Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Uncertainty

Pawel Surowiec, Ilan Manor, Pawel Surowiec, Ilan Manor

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9783030545512
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030545529
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This edited book explores the multi-layered relationships between public diplomacy and intensified uncertainties stemming from transnational political trends. It is the latest wave of political uncertainty that provides the background as well as yields evidence scrutinised by authors contributing to this book. The book argues that due to a state of perpetual crises, the simultaneity of diplomatic tensions and new digital modalities of power, international politics increasingly resembles a networked set of hyper-realities. Embracing multi-polar competition, superpowers such as Russia flex their muscles over their neighbours;celebrated 'success stories' of democratisation – Hungary, Poland and Czechia – move towards illiberal governance; old players of international politics such as Britain and America re-claim "greatness", while other states, like China, adapt expansionist foreign policy goals. The contributors to this book consider the different ways in which transnational political trends and digitalisation breed uncertainty and shape the practice of public diplomacy.

Part IHeteropolar World, Global Uncertainty and Public Diplomacy

© The Author(s) 2021

P. Surowiec, I. Manor (eds.)Public Diplomacy and the Politics of UncertaintyPalgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54552-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. The “American Century” Is Over: The US Global Leadership Narrative, Uncertainty and Public Diplomacy

Steven Louis Pike¹

(1)

S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA

Steven Louis Pike

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Introduction

Writing in ‘LIFE Magazine’ in 1944, Henry R. Luce heralded the beginning of a new “American Century”. The United States (US), he argued, had the ability, the obligation, and a mission to lead humanity out of the ashes of the First and Second World Wars to a brighter future. Having “failed to play their part as a world power” by rejecting a role in the League of Nations, the US needed to recognize that “the 20th century is the American Century” and “accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world” (Luce, 1999, pp. 165–166). This narrative of America’s mission fuelled US engagement in the world for some seventy years, through success and failure, optimism and pessimism, advances and setbacks, and every tumultuous event that history and fate saw fit to throw at humanity at that time. States and empires have come and gone; the population of the planet roughly tripled since 1944; the world cycled through multipolarity, bi-polarity, and unipolarity; technology gave us the power to wipe out human life on Earth, and forced us to face the spectre of extinction at our own hand; political and economic power shifted in unpredictable ways; and digital technology changed the way we live, earn, and talk to each other. The course has not been smooth. Moments when the US was challenged by rivals (e.g. the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s) or struggled with various self-inflicted wounds (e.g. Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s) drove historians, political scientists, and diplomatic commentators to wring their hands and worry whether a new set of events was bringing to an end the “American Century” described by Luce. Was the era of US leadership in international politics over? Through it all, however, the American public’s shared sense of global purpose allowed national leaders to renew flagging public moods and recommit to surmounting the challenges of global leadership in an interdependent world.

The US and the American public experienced a brief, and somewhat breath-taking moment of political, economic and cultural dominance of the international system following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The dissolution of communism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the re-orientation of China toward controlled capitalism removed the principal challenge to US foreign policy, and gave additional validation to American philosophies of democratic politics and free-market capitalist economics. US dominance waned and the descent from the pinnacle sparked off another round of debate on whether US leadership was done. For historian and scholar Joseph Nye, Jr., the answer was ‘no’. Nye asserts, in ‘Is The American Century Over?’, that the fundamental sources of political, economic, and cultural power that the US possessed following the Second World War still exist. He concedes that power has transformed and been redistributed, that challengers such as Russia and China continue to push against US leadership, and that the US does not have the absolute edge that it may have had in the past. Nonetheless, no state or alliance of states has the concentration of power required, the political will, and the credibility among other nations to replace the US as the dominant state in the international system (Nye, 2015). As the discussion ahead will elaborate, however, other scholars and political analysts suggest that political, economic, and social change have left the US commitment to managing the international states system badly shaken, and that this commitment may, in fact, be at an end. Political and economic change both international and domestic, the end of the US’ ideological war with the Soviet Union, and the crumbling of a post-World War II domestic consensus on international engagement, have created high degrees of uncertainty among the American public and weakened the commitment that underwrote and energized American diplomacy. That uncertainty has created instability in the international system, and produced the international tumult that characterizes current politics.

The focus on political, economic, and social change, however, misses a key point. Such factors are always in flux, and were in flux during the entire period of US dominance of the international system. Powerful states have overcome political problems and economic downturns before and maintained their engagement with the international system. Moreover, the debate itself shows that the interpretation of political, economic, and social factors does not tilt uniformly in one direction; every indicator of decline is matched by another indicator of sustained or even increased power.

