http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/ This unique collection contains reviews of recent and classical publications of interest to the public diplomacy community reviewed by public diplomacy practitioners and scholars. en USC Center on Public Diplomacy Copyright 2011 2011-04-20T17:37:11+00:00 PdBookReviewshttp://feedburner.google.com http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/XX_23FWN5oY/ #When:17:37:11Z For its relatively short history and small land area, Singapore’s range of nation branding efforts is ambitious, concerted and seemingly ceaseless. Its desire to establish and seal its reputation as a leading global city has translated into strategic public diplomacy initiatives that span and encompass practically every sector of its economy and society. This intensive repertoire of public diplomacy is captured in Koh Buck Song’s latest book, Brand Singapore: How Nation Branding Built Asia’s Leading Global City. Before delving into Singapore’s nation branding, Koh gives an overview to the subject which the uninitiated will find useful. He defines branding as the aggregation of conscious and deliberate actions undertaken to influence perceptions and generate awareness, with nation brands typically incorporating public diplomacy into branding strategies. Aptly, he calls nation branding “the lifeblood of any nation”, because it has the capacity to boost the economy, attract talent and improve the quality of life. Nations that can brand themselves well, he concludes, gain an added comparative advantage which can make up for shortcomings, which in Singapore’s case is its small size. State-led efforts make up the bulk of Singapore’s nation branding, so Koh devotes the first section of the book to an examination of this key aspect. Singapore’s nation branding mainly began when it achieved self-governance in 1959, when it faced primary challenges that included a lack of natural resources, political instability, and unskilled workforce. The Economic Development Board was thus established to attract foreign investment and Koh carefully chronicles the evolution of Singapore’s nation brand through the plethora of public diplomacy responses to these limitations. By charting Singapore’s numerous reinventions over the years, he shows how the attention to branding lavished by the state was geared towards boosting its gross domestic product, as is nearly every public policy decision in the island nation. This is where he offers up a mindboggling array of initiatives that range from tourism campaigns, to the hosting of major international events like the Formula One Grand Prix, to the export of expertise to countries like China, and the recent opening of two integrated resorts. He analyzes successful brand positionings like the “Garden City” identity, where the clean and beautiful urban landscape was a metaphor for its spotless reputation and highly regulated economic environment, to entice potential investors. Furthermore, in his exploration of Singapore’s various paradigm shifts, he shows how the transition to the “City in a Garden” concept redefines the idea of an urban landscape in a natural setting while aligning with the global trend of growing environmental consciousness.  For a country that depends on citizens as a key resource, Singapore surprisingly comes up short in promoting its homegrown enterprises. This is typically overlooked in favor of positioning Singapore as an attractive location for multinational companies and foreign investors. Using Singapore Airlines as a successful model, Koh shows how its cohesive brand identity contributed to its continued success, evidenced by its multiple accolades that have consistently placed it among the world’s best airlines. This is in contrast to other thriving local brands that Koh opines have not highlighted their Singaporean roots as compellingly. The onslaught of globalization may even dilute the Singaporean element in homegrown businesses, especially with foreign ownership or migration of labor. More attention to internal, rather than external branding is thus one major area that Koh suggests needs more work. Another important issue the book addresses is Singapore’s efforts to boost its soft power. Known more for its hard power, the republic is now trying to change perceptions with the “Renaissance City Plan”, a national initiative dedicated to creating a world-class cultural and entertainment district. No longer a “cultural desert”, arts and cultural events are now in abundance, matched by the requisite infrastructure development to support this industry. Likewise, Koh also examines Singapore’s cultural capital and its lack of global influence and audience. He argues that local cultural products like films and literature have the capacity to deliver insight into a country’s way of life, clarify misconceptions, and ultimately propel its soft power in the international arena. With little often heard about Singapore-made cultural output, Koh’s enlightening account in this area truly expands our notions of Singapore beyond the strict regulations, stable environment and economic prowess that it is most known for.    Finally, Koh studies the power and persistence of old stereotypes, or “brand keloids” as he terms them. For Singapore, it is that unpleasant “nanny state” image that has been circulated countless times in the international media, an expression that embodies the pervasive reach and involvement of the state in daily life, its stringent laws and lack of openness. While there has been some loosening up over the years, there hasn’t been a corresponding mindset shift globally, which underscores the deeply entrenched nature of branding’s negative effects with which Singapore must grapple. In considering the future of Singapore’s nation brand and the multiple reinventions it has undergone, Koh articulates a critical nation branding challenge for the state – that is, the people themselves and how they perceive their role as internal brand ambassadors. As the country re-envisions its nation branding with its latest slogan, “The Spirit of Singapore,” he emphasizes the truism that, in order for global perceptions of a country’s image to change, reality first has to change. Therefore, the words and actions of the government have to correspond, to form the basis of a successful nation branding campaign. Brand Singapore is a comprehensive and well-researched compilation of Singapore’s nation branding efforts – covering both prominent case studies and shedding light on lesser known ones, while giving readers insight into the mechanisms and multifaceted nature of Singapore’s nation branding. While the book goes more for breadth than depth in its sheer number of examples, it is nonetheless a valuable and accessible introduction to the Singapore brand.  Brand Singapore: How Nation Branding Built Asia’s Leading Global City Marshall Cavendish Editions ISBN: 978 981 4328 15 9 256 pages 2011-04-20T17:37:11+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:17:37:11Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/__--DeWxIss/ #When:21:00:55Z Let’s begin with a quiz. What and where is Gwadar? Few people can answer that today, but some in the know believe that within 20 years, it will become the next Dubai. For many years, Gwadar had been just another South Asian fishing village. It sits on a hammer-shaped peninsula jutting from southwest Pakistan into the Indian Ocean at one of the world’s most strategic spots. The Chinese have built a deepwater port there, ready for jumbo oil tankers and cargo ships. Plans for resort hotels have been drawn up. Gwadar, writes Robert Kaplan, is “a place of wonders, slipping through an hourglass.” Few books can be considered indispensable, but Monsoon is one of them. Journalist Kaplan is one of the world’s foremost analysts of geopolitical change (and the conflicts that often result). His thesis in this volume is, “Europe defined the 20th century; the Indian Ocean will define the 21st.” The case he presents is compelling, and anyone contemplating the future of global power relationships needs to understand how and why these changes are occurring. Kaplan offers some basic facts: Countries surrounding the Indian Ocean account for a third of the world’s population, and this rimland generates 70 percent of the traffic of petroleum products for the entire world. The potential for vast economic development exists. But nothing is certain. Concerning Gwadar, governance is a relative term in Pakistan, and the port’s potential might fizzle in a mess of incompetence and corruption. Furthermore, the climb to prosperity will be steep. In one of the region’s principal cities, Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, the impoverishment of millions is always on view. As Kaplan notes, “Poverty is not exotic, it has no saving graces, it is just awful.” Dominating the region’s future is competition between India and China. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh characterizes this and other regional relationships as “mutual dependencies for mutual benefit.” If all this remains peaceful, fine, but religious tensions smolder within the region, and both India and China are building up their navies, something the United States watches warily. For U.S. military planners, priorities are changing enormously. The American “two-ocean navy” has long patrolled the Pacific and Atlantic. Now, the two oceans of concern are the Pacific and the Indian. So far, rivalries have been mainly economic and political, and the game is played according to local rules. China hungrily eyes Burma’s resources and makes deals to get them. As Kaplan points out, “China is not like the United States, whose leaders, both Democrat and Republican, seek the moral improvement of the world as a basis of foreign policy.” China has also constructed another major port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, which, like Gwadar, is little-known but strategically located. This venture, with an oil refinery and flow-through facilities for Chinese goods, Kaplan writes, is “emblematic of China’s budding yet exquisitely elusive empire, built on soft power.” Places that were once merely exotic are now important. Asian and African countries on the Indian Ocean are entering the next stages of their histories and are reshaping how the world works. In Monsoon, Kaplan vividly describes this transformation and provides an essential primer for this new century’s evolving politics. This book review was originally published in The Dallas Morning News. Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power Robert Kaplan Random House, October 2010 ISBN-10: 1400067464 ISBN-13: 978-1400067466 384 pages 2010-11-02T21:00:55+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:21:00:55Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/3KKx5kESBZI/ #When:04:03:08Z The United States and Public Diplomacy is the fifth in a multi-volume series published by Clingendael under the masthead, “Diplomatic Studies”.  The present volume is a collection of twelve original essays on the history of public diplomacy.  The book should be of interest to scholars of public diplomacy and U.S. history.  It provides novel perspectives on historical events, focusing attention on aspects of the field that have received insufficient study to date.  It also endeavors to provide practical insights, suggesting contemporary applications for lessons learned in the past.  Although this book may not hold much appeal beyond the community of scholars, practitioners, and public diplomacy enthusiasts, teachers of history and public diplomacy should pay particular attention to it.  The essays contained in this volume are appropriate for college and graduate-level course syllabi.  They are well written, prescient, and easily stand alone.  The title, The United States and Public Diplomacy: New Directions in Cultural and International History is a rather inelegant effort to describe the diverse set of monographs included in this volume. It is also a bit of a mind bender.  What is “Cultural and International History” and how can it go in “New Directions”?  It takes an advanced degree just to unpack what this means. Six of the essays examine past U.S. public diplomacy campaigns.  The other six focus on public diplomacy as practiced by foreign governments and non-state actors.  Several essays describe the role of film, art, and culture in public diplomacy.  Others focus on international informational campaigns.  And others suggest new directions for future research (for a full list of essays in this publication, see below).  Representing a cross-section of current public diplomacy research, this collection provides twelve interesting essays from across the field.  At least half of the essays explicitly involve public diplomacy in countries other than the United States (demonstrating another problem with the title The United States and Public Diplomacy.) The other half of the essays address under-explored parts of U.S. public diplomacy history including: the origins of U.S. public diplomacy in the period before the Cold War, U.S. public diplomacy campaigns targeting the developing world, and the historical use of film in U.S. public diplomacy. In their introduction to The United States and Public Diplomacy, editors Kenneth Osgood and Brian C. Etheridge complain that the “global conversation” about public diplomacy has, “focused inordinately on the United States,” (p.5) and has been, “taking place in something of a historical vacuum.” (p.6)  The essays in this volume redress these shortcomings. The book opens with Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hecht’s essay, on “Cultural Diplomacy and Civil Society since 1850”. Gienow-Hecht urges public diplomacy scholars to expand their historical scope beyond the Cold War. Gienow-Hecht suggests that the early 20th century bears greater similarity to the present era.  Around the turn of the century, European cultural diplomacy was the province of professional groups, non-governmental organizations, and, occasionally, partnerships between these groups and the State.  These arrangements were beneficial to the State.  They required less capital outlay, less commitment of bureaucratic resources, and left planning in the more experienced hands of producers and distributors.  Distance from the State allowed a greater range of artistic license and risk-taking.  This model was not without its attendant risks.  Corporations and civil society groups did not always share the State’s view of the national interest, and sometimes acted at cross purposes to the State’s diplomatic goals.  As Gienow-Hecht reflects on the current state of the field she sees many similarities. U.S. policymakers are unwittingly re-creating cultural diplomacy along lines drawn by Europeans at the turn of the century at a time when America was a net consumer, rather than a net producer of cultural diplomacy products.  Current U.S. cultural diplomacy efforts are likely to face the same challenges as their historical analogues. As a candidate for the U.S. Presidency, Barack Obama articulated a vision for American cultural diplomacy based on public-private partnerships.  Now, as President Obama and his staff work to implement this vision, they should bear in mind the historical examples that predate both institutional memory and recent scholarship on Cold War cultural diplomacy. Gienow-Hecht’s article exemplifies both the strengths and the weaknesses of the volume.  All of the essays are excellent.  The quality of research and writing is consistently impressive but there is one systematic weakness: conclusions appear to have been stitched onto some of the articles, in order to prove their relevance to the overall work.  The essay by Gienow-Hecht was among the more egregious in this regard.  Her mention of the Obama administration seems to be a bit of an after-thought.  No doubt, it satisfied the requests of the editors, but it is somewhat jarring for the reader. Nevertheless, this weakness detracts little from the quality of the book.  The United States and Public Diplomacy showcases fascinating new research into the history of public diplomacy.  Each essay adds a fresh perspective to the narrative with impressive research and writing throughout. Collectively, they represent a significant contribution to the emerging literature on public diplomacy.  