The Frontiers of Public Diplomacy

Hegemony, Morality and Power in the International Sphere

Colin Alexander

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000389074
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This edited volume provides one of the most formidable critical inquiries into public diplomacy's relationship with hegemony, morality and power. Wherein, the examination of public diplomacy's 'frontiers' will aid scholars and students alike in their acquiring of greater critical understanding around the values and intentions that are at the crux of this area of statecraft.

For the contributing authors to this edited volume, public diplomacy is not just a political communications term, it is also a moral term within which actors attempt to convey a sense of their own virtuosity and 'goodness' to international audiences. The book thereby provides fascinating insight into public diplomacy from the under-researched angle of moral philosophy and ethics, arguing that public diplomacy is one of the primary vehicles through which international actors engage in moral rhetoric to meet their power goals.

The Frontiers of Public Diplomacy is a landmark book for scholars, students and practitioners of the subject. At a practical level, it provides a series of interesting case studies of public diplomacy in peripheral settings. However, at a conceptual level, it challenges the reader to consider more fully the assumptions that they may make about public diplomacy and its role within the international system.

Part I

The First Frontier: Understanding Public Diplomacy

1 Hegemony, Morality and Power

Gramscian Theoretical Framework for Public Diplomacy

Colin R. Alexander

Introduction

The widespread absence of philosophy within public diplomacy literature presents one of the most interesting challenges to those trying to understand the subject. Too often, articles are published in political communications journals that have an air of simplistic positivity about the potential of public diplomacy to create a more peaceful world. This is a noble desire but one that is largely unrealistic. These positive utterances are therefore the result of assumptions rather than rigorous research, applied theory or philosophical pondering. As such, despite advocating for the sanctity of democracy, liberty and the rights of the individual, many works of public diplomacy demonstrate little awareness of social theory, critical thought or even Enlightenment philosophy. Instead, public diplomacy publications – monograph books, chapters in edited books and journal articles – have tended to be case studies from around the world that provide readers with detailed insight into the scenarios in which this fascinating subject operates. However, aside from rather brief discussions of definitions, most overlook the hardest part of academic inquiry; that of presenting a philosophised and professed position that attaches wider meaning to the information provided.

The most oft-quoted work on public diplomacy theory is Eytan Gilboa's (2008) promisingly titled journal article ‘Searching for a Theory of Public Diplomacy’. However, while Gilboa accurately states that the theoretical development of public diplomacy has been ‘limited’ (p. 56), he himself then demonstrates his own considerable theoretical and philosophical limitations by providing an article that applies only the theories of soft power, public relations and branding to the concept of public diplomacy. He then appears to consider the application of models of communication to be a contribution to theory rather than a separate (albeit interesting and worthwhile) area of investigation. Gilboa states that ‘[while] scholars have applied communications models and theories to issues of foreign policy and international relations, only a few researchers have applied them to public diplomacy’. However, the article makes few inroads into the rectification of this deficit and by the end of the text the most outstanding aspect of the article is the complete lack of reference to philosophical works or any kind of positioning of public diplomacy within discussions of hegemony, morality or power. Rather amusingly, 4 years ago at a political communications conference, the public diplomacy scholar James Pamment (2017) presented a paper called ‘Still Searching for a Theory of Public Diplomacy’ in which he argued that the subject had not progressed since Gilboa's original article in 2008. This chapter, and indeed many of the other chapters in this book, are therefore offerings as part of efforts to address this deficiency.

The public diplomacy of an international actor at a given time can be analysed through the triangulation of three interrelated factors: (1) the predominant structures of hegemony and counter-hegemony; (2) the prevailing notions of virtuosity and ‘goodness’ within the international system and (3) the power status and ambition of the actor. Taken together, these factors provide a theoretical framework upon which all public diplomacy activity can be understood. The factors make up the core of the critical analysis provided by the chapters of this edited volume and each will be discussed in turn within this chapter. Wider theoretical discussion is required before this though.

