye dubbed soft power: that wise policies, attractive culture, and admirable character bring foreign policy benefits. In ancient China, Confucius spoke of wise emperors “attracting by virtue,” noting “it is for this reason that, when distant subjects are not submissive, one cultivates one’s moral quality in order to attract them.” A reputation for wisdom bolstered the rule of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second century and of the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne in eighth-century Europe. The thirteenth-century Islamic leader Saladin was admired even by his enemies: feared in war but trusted in peace. Kings of France from the 1500s onward proclaimed themselves roi très chrétien (very Christian king) and understood that such a reputation helped them do business everywhere in the world, including with nonbelievers. But there was more at work than just appreciating the value of persuasion and developing a reputation for admirable policy. Historically, there are five distinct ways in which international actors have engaged foreign publics: listening; advocacy; cultural diplomacy; exchange diplomacy; and news/international broadcasting.

Listening

The foundational form of foreign policy through public engagement is listening. Listening is an actor’s attempt to manage the international environment by collecting and analyzing data about international publics and using that data to redirect its policy or its communication accordingly. In its most basic form this covers an event whereby an international actor seeks out a foreign audience and engages them by listening rather than by speaking. While systematic assessments of foreign opinion are modern, estimating a neighbor’s morale has long been a goal of statecraft, most especially in time of war. Writing some half-millennium before the Common Era, the Chinese sage Sun Tzu observed: “What is called ‘foreknowledge’ cannot be elicited from spirits or from gods, or by analogy with past events, nor from calculations. It must be obtained from men who know the enemy situation.”⁶ In our own time, listening is conducted through all manner of contact with publics including opinion research, open-source media study, and many, many conversations between diplomats and members of the public.

Advocacy

Advocacy is an actor’s attempt to manage the international environment by presenting a particular policy, idea, or the actor’s general interests to a foreign public. Ancient examples include Xerxes of Persia, who, according to Herodotus, used envoys to successfully appeal to people of Argos for their neutrality...