Contents of Kenneth A. Osgood and Brian C. Etheridge, eds., The United States and Public Diplomacy: New Directions in Cultural and International History, (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2010): Kenneth Osgood (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Brian C. Etheridge (Ohio State University), “Introduction. The New International History Meets the New Cultural History: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Relations” Jessica C.E. Gienow-Hect (University of Cologne), “The Anomaly of the Cold War: Cultural Diplomacy and Civil Society Since 1850” David Snyder (University of South Carolina), “The Problem of Power in Modern Public Diplomacy: The Netherlands Information Bureau in World War II and the Early Cold War” John Day Tully (Central Connecticut State University), “Ethnicity, Security, and Public Diplomacy: Irish-Americans and Ireland’s Neutrality in World War II” Neal M. Rosendorf (University of Southern California), “Hollywood, Tourism, and Dictatorship: Samuel Bronston’s Special Relationship with the Franco Regime” Seth Center (Historical Office, U.S. Department of State), “Supranational Public Diplomacy: The Evolution of the UN Department of Public Information and the Rise of Third World Advocacy” Hector Perla, Jr. (University of California, Santa Cruz), “Transnational Public Diplomacy: Assessing Salvadoran Revolutionary Efforts to Build U.S. Public Opposition to Reagan’s Central America Policy” Justin Hart (Texas Tech University), “Foreign Relations as Domestic Affairs: The Role of the ‘Public’ in the Origins of U.S. Public Diplomacy” Jason C. Parker (Texas A&M University), “Crisis Management and Missed Opportunities: U.S. Public Diplomacy and the Creation of the Third World” Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), “Film as Public Diplomacy: The USIA’s Cold War at Twenty-Four Frames Per Second” Helge Danielson (Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies), “Mediating Public Diplomacy: Local Conditions and U.S. Public Diplomacy in Norway in the 1950s” Michael L. Krenn (Appalachian State University), “Domestic Politics and Public Diplomacy: Appalachian Cultural Exhibits and the Changing Nature of U.S. Public Diplomacy, 1964-1972” Giles Scott-Smith (Leiden University), “Networks of Influence: U.S. Exchange Programs and Western Europe in the 1980s” The United States and Public Diplomacy: New Directions in Cultural and International History Kenneth A. Osgood and Brian C. Etheridge, eds. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2010 ISBN-13: 978 90 04 17691 1 ISBN-10: 90 04 17691 8 380 pages 2010-06-02T04:03:08+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:04:03:08Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/tbl4SuoeqJg/ #When:22:37:20Z Is there a public diplomacy remedy for betrayal?  Kishore Mahbubani’s Beyond the Age of Innocence: Rebuilding Trust Between America and the World attempts, with honesty, eloquence and heart, to answer this question.  Published in 2005, when anti-American sentiment was, according to many polls, increasing rapidly, Mahbubani’s analysis of America’s impact on the world, is an invaluable read for global leaders and the general public alike.  For those still asking, “why do ‘they’ hate us?” this book offers a perspective from the proverbial ‘they’.  As earlier reviews have stated, Mahubani’s book is elegantly and courageously written.  It is balanced in its portrayal of both America as a country and Americans as a people.  The author takes great pains to illustrate the nuances of the rest of the world’s view of Americans as a generous, albeit non-worldly society and the actions of America, the superpower.  He guides the reader through the psychological impact of an American foreign policy that can encompass both instant friendship and abrupt abandonment.  The image that emerges is one of a super power making its decisions from an insular, isolationist and reactive psyche, not as the leader of the free world fully conscious of its perceived values and opportunities to drive much of the world’s dreams. Mahbubani devotes much of the book to the United States’ evolving (and in many cases, devolving) relationship with Islamic nations and the religion itself as it applies to the current global fight against terrorism. Using the United States’ relationship with Pakistan as one example, Mahbubani highlights America’s wooing of Pakistan as a strategically important ally during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the United States were carving up the map of the world into West and East camps.  America’s friendship with Pakistan was seen by the U.S. through the prism of its loss of India as an ally to Russia.  After the Cold War, the United States often vacillated between canceling its foreign aid to Pakistan, or severely curtailing the amount.  This caused Pakistanis—even until today—to see America as a fair-weather friend that makes its decisions based solely on national interest with no concern for the freedom of the Pakistani people.  Moreover, Mahbubani also points out that while the U.S. consistently purports to value human rights and trumpets its support for democracy and liberty worldwide, a different reality emerges when its national interest is the motivating factor.  Thus, for the people of Pakistan, the U.S. conveniently ignores its most cherished values to deal with any military despot, dictator and human rights abuser in favor of advancing its strategic interests.  Pakistan is left with the feeling of betrayal by the world’s superpower. In 2005, when Beyond the Age of Innocence was first published, the United States was, in my mind, akin to a deer caught in the headlights not fully comprehending the anti-American backlash spreading around the world.  This was evident, according to Mahbubani, in America’s closely held self-image: that of a country loath to be perceived as just another cynical nation acting solely out of national interest, even though it wants the freedom to do just that.  America—and even more-so, Americans—wants to be viewed as consistent in its values and actions.  Indeed, much of our public diplomacy attempts to convey our values to the rest of the world. But if America has demonstrated, as Mahbubani contends, that it is an unreliable ally, where does this leave America’s public diplomacy? Especially since renewed efforts are underway to court the Pakistani people to be our allies in the fight against terrorism.  How does America re-establish trust with a country that feels alternately seduced and abandoned?  If successful public diplomacy is walking your talk, what does America have to do to reassure Pakistan of its long-term sincerity?  It is my hope that policy-makers read Beyond the Age of Innocence as both a historical analysis and as a cautionary tale to answer these questions and to aid in crafting U.S. foreign policy, toward Pakistan and other countries.  Quite simply, it is essential reading, not just for Americans, but for all who seek to build a better world based upon consistency in both words and deeds. BEYOND THE AGE OF INNOCENCE: REBUILDING TRUST BETWEEN AMERICA AND THE WORLD Kishore Mahbubani Perseus Books Group, March 2005 IBSN: 978-1586482688 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches, 320 pages 2010-04-29T22:37:20+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:22:37:20Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/H1odJQFWkmY/ #When:16:37:59Z Japan Foundation president Kazuo Ogoura has held high posts in his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and has served as Japan’s ambassador to Vietnam, South Korea, and France.  His diplomatic experience infuses Japan’s Cultural Diplomacy with pragmatic recognition of the value and the limits of cultural diplomacy. This slim volume contains much important information about Japanese diplomacy and general diplomatic practices.  Ogoura defines cultural diplomacy as “the use of cultural means to enhance a nation’s political influence.”  He distinguishes this from public diplomacy, which he defines as having “a well-defined political objective” and being “aimed at certain pre-determined targets,” while cultural diplomacy has broader, less precise goals related to improving a nation’s image. Ogoura shows how Japan has carefully and persistently used cultural diplomacy throughout the years since World War II.  In the period immediately after the war, notes Ogoura, “when in engaging in cultural activities overseas, the Japanese government emphasized such traditions as the tea ceremony and ikebana (flower arrangement), with the intention that they would convey Japan’s serene, peace-loving nature to the rest of the world.”  At the same time, he adds, “the overseas promotion of certain elements of traditional Japanese culture, particularly those related to the samurai spirit or feudal traditions, was discouraged.” Also receiving emphasis were exchange programs designed to internationalize Japan’s outlook.  For a country that had long favored insularity, exchanges were seen, writes Ogoura, “as a means to promote Japanese understanding of foreign cultures.”  Today, he notes, a goal of Japanese cultural diplomacy is to “not only propagate Japanese thought and traditions to the world but also aim at introducing non-Japanese culture to Japan to enrich the cultural heritage of the world.”  Further, according to Ogoura, “Japan has begun to harness cultural exchange as a means of building peace.” Recently, Japan employed cultural soft power when its cooperation with the United States during the Iraq war created image problems in the Middle East.  Picture books for children, anime, and an invitation to Iraq’s national football team to come to Japan were among the measures employed. Also, globalization has led to what Ogoura calls “corporate de-Japanization,” with an increasing number of Japanese firms being headed by foreign presidents, and a tendency to reduce the perceived “Japaneseness” of Japan’s international business community.  Ogoura notes that this is a different course than that followed elsewhere in Asia: “While Japanese corporations are busy divesting themselves of their national identity, people in other Asian countries are becoming increasingly nationalistic and patriotic.” In the midst of the shifting politics of Asia, cultural diplomacy is becoming more important.  As has been seen during times of tensions between Japan, China, and South Korea, cultural exchanges, writes Ogoura, “acted as a kind of safety valve,” helping those tensions dissipate outside conventional political processes. Japan’s Cultural Diplomacy does an excellent job of showing how principles of public and cultural diplomacy are refined according to an individual country’s needs.  During the 65 years since the end of World War II, Japan’s diplomatic goals have steadily evolved and, as Kazuo Ogoura so ably illustrates, cultural diplomacy has been an essential element in reaching those goals. Japan’s Cultural Diplomacy Kazuo Ogoura The Japan Foundation, 2009 ISBN: 978-4-87540-107-0 82 pages 2010-04-22T16:37:59+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:16:37:59Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/06jJbD53K0o/ #When:18:42:00Z The September 11, 2001 attacks stirred Americans to consider the possibility that the United States is not the center of the universe and that there might be, as R.S. Zaharna notes, a “connection between America’s image and its security.”  Doing something about this, said 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton, is “how we stop them from coming here to kill us.” Fraught words, as were many post-9/11 declarations about America and the world.  Zaharna, a highly regarded public diplomacy scholar who teaches at American University, relies on a calmer approach in Battles to Bridges, her concise but wide-ranging appraisal of U.S. public diplomacy during the past decade. Her outlook is valuably broad, recognizing that public diplomacy “is a political and communication activity” and must “be strategically aligned to the political and communication dynamics of the international arena in order to be effective.”  When conventional insular American communication values are determinative in implementing U.S. public diplomacy, even the best-intentioned efforts go askew. Zaharna deals with this, as with other issues in the book, with resolute even-handedness.  She writes that post-9/11 public diplomacy efforts, such as Radio Sawa and Al Hurra television, were “extremely innovative, ambitious, and expansive,” and “reflected the best and the brightest of American communication professionals.”  But on the next page, she writes of these efforts that “rather than winning hearts and minds, the initiatives appeared to be doing the opposite.”  Underscoring this, she quotes Rami Khouri, editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star: “Where do they get this stuff from?  Why do they keep insulting us like this?” At the heart of this failure, writes Zaharna, was the tendency of U.S. foreign policy officials to value slickness above substance.  She notes that “U.S. officials appeared to focus on improving the presentation of their messages – but not the underlying relationships – between America and the people in the Arab and Islamic countries.” Public diplomacy raises expectations among those it reaches, but it cannot succeed unless it is in synch with policy.  Even remarkable public diplomacy moments, such as Barack Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech, evaporate quickly unless they are supported by meaningful policy initiatives. One of the most important sections of Zaharna’s book is her thorough discussion of network communication and its role in the jump from old to new public diplomacy.  Old public diplomacy focused on message content, while new public diplomacy emphasizes message exchange, which networks can facilitate.  Zaharna notes that the pervasiveness of networks today renders obsolete the Cold War-style, head-to-head “information battles.”  And yet, she writes, after 9/11 U.S. public diplomacy “resurrected and vigorously pursued an information battle strategy borrowed from the Cold War – without first assessing whether that grand strategy was still viable.” She also examines the transformative power of globalized communication, pointing out that “today, the notion of geographic segmented audiences has become problematic.”  In the world of borderless media, distinctions between domestic, regional, and international publics have drastically diminished.  That might seem obvious, but the continued existence of the Smith-Mundt Act is just one piece of evidence that there are still those who believe they can hold back the tide. Battles to Bridges also provides solid analysis of nation branding, the distinctions between propaganda and public diplomacy, the importance of ethics, and other topics that will prove valuable to experienced practitioners and scholars as well as to the public diplomacy novice.  With this thoughtful, accessible book, Zaharna makes an important contribution to the study and practice of public diplomacy. BATTLES TO BRIDGES: US Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy after 9/11 Rhonda Zaharna Palgrave Macmillan, March 2010 IBSN: 0-230-20216-0 Size 5 1/2 x 8 1/4, 240 pages 2010-04-19T18:42:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:18:42:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/66eM1LSkwwA/ #When:19:44:01Z Despite the old injunction to ‘never judge a book by its cover’ one cannot really pick up a book without beginning to form an impression of what lies within.  Publishers hire designers for exactly this reason. On picking up Sally Totman’s book “How Hollywood Projects Foreign Policy,” this reader immediately felt a nagging sense of foreboding.  First there was the suspiciously open title.  Would the book examine foreign policy in general or specifically the foreign policy of the United States?  Would it focus on recent years or go back to the roots of the old alliance between the US government and the American film industry?  Would it look at all aspects of US foreign policy or focus narrowly on one aspect?  Then the author’s name was preceded with the word ‘by’ unusual for the cover of an academic monograph.  The illustration was a further red flag.  It shows dramatic incidents from recent Hollywood films dealing with the Middle East (George Clooney in “Syriana” is readily identifiable).  They are arranged in horizontal strips with sprockets running along the top and bottom edge.  