The eighteenth-century French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote that

Since no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men.

(Rousseau, 1993: 185)

The ‘conventions’ that Rousseau alludes to, which other translations of his work into English have termed ‘covenants’ or ‘agreements’, often take the form of normative behaviours that are communicated as part of efforts to validate the power ambitions of some and to disqualify those of others. This is perhaps best seen in the strategic communications over the right to develop nuclear weapons that is covered by Chapter 12 of this book. These communications assist in the manufacture of a sense of what is notionally acceptable conduct around the world – where and by whom – and perhaps more importantly what is deemed unacceptable – where and by whom. Such conditions exist away from moral concerns as the deciding factor, for it is self-interest that almost always motivates international actors even if they present their selflessness convincingly. These utterances are, therefore, a means to an end, with the propagation of virtuosity within public diplomacy campaigns around the world a central part of the quest for greater status, or retention of it, and positive recognition among peers and by publics. Rousseau's ‘conventions’ thus become a guised moral authority within the global swirl of public diplomacy narratives that accompany the great game of international politics.

To this end, Rousseau's notion of the ‘convention’ helps to confirm that public diplomacy exists within a dialectic, in as much as there is nothing ‘natural’ about an actor's claim to its ‘natural authority’. Indeed, by engaging in public diplomacy of any kind, the actor is also offering tactic admission that they have no natural authority or special or ‘divine’ right to their power. For if an actor had natural authority then they would not require strategic communications to justify themselves. The power dynamics within the world system at a given time exists by virtue of circumstance and decision-making. Public diplomacy is thus part of an attempt to manufacture the tacit agreement of publics that a natural authority favourable to those in power does exist. Public diplomacy is therefore a moral deception – or an attempt to deceive at least. Whereas any genuine belief by an actor in their own natural authority represents a narcissistic self-deception.

Public Diplomacy and Hegemony

The writings of the Italian philosopher and political prisoner Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) have been used in many contexts relating to the wider discipline of Communications Studies. Gramsci's philosophy has provided the platform for much of the work of the Birmingham School of Culture Studies and to Stuart Hall's workin particular during the latter half of the twentieth century. In addition, the likes of Robert Cox and other theorists of world order have used Gramsci as part of their explanations for the global power dynamics that they research, while Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak and other leaders of postcolonial and subaltern studies have also been profoundly influenced by Gramsci. Thus, despite Gramscian frameworks being used extensively in the related literature on cultural imperialism and cultural hegemony, there has been minimal transfer to specific works of public diplomacy. One of the few to do so has been Foad Izadi's (2016) journal article that discusses Gramsci in the context of hegemony and the ethical legitimacy (or lack thereof) of US public diplomacy during and after the Cold War. However, this article does not provide the philosophical depth that this chapter will provide and was published in a rather obscure academic journal rarely frequented by political communications scholars. As such, rather than providing further literature review on the matters related to this chapter, readers should move forward noting that while there are some texts that complement what will be said here, the publications are decidedly limited both in their scope and in their critical depth.

Gramsci's notions of hegemony and counter-hegemony are central to understanding public diplomacy. Defining hegemony, the renowned cultural theorist and advocate of Gramscian studies, Raymond Williams, wrote that

[h]egemony supposes the existence of something which is truly total, which is not merely secondary or superstructural, like the weak sense of ideology, but which is lived at such depth, which saturates the society to such an extent, and which, as Gramsci put it, even constitutes the substance and limits of common sense for most people under its sway, that it corresponds to the reality of the social experience very much more clearly than any notions derived from the formula of base and superstructure.