This chapter proposes that the weakened US commitment to leadership of the international system is driven by a fundamental transformation in the American narrative, the suite of historical assumptions, beliefs, and stories that give a nation purpose and meaning, and motivate its citizens to pursue a course of political and historical action in international affairs. Narrative is central to a nation’s political life and, for those nations that choose to project themselves abroad, essential to its foreign affairs and public diplomacy. The slogan of the United States Information Agency (USIA), the US’ public diplomacy apparatus for half a century, put narrative at the very centre of the mission, succinctly and crisply: ‘Telling America’s Story to the World’. Narrative drives and motivates publics and allows national leaders to inspire publics to support national action. Thus it forms an essential component of any nation’s willingness to act, both at home and abroad. Without a coherent narrative of international engagement, engagement will be met with frustration, rejection, and hostility.

International relations scholars have long acknowledged that the exercise of power is a combined act of abilities and will. A nation may have every power asset and advantage that Nye (2015) describes, but without will—the coherent, purposeful desire to deploy its power—it is impotent. Prior to World War I, the US chose to be disengaged from the world. It played a completely different role in the twentieth century, reflecting a change of narrative. Communism in the Soviet Union and China were defined as an existential threat to the American way of life, and the state whose first President cautioned it to avoid foreign entanglements—and whose fifth President warned Europe to stay out of the Western hemisphere—restyled itself as the defender of global liberties and freedoms. That leadership narrative drove American global engagement in twentieth century international politics. The defeat of the Soviet Union deprived that narrative of its foundational logic; a reset to the prior narrative position—isolationism—is neither illogical nor inexplicable. The collapse of the narrative that drove US leadership during the twentieth century has blunted the exercise of US power and the efficacy of US public diplomacy. It has created uncertainty and left global society wondering what became of the nation that fought two world wars, defeated the Soviet Union, and built a rules-based international system that, however imperfectly, avoided war among the major powers within it. In addition, it left global society wondering ‘What comes next?’

This chapter examines the integral role that public diplomacy plays in the conveyance of a national narrative and the implementation of foreign policy, as well as discusses forces that are undermining and changing that narrative. It will show that there has been a narrative-driven shift in both strategy and messaging—the core of public diplomacy. Finally, it will indicate the ruptures that must be repaired if—if—the US is to resume in the twenty-first century the role it played in the 20th. The four fundamental questions it seeks to answer are:

1. 1.
   What are the major changes to global leadership narrative in US public diplomacy?
2. 2.
   What are the manifestations of uncertainty underpinning US public diplomacy?
3. 3.
   How does uncertainty manifest itself in the orientation of US public diplomacy?
4. 4.
   What are the implications of shifting global leadership narrative for US public diplomacy?

US Public Diplomacy and International Politics

Public diplomacy played a particularly unique role in the US’ international politics during the twentieth century. Justin Hart, in ‘Empire of Ideas’, analyses how the collapse of European empires, following the two world wars, created the conditions for the arrival of the US as the global leader. American citizens, however, were divided over this status. Some sought the mantle of global leadership eagerly, as another phase of the US’ manifest destiny, while others were reticent to wield the tools of hegemony—imperialism and colonialism—that had failed so epically for a smashed and shattered Europe. Instead, Hart chronicles, the US adopted new foreign affairs tools, choosing not to colonize the world, but to ‘Americanize’ it. These tools were varyingly called engagement, cultural exchange, advocacy, and propaganda. Over time, practitioners and scholars consolidated them under the umbrella term ‘public diplomacy’. Confronted by threats to ideological dominance and economic interests, the US took advantage of communication technologies as well as practical strengths in the fields of marketing and public relations, to create its own twentieth century empire. The dilemma for American leaders “convinced that colonialism could not last much longer in the face of mounting worldwide resistance” was to create a fundamentally different strategy that would enable the US to “manage without ruling, or perhaps rule without managing” (Hart, 2013, p. 9). US foreign policy would found itself on “extending the influence of the US while avoiding costly, atavistic exercises in military conquest” by “converting people to an ‘American’ way of life”. When “Americanization became the antidote to colonization”, it was inevitable that “image became a critical tool of empire” (Hart, 2013, p. 9). Thus was public diplomacy as a practice born. It would take another generation, until 1965, for the American diplomat, Edward Gullion, to coin the term public diplomacy. As he remarked when asked about the term, “I would have liked to call it ‘propaganda’. It seemed the nearest thing in the pure interpretation of the word to what we were doing. But propaganda has always had a pejorative connotati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Heteropolar World, Global Uncertainty and Public Diplomacy
• Part II. Regime Shifts, Institutional Uncertainty and Public Diplomacy
• Part III. Public Diplomacy Practice and Uncertainty Management
• Back Matter