Oddly this suggests images on still film, carried through the camera horizontally, rather than motion picture film which in camera and projector is carried vertically and hence has sprockets on either side.  One turns the book over and finds glowing endorsements of the work, but a brief comparison with the author bio finds these come from colleagues at Australia’s Deakin University—experts in international relations theory and Korean foreign policy respectively.  Handling the volume I had the sinking feeling that despite the Palgrave imprint I was slipping into vanity press territory.  I repressed these forebodings and plunged into the text.  Sadly, in this case my forebodings were correct. Totman’s book is really misnamed—a better title would have been: “Not Without My Stereotypes: Hollywood and US foreign policy towards rogue states from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush.”  That is the boundary of this enquiry.  It is a worthy subject which cuts to the heart of the White House spin around the Global War on Terror and its antecedents.  Logically enough, Totman sets out to trace US foreign policy towards six rogue states—specifically Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and North Korea, and makes it clear that she is looking to tell a story of state private collusion and Hollywood’s role in the wider propaganda apparatus of the USA.  Her research fails to find any hard and fast connection.  With the possible exception of Libya most rogue states don’t seem to have been identified that often explicitly in Hollywood scripts and for every outrageous stereotyped piece of hate/scare mongery—like the anti-Iranian “Not Without My Daughter” (1991) there seems to be a thoughtful or well researched counter balance like “House of Sand and Fog” (2004).  It a surprise just how few films she is able to study, and how obscure they are.  Her anti-Cuban texts include the sea monster flick “Octopus” (2000), and her anti-Iraq movies include “Human Shield” (1991) and others which did little box office.  Among the few films she claims as a box office success is “Not Without My Daughter” but this made only $15 million in the year that Terminator II hit nearly $200 million in the US alone.  Her book was presumably completed too soon to include “300” (2007) a film which has quite rightly angered Iran more than any other in recent years and grossed over $450 million worldwide. The book is sloppily written.  Foot noting is sporadic with vast swathes of text describing the history of the rogue states and their relations with the US in sub-Wikipedia generalizations supported by only occasional footnotes.  Errors abound.  The author appears to think that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was a Communist (p.2) and her narrative of the Carter years (p. 19) implies that he won his Nobel Peace Prize at that time rather than several decades later.  There are extraordinary errors regarding the content of films cited.  The author makes repeated reference to the anti-Russian bias of Cold War James Bond films whereas in reality the Bond villains were usually international criminal organizations and more likely ‘legacy’ German villains than Russian.  The Bond flim cliche is that the superspy would cooperate with the Russian (as in “From Russia with Love” or “The Spy Who Loved Me” ), or work to avoid a Cold War calamity brought by misunderstanding as in You Only Live Twice.  James Chapman’s study “Licensed to Thrill” is the text to read on these themes of Bondage.  For each of the sins of commission there are twice as many sins of omission: movies which deal with the rogues which she omits.  Cuba is especially poorly served, with many Cuban themes and characters ignored and an absurd focus on “Scarface” (1983), which was about someone expelled by Castro in any case. One of the most frustrating elements of this book is its failure to actually get to grips even with the main filmic texts invoked.  Totman pays no attention to the process by which films are made or to the fact that film is a visual medium.  She merely summarizes plots, quotes a few lines, speculates and moves on. This book would have been so much more worthwhile if Totman had attempted to investigate how the films were made: to look at the transformations from source novels or events through script drafts to the final screenplay.  Other scholars have been able to speak to directors, script writers and cultural or technical advisers and document the reasons why a film reached its final shape.  She is—for example—unaware that one of the reasons her sympathetic-to-Iraqis film “Three Kings” took the position that it did and showed such sensitivity and accuracy was because of the number of Iraqi cultural advisers on the film.  This is not privileged information.  They are clearly acknowledged in the film’s credits and explored in the producer/director interviews which come as a bonus on the DVD.  Totman doesn’t even both to identity the director/writer of that film—David O. Russell—by name. In the midst of—and partly because of—all this chaos Totman does outline an interesting anomaly.  It is plainly hard to prove the case that Hollywood is in lock-step with Washington in its vilification of specific rogue states.  Hollywood prefers to cast the net as broadly as possible, vilifying general groups like Arabs (as Jack Shaheen has shown) or in other eras Eastern Europeans or Germans.  The absence of specific enemy states is striking.  Totman would have had more grist for her mill if she had examined the generic convention of the fictional rogue state in popular culture like Berzerkistan in the Doonesbury cartoon strip, Kreplachistan in “Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me” or the troublesome state of Qumar in the TV show “The West Wing,” to say nothing of the rouge states which proliferate in video games.  As for Hollywood, when it isn’t poking fun at Rogue-stateism, it is routinely invoking rogue state scenarios to show the value of American hard power and provide a stage for the bank-able spectacle of that hard power in action.  There may be a commercial reason why this is so.  Identifying villains with real places means alienating a portion of your potential market, and Hollywood is above all an industry.  The anti-German films of the 1930s came only after the German market closed its door to US film exports.  Hollywood, like Voltaire, when asked to renounce the Devil on his deathbed, never makes an unnecessary enemy.  Hollywood is more restrained in this than the US government. In conclusion this is a truly abysmal book, which in its strongest passages merely reaches the level of an average bachelor’s thesis.  It falls short as both film scholarship and international relations, and through its legion deficiencies gives interdisciplinarity a bad name.  Its publication opens questions about the quality control mechanisms at Palgrave.  This book is of value only as a reminder of the some of the more obscure films that have been made on rogue state themes and as an example of how not to write a book on this subject. How Hollywood Projects Foreign Policy By Sally Totman with a foreword by Gary Scudder Palgrave Macmillan, October 2009 ISBN: 978-0-230-61869-5, ISBN10: 0-230-61869-3, 5-1/2 x 8-1/4 inches, 240 pages 2009-12-10T19:44:01+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:19:44:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/HTg_7ZbZXVc/ #When:23:21:00Z Edward R. Murrow’s contributions to public diplomacy are universally acknowledged but rarely explained. That’s a shame, because Murrow left behind more than just a few often-cited comments about the place of public diplomacy in foreign policy. His real legacy in this field is to be found in his unwavering insistence on maintaining values — often values rooted in journalism — to ensure the integrity of public diplomacy. In April 2008, to mark the 100th anniversary of Murrow’s birth, the Fletcher School of Tufts University presented a conference about “credible public diplomacy.” Credibility is the essence of successful public diplomacy. Murrow, while director of the United States Information Agency, said, “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.” He added, “It’s as simple as that.” Murrow thought it simple because he equated good public diplomacy with good journalism in the sense that accuracy must be its core. But in practice, delivering truthful public diplomacy can be complicated. Pursuit of short-term political gain can subvert truthfulness, and when that happens, public diplomacy is undermined. Murrow’s views about public diplomacy were just a starting point for the Fletcher symposium.  The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs presents articles by some of the conference’s speakers and, despite a bit of redundancy here and there, this collection provides a valuable overview of modern public diplomacy. Among the offerings: Mark McDowell discusses contrasts between small- and large-state public diplomacy. Bernard Simonin considers the semantics and other elements of “nation branding.” Leonard J. Baldyga contends that American public diplomacy overemphasizes the Muslim world, saying, “We are robbing Petrov to pay Pasha.” Lauren Brodsky argues for the importance of “engaging in a conversation about the actual goals of public diplomacy, reassessing missions, and evaluating how missions translate into actual messages.” Mark J. Davidson reviews the sophisticated, multifaceted appeal of a cultural diplomacy project. Erik Iverson outlines the “revolution in informational affairs” and the public diplomacy battle versus Al Qaeda. Sandy Vogelgesang cites the importance of public diplomacy having a moral underpinning so it will “reflect the nation’s traditional moral values.”  She writes that “U.S. government officials should lecture less and listen more” (an opinion more recently voiced by Undersecretary of State Judith McHale). The work of these and other contributors to the proceedings underscores the still evolving nature of public diplomacy. As the field has developed, it has become broader and more complex, with many players delivering messages in many venues. Sandy Vogelgesang notes that “an image of a suicide bomber on YouTube can trump the Pentagon’s latest press release on security success in Baghdad.”  The early public diplomacy of the Obama administration reflects the intrinsically dynamic nature of the field; in this instance the personalization of American public diplomacy efforts to an extent unprecedented in recent times. What has not changed, however, is something Murrow recognized early on: public diplomacy is dependent on policy. Without that linkage, the credibility Murrow stressed cannot be attained.  (In the nation-branding field, for example, “North Korea – friend to all” presumably wouldn’t work, no matter how lavish the campaign.) A case can be made that as public diplomacy has become more sophisticated, its proponents have lost sight of the fundamental importance of truth. Cutting corners is easy; truth is susceptible to infringement by those who overvalue expediency. No nation’s public diplomacy is immune to this. Succumbing to the degradation of truth will ultimately leave that public diplomacy ineffective or worse. Ed Murrow’s prescription for credible public diplomacy is as valid today as it was nearly a half-century ago. The Fletcher Forum provides a valuable service by reminding us of that. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, Special Edition 2008, Vol. 32:3, pp. 110, The Fletcher School, Tufts University. 2009-07-27T23:21:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:23:21:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/2BF_Hsdq52c/ #When:23:16:00Z There are two initial virtues in this book, neither of which is precisely related to the discussion of its topic. It is very clearly organized and pleasantly written, and the second is that it contains a great deal of information which Californians will certainly, and others should, find very convenient to have set out between the covers of a single book. The author has a clear purpose: he wants to show that California has distinct and very important connections with the outside world, and these connections are of growing significance in line with the advancing processes of globalization. He then wants to arrive at a realistic assessment of how much Californians and their government can and should seek to advance these interests on their own; finally, he gives an estimation of what would need to be done to make such policies effective. In the context of a discussion about how to promote California’s international interests, there comes a very succinct statement of the problem Professor Abraham Lowenthal intends to solve: “As a single state in the US federal union, California has no clear foreign policy mandate, however, nor does it have a dedicated international policymaking apparatus. It lacks, therefore, an accepted means for identifying its international interests or those of its citizens and for fashioning strategies and mobilizing resources to advance them. Although Californians have important international policy interests, we do not have systematic ways to identify, rank and pursue them.” p. 81 The first part of the book demonstrates the virtue alluded to above. It is a very full account of the ways and circumstances in which California, more than any other part of the United States, is linked to the global cultural, economic, and transportation systems. Having laid these out and provided some historical context - chiefly to point out that California is no stranger to having vital international connections, even that some of them were stronger in the past than they are now - Professor Lowenthal goes on to describe how these connections are arranged across the state. Los Angeles is the most globally linked area, followed by San Francisco, and then comes San Diego- an area which arguably represents the greatest challenge to finding acceptable routes to an expansion of California’s international role. The problem there lies in a local paradox: San Diego is physically the closest city to another country and, were it not for the thus far insoluble problems associated with Mexican immigration, ought to be able to be the leader of a cross border area of shared economic expansion. The San Diego district is obviously not helped by the border problem nor by having less effective transportation routes than either Los Angeles or San Francisco, both of whose ports and airports are greatly superior. San Diego’s harbor is dominated by the Navy and the airport is too small. The paradox represented by San Diego reappears throughout this study in the form of a kind of leitmotiv, indicating that the question of whether immigration can or should be brought to a stop or whether attention should be concentrated on getting the best out of those who have arrived and those who will come later, is crucial for California. The role of California and other states is likely to increase in importance as attempted Federal Government solutions have failed thus far. Although very important, and certainly international in its origins and consequences, the problems surrounding immigration are, in a sense, local. Professor Lowenthal very appropriately also provides a useful checklist of the other important international issues facing California. They include expanding the gains and addressing the costs to Californians of participating in the global economy. This breaks down, as it does all over the world, to encouraging investment, increasing international exports, and controlling the quantity and quality of imports- particularly those that might be distributed from California to the advantage of others but have adverse consequences locally. Also, California has already demonstrated its commitment to controlling its use of energy, guarding its supplies and its concern about climate change: this will continue to be a primary concern for the state. Next, California has a particular interest in global communications and culture. Lastly, building educational and cultural links and protecting international property rights have to be policies of significance for the state. Finally, there is a discussion about how California might equip itself to perform more strongly and with more knowledge on the global stage. Professor Lowenthal’s recommendations include: using local and state