(Williams, 1979: 37)

The notion of ‘common sense’ is important here. Rather than focussing on ideology, which many people have at least a passive awareness of and can acknowledge that other ideological options exist, hegemony appears so ingrained to the cultural fabric that the vast majority cannot conceive of a counter discourse through which alternatives can be fully considered. The French philosopher Michel Foucault (1989) put forward a similar premise during the late 1960s when he argued that systems of knowledge and thought within a given period are governed by hegemonic impositions that determine the boundaries of conceptual possibilities. Moreover, by virtue of their incumbency, these hegemonic structures hold much of the ability to shape the discourse through which counter movements are interpreted and often dismissed in the minds of the mainstream regardless of their virtue. There are of course moments in history when contests over narrational supremacy emerge; the first half of the twentieth century being one period in particular, to which this book devotes several chapters.

Assuming that clear hegemonic supremacy exists then, the human mind thus views the incumbent superstructure as a ‘natural’ order of sorts rather than something manufactured, in flux and purposely conserved and reinforced by the powerful forces invested in its upkeep. To give full credence to alternatives thus requires critical thought, a rare degree of independent agency, a set of terminologies that are not merely counterpoints to dominant concepts and a willingness to act against perceived norms that may also result in the ostracism of the individual from certain social circles. In environmental consciousness, for example, this distinction can be seen in the tendency of the majority of people towards what the Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss (1973) called ‘shallow’ rather than ‘deep’ ecology.

The hegemony of the current era is pivoted towards neoliberal interests. For Western countries, this has been the case since at least the early 1980s, although many of the origins of neoliberal thought were developed through the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and merely came to fruition after decades of squeezing within the Western world. For other parts of the world, particularly the former Soviet bloc, neoliberal pivoting, restructuring even, emerged only after the collapse of Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Communism, for its part, provided much of its own superstructure and thought processes in countries under its gaze until the late 1980s and an intercontinental system of public diplomacy narratives formed around it.

Neoliberalism can thus be defined as the intensification of market-oriented principles into the individual and collective consciousness. It is an ideology based on consumption wherein the solution to emotional distress or uncomfortable feelings is prophesised as the purchase of material goods rather than introspection and the development of mindfulness within the self. Despite it being primarily a theory of socio-economic organisation, set among other theories pertaining to the same goal, advocates of neoliberalism, perhaps most famously Milton Friedman (1962), have sought to present it as an inclusive ideology, simple ‘common sense’ and even the ‘natural’ state of man. As part of its hegemonic consolidation, neoliberalism has sought to marginalise alternatives by making them appear unworkable, unrealistic, unnatural or inhumane, while propagating itself as pious, virtuous, altruistic and compassionate. It does this despite it favouring the deregulation of commercial industries, reductions to international trade tariffs and the privatisation of public services to profit-making hands. Such preferences have resulted in the intensification of human destitution around the world, tribal, indigenous and smallholding communities being expelled from traditional lands, exponential human population growth, cultural imperialism, unrivalled global pollution, deforestation, soil deterioration, desertification, global warming, climate change, species decline and even the emergence of new deadly viruses. Nevertheless, neoliberalism's hegemonic status remains largely unchallenged and some of the explanation for this must be down not only to its ability to detach itself from collective responsibility for the acceleration of these global issues but also its claims to conscience and virtuosity.

This is of interest to public diplomacy because it helps to explain the place of publics within the public diplomacy equation. Publics form part of the power equation only when it is believed that they are useful to the interests of the powerful to engage them. The motivation to engage publics around the world is summarised well by the American political scientist Gerald Sussman, who writes that

The maintenance of the corporate state requires an intensification of public persuasion […] in order to divert citizens from the cognitive dissonance that follows the unwillingness of the neoliberal state to protect public interests.

(Sussman, 2012: 42)

Thus, as market forces seep further into public life under neoliberalism, the corporate state must invest more resources in communications to convince much of the global population that this ideology remains committed to the protection of public welfare, when in reality it is alleviating itself of its basic governmental duties by shifting the burden of providing vital public services onto the likes of the voluntary and charity sector. Herein, the public diplomacy communications by members of the hegemonic coalition are motivated by the normalisation of neoliberal ideology around t...