means to try to resolve the immigration problem; mobilizing, as has signally not happened before, the state’s congressional representation so as to bridge the gap between what California needs and what constitutionally it can expect to receive; and concentrating the efforts of specially created commissions to build “enhanced capacity to help our citizens, firms, unions and other non-governmental organizations better understand and pursue their own interests” (p.126). “Above all,” he concludes, “we need to change our mindset from living in a parochial place with the dimensions of a country to participating in a truly cosmopolitan center, ready to provide important leadership in the twenty-first century.” (p,138) It would be difficult to quarrel with either the material, the argument or the conclusions of this thoroughly well organized book. It would be possible, however, to add something. California is highly individual but not unique in having demographic and economic power on a scale greater than many countries, but not possessing the political institutions or sovereign power to match. There are other examples of similar situations – Bavaria and Catalonia in Europe, British Columbia in Canada, the Chinese coastal economic zones. In general, regional powers have tended to become extended, devolutions occur and this contributes to a general sense that the familiar lines of hierarchy and power in the international system are dissolving into something much more fluid. Then there are the institutions of global governance available at the other end of the power spectrum - chiefly the UN system - which were set up by states and also demonstrate the consequences of the dilution in the authority of the old nation state. In this, the United States is almost alone in the world in not feeling its effect very strongly and that may be why Professor Lowenthal sees the strength of the contemporary global system very clearly, yet describes California’s position in it without much reference to the global political consequences occurring elsewhere, occurring in fact more or less everywhere else. If California takes the medicine here prescribed, she will not find herself without company. Global California, Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge pp. 207, Stanford University Press, 2009 About the reviewer: Richard Langhorne is Full Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. He was Director of the Cambridge Centre of International Studies, 1987 – 1993 and Fellow of St. John’s College, Director of Wilton Park, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1993-1996 and founding Director of the Division of Global Affairs at Rutgers University, 1996 – 2008. He has written extensively on diplomacy and global politics. 2009-04-06T23:16:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:23:16:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/NYpMaoMp65U/ #When:00:43:00Z Public diplomacy as a field is fortunate to witness the publication of this major work by Evan H. Potter, entitled Branding Canada: Projecting Canada’s Soft Power through Public Diplomacy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008). Potter’s assessment in of the Canadian “brand” and associated concepts is an authoritative treatment with implications beyond the policies of an individual state. This book’s analysis of Canadian public diplomacy through the concept of “soft power” is distinguished by its depth and breadth of insight. It unfolds comprehensively in three parts: (1) definitions, debates and history; (2) instruments; and (3) process. Potter’s analysis focuses on the period from 1993 to 2005, with recommendations that are relevant for today and beyond. Potter’s argument is that Canada’s national qualities are ideal for the exercise of soft power (pp. x, 8). Canada arguably is the first “postmodern” state, with a self-image of helpfulness that focuses on international aid and peacekeeping (p. 5). Perhaps more than anything else, this trait, combined with an observed lack of investment by Canada in self-promotion, makes the study interesting. Great untapped potential exists and the need for successful branding of Canada is more urgent than generally realized. Canada is quite dependent on trade and thus its “international image” is of special concern (p. 25). Despite the risks posed by that reality, Canada spends about 10% of the amount allocated on average by its G8 counterparts to public diplomacy. Examples of under-utilization abound in this book, which covers international education, broadcasting, business promotion and tourism with equal effectiveness. For instance, in the case of international education, no strategy exists to combine “Canadian Studies programs, academic and youth exchanges, scholarships, and internships” and broadcasting services are described as “distinctly underdeveloped” (pp. 151, 153). In sum, the history of Canadian public diplomacy amounts to “improvisation” (p. 92). Potter offers well-informed and convincing solutions to the problems he identifies (At this point it might be noted that he is both an academic and practitioner with respect to public diplomacy). Ideas are derived from theorizing and case studies of Canadian public diplomacy with the United States and Brazil. High priorities include clear strategies and well-integrated tactics, along with well-staffed and funded professional public affairs teams. Key aspects that encourage these priorities come out in the case studies, namely, damage to Canadian interests as a trading state when (a) its reputation is sullied and (b) means are not available to respond quickly and effectively. With regard to the content of the Canadian brand, Potter is quite pragmatic about how to get things across better than before. He urges simplification; too many messages can end up meaning no lasting impact for any one of them (p. 240). Canada’s established reputation abroad already is positive, generally speaking, and includes “diversity, tolerance, and inclusion”.  It also is worth noting, before turning to specific suggestions, that traditional instruments of public diplomacy remain relevant but that the environment for their deployment manifests revolutionary change. An agenda for more effective public diplomacy must take into account the need for “broad-based public consent at home and abroad” (p. 254). For such reasons the book calls for the following major innovations in public diplomacy: • greater understanding of the countries being targeted by public diplomacy • integration of Canadian presence in global information networks, especially television and the internet • greater alignment of public diplomacy efforts with international priorities • more use of opportunities presented by the private sector • exercise of mutual public diplomacy Implementing these ideas should enable Canada, according to Potter, to realize its most important goals for public diplomacy. The lessons learned in the Canadian context apply with very little adjustment to its G8 peers and even to states well beyond that elite subset. While Potter’s treatment of Canadian public diplomacy is comprehensive, rigorous and compelling, even an outstanding book such as this one is likely to raise as many questions as it answers. Two areas come to mind for further discussion: the role of anti-Americanism and connections with political realist thinking. Potter expresses surprise at the difficulties encountered by Canada during era of the Smart Border Declaration, noting that the proposal did not seem to “gain traction in US public discourse” (p. 243). Damage to its brand caused by an image of weakness in standing up to international terrorism also caught Canada off guard. The shock experienced here by Canada reflects a lack of understanding about the cumulative impact of anti-Americanism in its political discourse. The sometimes hostile and even boorish pronouncements of Canadian politicians are grist for the right-wing mill in US politics. It is especially damaging to have a prime minister caught admitting that anti-US rhetoric is good politics at home. The effects of such gaffes or even intentional barbs on US opinion tend to be understood poorly north of the border. Potter’s recommendation that Canada focus more on understanding other countries, ironically, could apply to its US neighbor as much as any other country in the world. Relations with the US are crucial to Canadian peace and prosperity. Canadians in general, and some of their leaders in particular, may underestimate the damage that the “guilty pleasure” of highly expressive anti-Americanism can do to a relationship that is more interdependent than ever before. Perhaps somewhat humorously, advocates of political realpolitik will notice an implicit dialogue in Branding Canada with their theorizing. Potter urges Canada to be self-conscious about its need as a trading state to maintain a positive image abroad. This is not just about doing things that make the country look “nice” for its own sake. Instead, Potter’s analysis brings soft power back into a discussion with capability in an overall sense. Public diplomacy, for instance, is cited as a means to alleviate Canada’s loss of power relative to other states in the era since World War II. Branding Canada will become a standard in the field of public diplomacy for years to come. This book is of interest to those who care about either Canada in particular or public diplomacy in general. It even speaks to more general concerns about international relations and should be required reading for academics and practitioners alike. Reviewed by Patrick James, University of Southern California, with contributions from Sean Rushton and Jason Bouzanis. _______________________________ You can also read the transcript of our 2008 conversation about this book with Dr. Evan Potter when he was CPD’s Canada-U.S. Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in Public Diplomacy here.   2009-01-14T00:43:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:00:43:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/R7zc14NjCxg/ #When:04:46:34Z The following is a response from the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office to Paul Sharp’s CPD Book Review of Engagement: Public Diplomacy in a Globalised World. For a PDF of the full FCO Publication, click here When Paul Sharp says that our publication “Engagement” asks more questions than it answers, he is right. Our aim was not to try to come up with a rigid template for public diplomacy but to sketch out a theory of engagement that gives a revived public diplomacy a much higher profile, describing a practical toolkit useful to support foreign policy objectives. Our stance is that public diplomacy is absolutely not an “add on” to traditional diplomacy; it belongs in the mainstream of international relations. Professor Sharp does, however, ask some important questions: Is public diplomacy really different from propaganda? Is there a tension between national interest and being a good multilateralist? Are diplomats there to manage relationships or are they judgment makers and decision takers? Let’s start with propaganda. No one can deny that propaganda has had and will continue to have its uses, most explicitly when a people is engaged in war for national survival, as was the case in World War II. But for everyday use, a better definition of public diplomacy is John Brown’s:  “truthful, factual exposition and explication of a nation’s foreign policy”. Whilst propaganda forces its messages on an audience, and oversimplifies or even demonises contending positions, good public diplomacy listens, engages and tries to present a nation’s own goals and achievements transparently and with supporting evidence. Propaganda is by definition one-way communication, designed to be inscrutable or even to trick the target audience. It implies that one party has a firm position or ideology that it wishes to impose via highly persuasive communication techniques upon another.  Strategic communication, in the hands of a skilled public diplomatist, is, by contrast, a systematic approach to delivering objectives by generating more effective understanding of audiences and more effective ways of connecting with them to develop solutions that potentially shift attitudes and change behaviours on all sides. The decisive point is that this understanding can shape the policy goal itself. The means employed in Public Diplomacy differ, therefore, from those used in propaganda.  For example, when the UK Department of Health set out to re-shape its thinking through the use of strategic communication, its tools included a consultation exercise in which the views of 10,000 people were taken into account. It would be very cynical to regard this as propaganda. Professor Sharp’s unease comes from his sense that the ends in strong public diplomacy – behaviour change – are the same. But wanting to change someone else’s behaviour isn’t restricted to either public diplomacy or propaganda. It’s there in most forms of professional communication – whether a car advertisement or a blog on the website of a campaigning NGO. Our aim in “Engagement” was to show that public diplomacy can make foreign policy more open, more thoughtful, more rigorous, more professional and more effective.  Paul Sharp seems to think that whilst it is acceptable for governments to use strat comms to get people to wear seatbelts or stop smoking, we should draw back from using such persuasive techniques in the domain of foreign policy.  Why would it not be reasonable to use strategic communications, and therefore public diplomacy, to make it harder for violent extremists to increase their base of support? Conrad Bird’s article in “Engagement” hinges around a simple idea that, when asked to consider their choices and behaviour, people ask “What’s in it for me?”.  It’s harder to answer that question for foreign policy than it is for, say, wearing a seatbelt. But it can be done.  Paul Sharp quotes Jim Murphy asking, in his article in “Engagement:” how we can get Afghan tribesmen to buy into a long term democratic vision for Afghanistan.  Part of the answer comes from Conrad Bird’s article – of what’s in it for the tribesman.  It’s the same for an issue like climate change.  What’s in it for a businessman in China or in India? Can careful public diplomacy widen the appeal of a given policy or position? Of course in all public diplomacy there’s going to be something in it for us:  we want a democratic Afghanistan and we want a global deal on climate change. But the point is not to impose our answers onto people in other countries, but to explore synergies; points of mutual interest in search of a sustainable solution as opposed to one shaped by temporarily superior negotiating muscle. This concept goes some way to answering Professor Sharp’s second question. Is there tension between national interest and being a good multilateralist? In practice, every case will be different. No state is likely to act with reckless disregard for its own self-interest, but it is equally true that states seldom take positions without any regard at all for a broader, international set of considerations.  Professor Sharp’s distinction between the national interest and “the international relations approach” is too dogmatically drawn. In an increasingly interdependent world, systems of international governance will only thrive if they help states meet their national interest as well as proving sufficiently flexible in the face of shifting geo-political power balances. Professor Sharp’s third insight is more complex. He asks: is the public diplomat a thinker or a doer? I don’t think that we intended to suggest in Engagement that the ancient garb of diplomacy has acquired a blue collar. The meeting rooms of Geneva and the TV studios of a foreign affairs programme are a long way from the coal face. But we did want to suggest that diplomats, aid workers, even peacekeepers, have a very special value – they live alongside the people we are trying to influence. Their job is increasingly to understand on-the-ground concerns and factor them into our policy making. This role is specifically public diplomacy, as opposed to government to government relations. One of the challenges of the publication, which was on our mind as we edited the collection, was to maintain a distinction between these two forms of diplomacy. At times, despite our best efforts, the picture of a “traditional” diplomat occasionally emerged, usually stigmatised as old fashioned and wrong headed. Paul Sharp is quite right to point out that “old as well as new games are being played for old as well as new ends”. The good diplomat has indeed always been a convener. He or she has always held dinner parties where ideas and solutions are mulled over. Diplomats brief the local media – on or off the record; they speak at universities and hold private meetings in the offices of an NGO or the political opposition. Our aim has not been to suggest that any of this work is fruitless or even outmoded. Simply that the rise in open access media and the growth in one form or another of direct citizen voice means that there are more people in the world who will influence whether or not we achieve our foreign policy aims. Since these same forces also enable us to use new and interesting ways to engage with them, it seems counter-productive to decline the opportunity. The challenge in practice is to become good at the new public diplomacy.  That is why, unlike Professor Sharp, I would not set my compass to Talleyrand’s injunction: “surtout, pas trop de zele”.  Without a certain level of energy, and an ability to spot emotional as well as intellectual currents, public diplomacy today is unlikely to achieve its goals.  A laconic smile and a stiff upper lip are not necessarily guaranteed to engage the imagination and solidarity of others half way around the world. 2008-11-25T04:46:34+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:04:46:34Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/m9G8r86mumw/ #When:16:04:01Z For a PDF of the full FCO Publication, click here For the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s response to this review, click here. This is an excellent volume of essays on aspects of public diplomacy commissioned by Jim Murphy MP, the Minister for Europe at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), and made freely available online at the address above. Mr. Murphy and the FCO are to be commended for this effort. The breadth of the subjects covered, together with the manner of their treatment and the format in which they appear are all testament to the central thesis of the collection, namely that the way many international relations are handled is changing and changing fast in response to globalization. These changes are no more in evidence than in the (re)emergence of public diplomacy as both an instrument of foreign policy exploiting new techniques of communication made possible by the revolutions in information and communications technologies, and as a way of conducting international relations in general with the potential to subsume, not only more traditional relations, but also the very actors between whom they are undertaken. The collection consists of two parts, the first with ten essays on aspects of public diplomacy in general; the second of two essays with case studies. It begins with a look back at the lessons learned from past experience provided by the University of Southern California’s Nicholas J. Cull and Simon Anholt, a consultant who serves as an independent member of the FCO’s Public Diplomacy Board. Effective public diplomacy begins with listening, for example, and it also recognizes its own limits. You cannot simply brand a country in the same way you brand a product, but you can help people in other countries see your strengths and virtues more clearly. Alex Evans, a Non-Resident Fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and River Path Associates’ Managing Director, David Steven then sketch out a theory of contemporary foreign policy influence for addressing primary global issues like terrorism, good government in developing countries, and climate change. Public diplomacy contributes to solving these problems by building successively: a shared understanding of what they are; a shared platform for a campaign of change; and a shared operating system within which collective response can be undertaken. Professor Brian Hocking, in contrast, is more interested in the processes engendered by a shift from hierarchical structures to horizontal networks in social relations. The challenge for governments and their diplomats is to learn how to task these networks and get them to do what you want by working effectively with a wide variety of stakeholders who inhabit them and need to be involved in the policy process as early as possible. The focus of the volume then shifts from a world of possibly new, but familiar, players to the world of difference implied by culture. Inter-cultural connections build confidence, argues the British Council’s Martin Davidson, as he sketches out roles for diplomats as “boundary spanners” and innovative “network weavers” producing creative inter-cultural relationships. However, cultures are very different in quite basic and important ways, independent consultant Marieke de Mooij notes, and we can get into terrible trouble if we do not realize that this is so. Possibly, but if you take the time to get to know your target well, Conrad Bird of the British Government’s Cabinet Office maintains, through strategic communication pitched in terms of their interests and values, you can produce dramatic shifts in behavior unattainable by direct appeals based on one’s own terms of reference. This emphasis on technique, and the plethora of new techniques becoming available, is developed by Evan H. Potter of the University of Ottawa in his review of the interactive capacities of the second generation of the world wide web. Through the web, peoples can talk back to governments, they can talk to each other directly, and they may soon be sharing emotions, as well as ideas, if the promises of “Web 3.0” hold up. The kind of diplomats required for such a world and, particularly, the rough parts of it, is examined by Daryl Copeland, Senior Advisor in Strategic Policy and Planning at Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In addition to the old virtues which, as Sir Harold Nicolson might say, can be taken for granted, they had better be fit, brave and very flexible.  The collection concludes with case studies by the FCO’s Lucian Hudson and Alan Anstead of how people from government, business and non-governmental agencies worked successfully together on French environment policy, Indian HIV policy and climate change legislation in the US, and by Louise Vintner of the FCO and the British Council’s David Knox on how the impact of their respective institutions’ programs is evaluated. Taken together, the essays provide a very good introduction to the breadth and scope of the field indicated by the idea of public diplomacy. For those already familiar with the field, they also provide some insight into how the thinking of its leaders is evolving. Anholt’s lowering of expectations regarding national branding and Hocking’s argument about the pressures and imperatives for stakeholders to collaborate in network politics are instructive in this regard, while Potter’s and Copeland’s pieces convincingly demonstrate what a long, strange trip most of us will have to take if we really are going to embrace the idea of public diplomacy and all its potentials. From a more academic point of view, however, which admittedly may not be so important here, the collection disappoints. It does so in that the focus of most of the contributors remains firmly on a past which they all agree must be critiqued and left behind. It is this alone that holds what is, in fact, a very disparate collection of viewpoints and treatments of very different subjects together under the rubric of public diplomacy. If the intellectual side of the business is to prosper, however, it will need to move beyond critique and advocacy to sharpening the concepts used, teasing out the tensions and contradictions which exist between some of them, and generating interesting arguments and stimulating debates within the field of public diplomacy itself. Let me offer three themes I believe are present in the essays but which are insufficiently developed. The first is the tension between seeing public diplomacy in foreign policy terms and in international relations terms. Those interested in foreign policy see public diplomacy primarily as a set of techniques for advancing the interests and promoting the values of entities which they take to be a given. Thus Murphy wants to know how we can get Afghan tribesmen to buy into “a long-term democratic vision for Afghanistan,” (p.13) and Copeland wants public diplomats animated by, among other things, “the desire to pursue national interests” (139). However, if we take to heart the international relations approach to public diplomacy with its emphasis on network relations, their corrosive effects on established identities and the opportunities they present for people to speak (and listen) to each other in new ways, we may be forgiven for asking “why?” in both cases. Why should Afghans buy in to democracy, and what is so special about the national interest? Neither question can be answered without first acknowledging that public diplomacy sometimes has political drivers and always has political significance, but this is an acknowledgement that the public diplomacy literature seems very reluctant to make. The consequences of this reluctance are highlighted by my second theme, the old argument as to whether or not public diplomacy is really different from propaganda. Murphy notes that public diplomacy is not a new activity. Napoleon, for example, considered having his army convert to Islam prior to invading Egypt (p.7) while Evans and Steven maintain “Bin Laden is the quintessential public diplomat” (p.48). With the benefit of these insights, I found myself re-reading Bird’s enthusiastic account of how strategic communication can move people in the direction you want them to go (albeit, in this case, the worthy and wholesome directions of less smoking and more seatbelt-wearing), in a rather different light. If all this is public diplomacy or is, at least, on the minds of some of those practicing it, then I would not like to be one of their targets. People want relationships with one another as good things in themselves and for more instrumental purposes, but no one wants to be approached in the former terms for the latter reasons any more than they like a huckster who says he’s offering them a deal because he’s taken a shine to them. This should not be big news, and I am not presenting the world of public diplomacy as populated by ruthless Machiavellis on the one hand and naïve transformationalists on the other. The picture is far more complex. As Evans and Steven suggest, it is perfectly possible for the transformationalists to disrupt and destroy a consensus or clear a deadlock blocking an outcome they conceive as good (p.57). That they can, however, brings me to my third theme, the tension between the conception of diplomacy as managing relations whilst things do or do not get done and the conception which prevails in this collection of its actually being at the coalface of major problem-solving. There is, and always has been, a place for both, and the place of the latter is clearly growing as a result of changes in international relations which it is impossible to ignore. A professional virtue of the managing-relations conception, however, is skepticism, and it is this quality that is almost completely absent from the collection. As some of these essays, perhaps unintentionally, reveal, old as well as new games are being played for old as well as new ends in public diplomacy, generating the sorts of problems which diplomacy was designed to ease as much as solve. This being so, perhaps an essay or two from more conventional diplomats on their experiences in the field might have helped remind us that even new public diplomats, if they want to be effective, will need to remember the old injunction associated with Talleyrand “surtout, pas trop de zèle.” About the reviewer Paul Sharp is Professor and Head of Political Science at the University of Minnesota Duluth, USA. He is the author of two books and numerous articles on foreign policy and diplomacy. He is currently co-editor of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy and Palgrave’s “Diplomacy and International Relations” Series and was the founding chair of both the Diplomatic Studies and English School sections of the International Studies Association. For the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s response to this review, please click here. 2008-09-22T16:04:01+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:16:04:01Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/5DYogapXmJs/ #When:00:00:00Z This volume of The Annals follows four previous volumes, reviewed in this issue in a reflective essay by Nancy Snow, which the American Academy of Political and Social Science has published on various aspects of the subject now widely called public diplomacy or, for short, PD.  The topics of the earlier Annals issues were the U.S. image abroad (1954), international education (1961), the exchange of persons (1976), and the Fulbright experience (1987).  The present volume edited by Geoffrey Cowan and Nicholas J. Cull of the University of Southern California, with its active Center for the study of the subject, is more comprehensive.  It includes essays on international broadcasting, place branding, and the distinctive PD initiatives of Cuba and Venezuela as well as the People’s Republic of China and, principally, the United States.  Several essays engage in “theorizing public diplomacy,” by attempting to fit it into larger conceptual frameworks.  The volume is rich in historical and institutional information, with ample scholarly references.  With its broad range of coverage, and its scope of ambition, the Cowan-Cull Annals volume on “Public Diplomacy in a Changing World” may well become a landmark, as a valuable reference work and a current assessment of an expanding field. The “field” of public diplomacy is not one that is easy to circumscribe, or to define.  Many attempts have been made to say exactly what “public diplomacy” is ever since Ambassador Edmund A. Gullion, as Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, institutionalized the term in 1965 when he established The Edward R. Murrow Center for the Study and Advancement of Public Diplomacy.  By now, the general meaning of PD—the purposeful use of the press and other communications media and links with elements in the populations of other countries mainly in order to influence their governments, in ways that traditional diplomacy cannot—is fairly well known and understood.  The basic idea, which of course existed “before Gullion,” has proved seminal.  As Bruce Gregory in his essay (“Public Diplomacy: Sunrise of an Academic Field”) in the Annals volume attests, there has been considerable growth of the subject, with an increase in the number of “practitioners” teaching public diplomacy and related courses, “strengthening a trend” that began with the creation of the Murrow Center. The acceptance of public diplomacy as an academic field has not resolved a fundamental issue within it.  This is the question—not just a definitional one—of whether it is the government that conducts it (with diplomacy of any kind being considered properly, even legally, an official function) or whether private persons and groups (individual citizens as well as corporations, unions, churches, universities, foundations, service organizations, and other NGOs) can, as “diplomats,” play in the field too.  Are the latter responsible?  Are they accountable?  Are they as effective as they say they are?  Feelings can run high on these points, although both sides of the PD “ownership” divide now increasingly recognize the need for public-private partnership, both at home and abroad.  The explanation of the détente is partly a widespread realization that governments can’t do everything.  It also reflects a conceptual development within public diplomacy itself:  as necessarily going beyond one- or even two-way image projection or verbal persuasion to real relationship-building through involvement in joint action alongside foreign counterparts—the “diplomacy of deeds,” it has been called.  “Moving from Monologue to Dialogue to Collaboration” is how Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault describe this development in an essay.  By working together—in natural disaster reconstruction tasks, for example—the initiative, the responsibility, and the credit for a positive outcome can be shared.  The exact balance of governmental and non-governmental involvement in such operations, however, can be a very delicate matter.  Nicholas Cull in his historical taxonomy of the entire subject of public diplomacy in the Annals volume identifies the subtle factor of “the appearance of a wholly different relationship to government,” in varying situations, as a key to whether PD will flourish, particularly with regard to the “credibility” of a message or mission. The problem can be stated more philosophically:  Is it the State, acting on the basis of a doctrine of National Interest, that is determinative of a country’s relations with the world?  Or is it Society, a country’s People themselves (in the American case, a highly diverse population with ethnic and other ties with others elsewhere) that explains and validates a country’s interaction with others?  It is indeed the identity of “the nation” as well as its interest that should and, increasingly, does drive most national PD programs.  “Diplomacy” thus can become truly an international relationship, and not merely an interstate relationship. Cowan and Cull in their editorial preface to the volume implicitly bridge—perhaps even consciously finesse—the above who-owns-PD issue by defining public diplomacy as “an international actor’s attempt to advance the ends of policy by engaging with foreign publics” (emphasis added).  This brief definition allows for the possibility of autonomous involvement in PD by non-state players.  Similarly, Eytan Gilboa in a theoretical essay recognizes “the growing interdependence among all actors.”  It may be noticed that Cowan and Cull, perhaps not wholly intentionally, limit the “public diplomatic” field in their definition to policy-related matters—as distinct from, for instance, international commercial transactions or tourist travel.  Their formulation begs the primary question, however, of whose policy—whose message-content—is being advanced. Among the essays in the Annals volume there is a wide difference in perspective regarding this fundamental question.  Yiwei Wang in a frank and revealing essay on “Public Diplomacy and the Rise of Chinese Soft Power” observes that “the Chinese political system operates under the principle of democratic centralism”—State control.  He appears himself to favor increased governmental centralization, or integrated management, of diplomacy, including public diplomacy, even while pointing out that Chinese diplomats, accepting Zhou Enlai’s dictum “wai shi wu xiao shi” (there is no small issue in foreign affairs), have tended in obedience to be “overcautious.”  China’s diplomatic system is so “complicated by many departments and groups,” which Wang identifies in his essay, that it is difficult for China to “make long-term strategic arrangements to practice public diplomacy.”  In the past Beijing has emphasized “high politics” and neglected “grass-roots politics.”  The Chinese often have been surprised therefore when, for instance, “the White House sends goodwill gestures to China” and “the U.S. Congress expresses hostility.”  In order to “make the world accept the rise of Chinese power”—evidently its policy goal—the Chinese government “has to go beyond the traditional model of diplomacy,” suggests Wang, and “to initiate public diplomacy to engage foreign civil society”—thus to accomplish “the historic transition from soft power to a soft rise.” The originator of the now-universal blanket term “soft power,” Joseph S. Nye, Jr., in an essay also appears to hold an essentially State-based concept of PD—one of the ways of “getting others to want the outcomes that you want,” i.e., through co-optation rather than coercion.  The “you” in Nye’s formulation refers, of course, not just to the United States.  Countries without “hard power” (military strength or heavy economic assets) also can use PD to exercise “soft power.”  It is not always clear, however, that such countries have “the assets that produce such attraction,” and thus possess any kind of “power” at all.  (My own view is that “power” is a misnomer in diplomacy, in any case.)  Revolutionary Cuba has mainly just its colorful traditional culture to offer, as well as its more recently developed though under-resourced medical services.  Venezuela, however, has the asset of oil, which the Chávez government can offer cheaply or even give away in the name of its “Bolivarian” ideals.  “If taken too far,” as Michael J. Bustamante and Julia E. Sweig advise in their intricate and interesting essay contrasting the PD initiatives of these two dissident countries, “populist generosity can appear openly patronizing, a conundrum the United States has often faced with its own foreign aid programs.” Peter van Ham, in a lively essay on the currently fashionable idea of place branding, with reference particularly to the 27-member-country European Union, observes that “the EU may be viewed as the ultimate affluence brand.”  It has resources to spare.  It is still, however, perceived as a “civilian power,” without the military assets or the political capacity needed for it to achieve its full potential.  Van Ham wonders:  Can the EU alter its image—its “brand”?  He situates place branding within the wider spectrum of “postmodern power,” and suggests that identities can be consciously constructed.  (He, like several of the volume’s other authors, shows a strong intellectual interest in constructivism.)  The EU has “a powerful logo” but it has something more, van Ham stresses:  a commitment to law, civility, and mutual trust, and therefore a moral quality and a potential normative influence.  “Surely, European political life is not perfect,” he allows, “but for Arabs, Asians, and Africans alike, the EU model may serve as a powerful dream for their own regions.”  The European Union is essentially still an intergovernmental rather than collective political space.  It therefore has to be diplomacy as well as cross-national elite and mass communication that “constructs” it.  When the European Constitutional Treaty failed to achieve a sufficient number of ratifications, the European Commissioner for Communications, Margot Wallström, launched Plan D—Debate, Democracy, Dialogue—in order better to connect the EU with its citizens.  There remains nonetheless a general reluctance to create “a European masterbrand,” for that would compete with national identities and solidarities.  Furthermore, in a fast-globalizing international economy, it might obliterate the niche advantages that localities and their residents might now have or be able to develop in order to survive and prosper. Opposition to top-down diplomacy, whether at the national or the supranational governmental level, emerges most strongly in the Annals volume in the essay by the sociologist Manuel Castells, titled “The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and Global Governance.”  For Castells “public diplomacy” is, quite simply, “the diplomacy of the public.”  That is, it is something to be conducted by people themselves.  In practice, “the People” may be activists who are engaged in movements for indigenous rights, sustainable development, the anti-personnel landmines ban, abolition of nuclear weapons, and other existential forms of peace and justice.  “Because people have come to distrust the logic of instrumental politics,” he observes, “the method of direct action on direct outputs finds increasing support.”  Far from advocating a strengthening of governmental diplomacy, Castells places his faith in “the formation of a global civil society and a global network state”—that is, “de facto global governance without a global government.” Despite this profound difference of philosophical stance, Castells is not different in his understanding of the basic idea of PD from other contributors to the Annals volume, nearly all of whom recognize and approve the rise of people power.  The leitmotif of the volume is the need for better public opinion research—the bedrock of public diplomacy.  Nicholas Cull stresses the importance of “listening,” including targeted polling in other countries.  In the business of place branding, as Peter van Ham emphasizes, the “consumer” is king.  For Monroe E. Price, Susan Haas, and Drew Margolin in their essay on international broadcasting, the “audience” is all-important, and communications technologies should be chosen according to it, as well as to the policy mission.  Giles Scott-Smith in an essay discussing exchange programs and international relations theory focuses on “opinion leaders” and “the multiplier effect” of their roles abroad as “interpreters” within their societies. In the “Changing World” for Public Diplomacy of this Annals volume, with its new technologies, shifting power structures, and diffusing information, PD strategies must be “smart,” as Joseph Nye and also Ernest J. Wilson III argue in their contributions to the Cowan-Cull collection.  The world itself has “become smarter,” Wilson explains, owing to the spread of education, the increased availability of media outlets, the new affluence and sophistication of elites in China and other fast-developing countries, and, not least, the force of democracy.  From the perspective of the United States government, the new “smartness” of target audiences abroad has become, paradoxically, an embarrassment and a constraint, Wilson interestingly comments.  “The spread of democratic practices has meant that foreign leaders also have less leeway than in the past to act as American surrogates, as stand-ins for American power from over the horizon.”  However, Wilson acknowledges, today’s more democratic world also offers hope and presents new opportunities.  For diplomacy, the Changing World means becoming more open, more public, and much more communicative.  All diplomacy may never become public diplomacy, as some have suggested, but the world’s public will surely become more “diplomatic.” About the reviewer Alan K. Henrikson is Director of Diplomatic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he recently chaired the Edward R. Murrow 100th Anniversary Conference, “Credible Public Diplomacy—A Lesson for Our Times”.  He is author of What Can Public Diplomacy Achieve? (Clingendael, 2006). 2008-07-11T00:00:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:00:00:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/tov-ekmpBCQ/ #When:18:37:00Z Yale Richmond’s self-described odyssey as a U.S. diplomat through countries on the frontlines of the Cold War parallels in many ways my own, some 30 years later, as a public diplomacy officer serving in Europe, the USSR, and then Russia. Seeing the cover photo of Poles eagerly perusing the latest issue of “Ameryka” magazine, USIA’s premier publication for the Soviet bloc, brought back memories of my monthly rounds of kiosks in Moscow back in 1980 to check on the number of copies of “Amerika” (America Illustrated) delivered to each, as this was an important gauge of U.S.-Soviet relations.  Good relations equaled more copies for sale to Soviet citizens; bad relations meant more copies returned to the Embassy as unsold due to “lack of interest.”  Relations were very tense back then, in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics that summer, so the number of copies of “Amerika” returned to the Embassy reached the tens of thousands.  We eventually got them distributed in subsequent years as relations improved, and they took pride of place in cramped communal apartments across the vast Soviet empire, each well-thumbed copy pored over by multiple readers hungry for information about life in the United States. Likewise, Richmond’s account of the USIA touring exhibitions program, which over a 32 year period beginning in 1959 brought 23 major exhibitions to the USSR that were visited by 20 million Soviet citizens, sparked personal memories.  It was as a Russian and Ukrainian-speaking guide on one of those exhibits that I, as a recent college graduate, was introduced to public diplomacy.  That experience led me to a career in the Foreign Service.  Although Richmond’s personal memoir gets off to a somewhat slow start in the first chapter on Germany, which bogs down in too much detail on his daily comings and goings, the section on nation building in Laos in the mid-50’s piques interest, and things get going once Richmond arrives in Poland.  He really moves into his element with the vivid descriptions of U.S.-Soviet cultural relations as experienced during his assignment to Moscow in the late 60’s.  Richmond’s recollections of the painstaking work that went into hammering out detailed cultural agreements with the Soviets is insightful, and serves to highlight the key role those accords played in our bilateral relations at the time.  In describing the intense negotiations between the two sides, Richmond quips, “It was an eye for an eye, if not always a truth for a truth.”  Assessing the long term impact of these efforts, Richmond points out that, “U.S.-Soviet cultural exchange, conducted over a period of 30 years, helped prepare the way for the end of the Cold War, and at a fraction of the cost of our military and intelligence operations over the same years.”  In the words of one Russian musician: “Cultural exchanges were another opening to the West, and additional proof that our media were not telling us the truth.” Recounting his time in Poland in 1959, Richmond describes a PD officer’s dream scenario: “In those years, we had little or no guidance from Washington on what to do in Poland, and didn’t need any.  Opportunities for Public Diplomacy were everywhere, funding was available, and all we had to do was establish the priorities.”  It was another era.  And yet, many of the strategies, approaches and programs used to such great effect at that time served us well in subsequent years, and are still relevant today.  According to Richmond, the venerable George F. Kennan, in describing the importance of cultural contact in combating anti-Americanism, observed that if we could only convey the value we attach to our cultural life beyond our borders, he “would willingly trade the entire remaining inventory of political propaganda for the results that could be achieved by such means alone.”  The sad reality is that even though many experienced officers spoke up about the value of cultural exchange and the ongoing need for a robust public diplomacy effort in the world even with the end of the Cold War, those recommendations fell on deaf ears.  Cultural and exhibit offices were dismantled, publications abolished, libraries and information centers closed, budgets for public diplomacy drastically reduced.  It was time for a “peace dividend,” many politicians said.  And even though there was a substantial infusion of resources into Russia and the other countries of the former Soviet Union in the 90’s under the Freedom Support Act, after barely a decade—half a generation—that funding was severely reduced and redirected to other areas deemed to have a higher priority.  As Minister Counselor for Public Affairs in Moscow from 2001 to 2003, I could see the cumulative impact of our exchanges and information programs on tens of thousands of people across the vast reaches of Russia.  Establishing and nurturing democracy and free markets on the ruins of Communist states requires sustained effort over generations.  Jack Matlock, former Ambassador to the USSR, points out in his forward to this volume that the work done by Yale Richmond and others during the Cold War may not have had an impact that was immediately apparent, but it did lead over time to reform and change, with participants in our exchange programs playing key roles.  So it is today. Making the case for increased spending on “soft power,” Defense Secretary Gates in a speech last November put the matter in stark terms: “This year’s budget for the Department of Defense—not counting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—is nearly half a trillion dollars.  The total foreign affairs budget request for the State Department is $36 billion—less than what the Pentagon spends on health care alone.”  The portion devoted to public diplomacy is only about $974 million.  In a word: we need more resources to do the job. Summing up his Cold War odyssey, Richmond poses these questions: “Will similar public diplomacy practices succeed in the twenty-first century?  Can what worked to defeat communism in the Twentieth Century serve as a model for defeating terrorism and anti-Americanism in the much different world we live in today?” Richmond responds in the affirmative, and I agree, while recognizing the dramatically altered global communications environment.  Given the right number of people and sufficient resources, public diplomacy can continue to play a vital role in serving the national interest, and make friends for the United States around the world.  The most important tools in the public diplomacy officer’s kit have stood the test of time: fostering exchanges of all kinds, from high school to grad students, to young professionals and future leaders across the spectrum; providing credible information about the U.S. via both new and mass media, as well as easy access to resources, through small information centers, that highlight the vibrancy of our democracy; and promoting programs that showcase the best of American culture in the performing and plastic arts, which can serve to break down barriers and create universal human bonds.    Richmond’s personal account of how public diplomacy was conducted during the Cold War gives the reader a practitioner’s perspective on this fascinating period in our history, and underscores public diplomacy’s continued importance in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.    2008-05-12T18:37:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:18:37:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/IbBckgOLCRA/ #When:17:50:00Z As we mark the fifth anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it is worth revisiting that first year of the U.S. occupation.  The Green Zone of Chandrasekaran’s title has come to symbolize the entire Iraq venture, the enclave where America tried to graft its national narrative and institutions onto a Middle Eastern society, and then was surprised at the transplant’s rejection.  In the immediate aftermath of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue, it is a time of striking images and—in some corners of the neoconservative world—heady dreams of remaking the Middle East in America’s mold.  It’s the world of the Coalition Provisional Authority or CPA, under “viceroy,” “proconsul,” “presidential envoy,” or simply, as his official title said, Administrator L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer. Enter this world with Rajiv Chandrasekaran and prepare to… laugh.  You know you shouldn’t, but some of his vignettes on the heights of hubris on the Tigris are so outrageously funny that you might weep.  As you should, for the absurd tragicomedy of life in the Green Zone is rendered here as nowhere else.  Funny but never flippant, Chandrasekaran was The Washington Post Baghdad Bureau Chief before, during, and after the invasion. Though there is shooting, this is not a “war story,” and most of the fireworks are from policy conflicts within the blast-proof walls of the American bunker.  “Green Zone Scenes” provide illuminating introductions to each chapter’s theme.  There are good guys and gals who earnestly try to contribute to rebuilding war-torn Iraq, though many are completely out of their depth.  The wounds are mostly self-inflicted, and they are many: the Pentagon prohibits retired general Jay Garner, the original post-conflict czar, from seeing the multi-volume State Department “Future of Iraq” study;  free marketeers bent on privatizing Iraqi state-owned industry succeed in adding thousands to the ranks of the unemployed.  “A Deer In the Headlights,” as one chapter is entitled, sums up the willful disregard for area expertise, rejected in favor of ideological certainties. My favorite vignette is on the public diplomacy skills of the CPA’s police chief: “experts concluded that more than 6,600 foreign police advisers should be sent to Iraq immediately.  The White House dispatched just one: Bernie Kerik.”  Kerik spent only a couple of months in Iraq before returning to the U.S. and his ill-fated run for Homeland Security Secretary.  At one point he asks an aide, “who the [expletive deleted] are these people?,” referring to a group of Iraqi judges, assembled at the Palace to meet CPA counterparts.  We are not told whether they overheard Kerik. Not all CPA staffers had such bad manners, but the mutual incomprehension was the same.  Stratcomm (Strategic Communications, or the PR shop) had true believers in the civ-mil duo of Dan Senor and Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt;  Chandrasekaran highlights one revealing press conference exchange with an Iraqi journalist: Q: General Kimmitt, the sound of American helicopters, which fly so close to the ground, is terrifying young children, especially at night.  Why do you insist on flying so low and scaring the Iraqi people? A: What we would tell the children of Iraq is that the noise they hear is the sound of freedom. [Followed by 15 lines of similar sanctimonious sentiment.] If Bremer was the lord of the Green Zone, Senor was the ruler of the “Green Room,” as the Stratcomm home in the Republican Palace was known.  Senor, says Chandrasekaran, had a “you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us attitude toward journalists.”  Chandrasekaran tells of seeing only Fox News switched on in Senor’s office, and notes that Senor joined Fox post-CPA as a paid commentator on Iraq. Public diplomacy professionals will be further interested in the in-depth treatment given to broadcast professional Don North and his efforts to set up the Iraq Media Network (IMN).  This seat-of-the-pants, under-funded, misspent resources tale is emblematic of the entire venture.  Instead of a beacon of press freedom, said North, “to some in the CPA, IMN was a propaganda tool: ‘we’re paying for it, so we can decide what airs.’” Chandrasekaran tells of media budgets blown to airlift in flashy armored Humvees, when North was in dire need of basics like batteries for TV cameras;  of a staged “interview” of Bremer by Senor, which the Iraqi IMN staff deemed “agitprop” and refused to air;  and of a CPA-imposed daily propaganda show, preempting the IMN news. IMN, North concluded, “had become an irrelevant mouthpiece for CPA propaganda, managed news, and mediocre programs.”  In Washington, President Bush talked about “engaging in the battle of ideas in the Arab world.”  But in Baghdad, North said, “We have already lost the first round.” As black-comedic as “Emerald City” often is, the overall theme is of lost opportunities.  Decisions—often based solely on received ideological wisdom with no foundation in Middle Eastern realities—are made, and the consequences are tragic.  “A wasted year,” is the verdict of several American and Iraqi insiders. Many excellent books have been written—some admittedly weightier—on the ambiguous venture called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”  The strength of “Emerald City” is in its anecdotes, for they provide a human backdrop for well-known events like the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and the descent into anarchic looting.  There are limits to the anecdotal approach, however.  In the chapter entitled “The Plan Unravels,” I wish that Chandrasekaran had tried a bit less to explicate the meanders of Bremer’s various constitutional, electoral, and institutional attempts to impose his imprint on Iraqi politics.  “Emerald City” is best read as a nonfiction novel, and Chandrasekaran makes effective use of a string of interviews with lesser-known CPA staffers, tracing their efforts, whether heroic or misguided. “Emerald City” is above all an antidote to those who still insist on America’s “transformational” role in imposing or inducing culture-changing attitudes in foreign lands.  Chandrasekaran shows the limits of “Strategic Communication,” where the message, no matter how expertly packaged and delivered, is undermined by the realities evident to all.  Chandrasekaran, who quotes T.E. Lawrence, would have preferred that the CPA had read the legendary Arabist’s admonition:  “Do not try to do too much with your own hands.  Better the Arabs do it tolerably well than that you do it perfectly…”  In the subsequent five years, the Emerald City’s CPA morphed into the largest American Embassy in the world, the CPA nation builders left their grandiose plans for Iraq behind and jumped on the plane, and Paul Bremer collected his Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Chandrasekaran’s highly credible book shows that for the “diplomacy of the deed” to be effective, humility à la Lawrence is in order. About the reviewer Gerald Loftus is a retired U.S. Foreign Service Officer living in Brussels.  He left the U.S. State Department in 2002, after 24 years in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, last serving as Chargé d’Affaires of the American Embassy in Luxembourg.  Most recently a consultant to the Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies and the U.S. Joint Forces Command, he provides advice on the nexus between diplomacy and defense.  His website, Avuncular American, comments on world events as seen by an expatriate in Europe. 2008-04-24T17:50:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:17:50:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/BFAXUKdwPwc/ #When:18:02:00Z Can Bono, Brangelina and Becks Save the World? As I read Andrew F. Cooper’s Celebrity Diplomacy, a first-rate meditation on the role of media stars as international relations players, my mind went back to 2000 and a visit by Bono, lead singer of the mega-group U2, to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  I heard a commotion outside my office on the third floor of the Littauer Center and peered out into the hallway just in time to see a diminutive figure with longish hair disappear around the corner.  Several young women staffers were standing about in a gaga state.  “Did you see?” one breathlessly declared.  “That was BONO!”  I had recently heard that Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who headed the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development, had struck up an acquaintanceship with the Irish vocalist;  the two shared an interest in the issue of Third World poverty and debt forgiveness as an antidote.  Bono was in fact on his way over to the CID office for a meeting with Sachs.  (For Bono’s June 2001 Harvard Class Day speech, click here .)  At the time, the budding relationship between the buttoned-down academic and the flamboyant rock star seemed to many observers, myself included, little more than an bemusing, ephemeral oddity. Those of us who at the time minimized Bono’s social-political commitment as a well-meaning pop musician’s passing fancy were of course proven wrong.  The cover of Celebrity Diplomacy features a photograph taken years later of Bono walking confidently beside President George Bush, a testament to the longevity and seriousness of the singer-activist’s humanitarian efforts, as well as the extraordinary access to the corridors of political power that he has developed.  Unsurprisingly, Bono looms large in Cooper’s analysis of celebrities who seek to play a constructive role in international affairs, whether through an affiliation with intergovernmental institutions like UN-affiliated agencies, NGOs like Greenpeace and Amnesty International, or through freelance efforts of varying sophistication. Cooper’s taxonomy of celebrity diplomacy is straightforward.  “To retain the label of ‘celebrity diplomats’,” he writes, “individuals must not only possess ample communication skills, a sense of mission, and some global reach.  They must enter into the official diplomatic world and operate through the matrix of complex relationships with state officials.” (p. 7)  The historic template for celebrity diplomacy was provided by actors Danny Kaye and especially Audrey Hepburn in their work for UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund in the mid-to-late twentieth century.  Today we have the nonpareil Bono, “the talisman of celebrity diplomacy” (p. 36), who has turned out to be preternaturally gifted in the art of navigating and manipulating traditional power precincts, whether the White House, Whitehall, or the World Economic Forum.  Aside from Bono, Cooper offers sharp overviews of the activities and effectiveness of other celebrity diplomats, including former Boomtown Rats lead singer Sir Bob Geldof—mastermind of Live Aid and the “outsider” yang to Bono’s “insider” ying;  the surprisingly effective and engaged British footballer David Beckham;  the Late Princess Diana;  and of course actress Angelina Jolie (also featured on the cover of Celebrity Diplomacy), who has displayed perseverance and braved numerous hardships in her ongoing role as a goodwill ambassador for the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees. As Cooper notes, Jolie is if anything an even more implausible celebrity diplomat success story than was Bono, an actress who “reveled in an image of wild, eccentric behavior via her series of relationships with celebrity men … multiple tattoos, and a variety of other ‘silly self-destructive things.’” (p. 32)  But she has been diligent and committed in her efforts, garnering respect from figures like Jeffrey Sachs and former Council on Foreign Relations president Winston Lord, who expressed to me his great admiration for Jolie in a conversation some months back. Along with the celebrity diplomat successes there have been clunkers, such as Gerri Halliwell of the Spice Girls, who quickly lost interest in advocating for the UN on family planning, and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, whose financial problems led her away from pro bono UN activism to concentrate on her contract with Weight Watchers.  And then there are the “loose cannons” (p. 115)—figures like actor Richard Gere and singer-actor Harry Belafonte, and even Princess Di herself, who have both affiliated themselves with official agencies and made transgressive, undiplomatic statements, such as Belafonte’s 2006 denunciation of George W. Bush as “the greatest terrorist in the world” on Venezuelan television in the presence of an approving Hugo Chavez. Nonetheless, Cooper is quite correct in concluding that while celebrity diplomacy is not problem-free, the benefits can be considerable:  “The best celebrity diplomats have figured out far more successfully than their professional counterparts how a sophisticated form of public diplomacy can be operated.” (p. 127)  But there is an undiscussed potential dark side to celebrity diplomacy that goes beyond the risk of trivializing or distorting critical issues that concerns contemporary critics of the phenomenon (p. 114).  Celebrity Diplomacy concentrates exclusively on efforts undertaken in support of humanitarian and liberal causes.  African poverty may have made strange bedfellows of George Bush and Bono, but few on the left would argue with the sentiment behind their partnership. But what about when celebrities support vile regimes and programs?  Charles Lindbergh was one of America’s foremost celebrities in the 1930s due to both his history-making solo flight across the Atlantic and the tragic kidnapping and murder of his child.  Lindbergh repeatedly visited Nazi Germany, lauded the Nazis’ accomplishments and the power of the Luftwaffe, received a medal from Air Marshall Herman Goering, and vigorously opposed war between the U.S. and Germany.  In the 1960s Hollywood producer Samuel Bronston established a high-profile movie studio in Franco Spain, where he offered unstinting aid to the international propaganda efforts of the right-wing military dictatorship there via popular epic films like El Cid, pro-Franco documentaries, and promoting U.S. and other international tourism to Spain.  And last year director Steven Spielberg signed on as a leading consultant to China’s communist government for the 2008 Beijing Olympiad, a role he recently relinquished in the face of withering criticism from opponents of Chinese policy toward Sudan and the Darfur genocide like actress Mia Farrow, who warned the director of Schindler’s List that he risked becoming “the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Olympics.”  Whether out of ideological affinity (Lindbergh), ruthless instrumentalism (Bronston), or sheer heedlessness (Spielberg), celebrities have periodically placed themselves in the service of heinous, or at least morally dubious, causes. Still, such activities are clearly the exception, not the rule, when it comes to celebrity diplomacy.  The great majority of such efforts conform to a Hippocratic standard:  at worst, they Do No Harm; and the best efforts, like those of Angelina Jolie and Bono, dramatically expand the parameters of what has traditionally thought to be achievable via diplomacy.  Andrew Cooper has done an outstanding job of exploring this brave, not-quite-new world.  Moreover, aside from its substantive virtues, Celebrity Diplomacy displays clear organization, a salutary brevity, and a droll wit (for example, “Bono had to deal with rebukes that his ‘day’ and ‘night’ jobs—even if Bono’s day job was most often performed at night—were at odds with each other.” [p. 42]).  Future scholars of this subject, and I hope there will be many, will owe a great debt to his seminal study. 2008-04-09T18:02:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:18:02:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/BAffGyD4TV4/ #When:21:48:00Z Following the end of the Cold War and the opening up of communications channels for a free flow of information, the United States government played a less active role in promoting a positive image of American culture abroad, perhaps under the assumption that the international appeal of American popular culture would do the job on its own.  One of the unintended consequences of this hands-off approach to public diplomacy has been a rising tide of anti-Americanism, based upon, among other things, the inadequacy of popular culture to provide a full and accurate picture of American society and values.  There is now an increasing consensus that active steps need to be taken in order to counter the international perception of American society as uncultured and unsophisticated.  Reinvestigating the past successes and failures of American cultural diplomacy as described by Penny Von Eschen in her latest book on the “jazz ambassadors” of the Cold War might provide a good starting point for analysis. Von Eschen’s thought provoking book entitled Satchmo Blows up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War, explores how and why the U.S. Department of State sent American jazz artists around the world as cultural ambassadors during the Cold War.  On one hand, Von Eschen argues, the prominence of black artists, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong, as well as integrated bands led by white musicians such as Benny Goodman and Dave Brubeck, helped counter international criticism of racism and segregation in American society.  On the other, jazz music was promoted by the State Department as an exclusively American cultural contribution:  “Unlike classical music, theater, or ballet, jazz could be embraced by U.S. officials as a uniquely American art form.  Government officials and supporters of the arts hoped to offset what they perceived as European and Soviet superiority in classical music and ballet, while at the same time shielding America’s Achilles heel by demonstrating racial equality in action.” Von Eschen’s survey of music as a cultural diplomacy tool begins with Dizzy Gillespie’s tour of the Middle East in 1956 and ends with Clary Terry’s tour of Greece, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India in 1978.  In the context of the Cold War, however, perhaps most significant was the jazz ambassadors’ ability to penetrate the Iron Curtain and establish an influence where little existed in the way of cultural and ideological exchange.  Jazz tours of the Soviet Union appealed to the general public and often cunningly bypassed the Soviet authorities by impromptu public performances and unannounced jam sessions.  During Benny Goodman’s tour of the Soviet Union in 1962, Goodman took out his clarinet in Red Square and mocked the Soviet guards by playing “Pop Goes the Weasel” as they marched by.  There is no better testimony to the success and potent influence of such performances than the response of the Soviet authorities to attempts by Russian jazz musicians to participate in jam sessions or speak with the band members in private.  On the night of their final concert, Benny Goodman’s band looked on as the Soviet police whisked away the local jazz club leader.  Politics and culture intersected in strategic thinking across the Atlantic as well.  Occasionally, American Foreign Service Officers tried to identify Soviet jazz fans that might serve as intelligence contacts.  For example, after Duke Ellington’s tour of the Soviet Union in 1971, the State Department produced a study of jazz clubs in Leningrad, “in order to augment American intelligence on potentially pro-American Soviet citizens.” Even though the jazz ambassadors received warm welcomes almost everywhere they went, Von Eschen is clear to point out that the effect of these cultural programs could be undercut by other methods employed to achieve U.S. foreign policy goals.  She concludes that covert operations to destabilize foreign governments undermined the goodwill generated by the jazz tours, yet her account also shows that the tours encouraged a positive view of American culture independent of American foreign policy. As a professor of African American studies at the University of Michigan, Von Eschen gives special attention to the issue of race.  She attempts to walk the line between lauding jazz musicians as civil rights ambassadors and denouncing the State Department’s exploitation of black artists as pawns in the Cold War.  Von Eschen argues that the State Department relied on black jazz musicians to present a rose-colored image of American race relations, even as Jim Crow laws were still in place.  Yet, even if the musicians did not believe that they were representing a color-blind nation, many African-American jazz artists such as Duke Ellington took great pride in representing their race as well as their nation.  Others, including Dizzy Gillespie, distanced themselves from American nationalism and promoted jazz as a universal world-music. Recognizing the popular appeal of African-American gospel and soul, the State Department joined forces with private promoters such as Newport Jazz Festival founder George Wein and helped send a diverse range of American artists to strategically important areas that would normally be of little interest for commercial tours.  Blues legend BB King traveled to Dakur, Accra, and Lagos in 1970, and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson toured India in 1971.  In addition, George Wein helped organize eclectic jazz tours in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and South America.  The strong points of the book include an accessible style and excellent use of primary source documents from U.S. government archives, English language press reports, and first-hand interviews with musicians. Von Eschen’s book is concisely written and laden with informative and enlightening anecdotes.  One of the highlights of the book is Von Eschen’s description of the jazz musical “The Real Jazz Ambassadors,” a work that presents a satirical commentary on the jazz tours co-written by Dave Brubeck and Louis Armstrong in 1960.  The lyrics highlight the irony of black musicians being asked to represent a nation that still endorsed segregation.  The book also highlights American attempts to shape attitudes in the Middle East through cultural diplomacy such as Dave Brubeck’s 1958 tour of the Middle East, which included stops in Afghanistan and Iraq.  In Kabul, Brubeck’s quartet played for a mixed audience of Soviet and American military advisors eager for cultural diversion.  After the concert, a security advisor from California confided to Brubeck that the U.S. government should be more supportive of the arts.  Later in the tour, Brubeck played for employees of an oil company in Baghdad just days before a military coup over-threw the U.S. friendly regime. In her discussion of race, the author walks a fine line between acknowledging the contributions of the jazz tours towards promoting civil rights and democracy and denouncing the abuse of black musicians by the U.S. government. Von Eschen’s arguments about imperialism and espionage are less convincing.  She poignantly draws attention to the contradiction between advocating democracy while supporting oppressive dictatorships abroad, yet her criticism of U.S. policy overlooks Soviet foreign policy by proxies.  Von Eschen’s critique of U.S. “imperial” ambitions makes little effort to respond to opposing points of view, preferring instead to cite like-minded critics.  In addition, more could have been done to represent the views of local non-English language press.  Nonetheless, Von Eschen’s book presents an informative historical survey of jazz in the service of American cultural diplomacy. In the epilogue to her book, Penny Von Eschen laments that contemporary U.S. cultural diplomacy displays ignorance of the lessons of the past, and she warns of the danger of relying on McDonalds and Britney Spears to represent American culture abroad.  Since her book was published in 2004, the U.S. Department of State seems to have learned from the lessons of the Cold War jazz ambassadors.  In 2006, the State Department sponsored a series of jazz concerts to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Gillespie’s first jazz tour and has partnered with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra to send American jazz bands abroad.  Signs such as these are encouraging, but whether future policy makers will truly heed Von Eschen’s call for a “jazz approach” to foreign policy remains to be seen. About the reviewer Matthew Thomas is a Doctoral student in Musicology at the University of Southern California and is currently working on his dissertation, which concerns jazz and cultural diplomacy in the Middle East.  Matt is an avid teacher and gives frequent pre–concert lectures for the Da Camera Society of Mt. St. Mary’s College.  He regularly contributes program notes for the annual Mozart Woche in Salzburg, Austria.  His writings on the folk music of Chechnya have been published in the online journal Resonance and he has presented a paper on the representation of the Crusades in medieval song at the international conference on Music and War in the Czech Republic.  His experience in foreign policy and public relations includes internships with the U.S. Department of State in Vienna, Austria and Hamburg, Germany.  As a professional singer, he performs with the USC chamber choir and works as a soloist and section leader at churches in Los Angeles and Orange County. 2008-03-31T21:48:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:21:48:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/1jM_HKduJbA/ #When:22:58:00Z This review first appeared in The Channel In recent years no broadcast media outlet in the world has attracted as much attention, and controversy as the Qatar-based pan-Arab satellite news channel Al-Jazeera. Earlier this year, a survey by a worldwide branding consultancy ranked the network the world’s fifth most influential brand, behind Apple, Google, Ikea and Starbucks. No mean achievement for a channel launched in 1996 and virtually unknown outside the Arab world before the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Al-Jazeera – How Arab TV news challenged the world, details the origins and gradual expansion of the network which changed the Middle Eastern and global broadcast media landscapes. The author, Hugh Miles, an Arabic speaker born and partly educated in the Middle East, claims the particular situation of Qatar and the vision of its ruler allowed the creation of an independent channel in the emirate. From the distinctive nature and shortcomings of the Arabic media scene and the collapse of the BBC Arabic TV channel, to the working practices of the channel and reactions to its broadcasts in the Muslim and Western world, Miles gives a comprehensive account of what made Al-Jazeera such a special phenomenon. “The BBC Arabic [TV] service was the beginning. For the first time Arabs had the chance to watch Arab journalists doing the news and making programmes to the same standards as Western news channel,” an Al-Jazeera journalist told Miles. The sudden collapse of the BBC Arabic TV channel, a joint venture with the Saudi-owned Orbit satellite television company in April 1996, over a dispute regarding editorial control of the channel, left scores of BBC-trained journalists and other media staff out of a job overnight. Some 120 of these were immediately taken on by Al-Jazeera, providing editorial experience and a solid foundation for the young channel. Miles offers a broad overview of Al-Jazeera’s unique [in the Arab world] and often provocative programming. In particular, lively talk shows and interviews which saw officials and dissidents from all Arab countries discussing contemporary issues and arguing angrily. These proved very popular among Arab viewers, but angered many governments, leading to the closure of several Al-Jazeera bureaus throughout the region and a widespread Saudi-backed ban on advertising on the network. The channel achieved a first international breakthrough with its comprehensive coverage of the second intifida which, according to Miles, forced Arab governments to react following widespread popular protests in the Arab world. Amazingly, the Palestinian Authority also temporarily closed down the Al-Jazeera bureau in Ramallah following what it considered to be an offensive image of Yasser Arafat in a trailer program. Miles recalls how the 9/11 attacks on the USA and their aftermath proved a watershed for Al-Jazeera and established its global status. The channel was the only one with a bureau in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and western networks started vying for its footage after the US launched its offensive and after it broadcast tapes from Osama bin Laden. This enhanced status also marked the beginning of tense relations with Washington, which continue to this day, and have resulted in strong direct and indirect pressures from Washington on the channel and the Qatari authorities and – some argue – in deliberate US strikes against Al-Jazeera offices and staff in Kabul and Baghdad. Interestingly, Al-Jazeera is frequently accused of being funded and controlled by Israel and the USA in some Arab circles, and by al-Qaeda and other terrorists or extremists by Washington and Tel Aviv; this could be seen as a tribute to its editorial independence. Miles also highlights US contradictions regarding non-Western media: whilst advocating free-speech in the Arab world Washington reserves its harshest critics for a channel which has truly opened up political debates in the Arab world. It could be argued that Al-Jazeera is no more anti-American than many European media organizations. For instance, according to a February 2005 Media Tenor survey, the share of negative statements about the US on Germany’s leading news show “Tagesthemen” (produced by public broadcaster ARD) was higher than those on Al-Jazeera news in January 2005. Yet Western media are not targeted by Washington. However, not all US officials are hostile to Al-Jazeera, Department of State Spokesman Dr Nabil Khouri is quoted as saying: “I would prefer to watch Al-Jazeera any time rather than Fox.” At the same time, Miles says, the US is embarking on an ineffective media offensive in the Arab world by sponsoring costly advertising campaigns and launching a stream of broadcast media services targeting Arab audiences and often perceived as brazen propaganda. Too often, this book appears overly “positive” about Al-Jazeera: the channel does no wrong and nearly all criticisms directed at it are too easily dismissed as irrelevant or unjustified. However, if Al-Jazeera has indeed transformed the Arabic broadcast media landscape, and is undoubtedly proving a popular success with a global audience estimated at nearly 50 million, it still has plenty of room for improvement and would certainly benefit from some tightening of its editorial practices, nothing surprising for this fairly new kid on the international broadcasting block. Al-Jazeera – How Arab TV news challenged the world has a comprehensive index, but lacks notes. It will prove a key book for those wanting to understand the Arab media scene and the deep transformations it went through in the past 10 years or so, thanks precisely to Al-Jazeera. It is also essential reading for all those interested in Middle Eastern politics, international broadcasting, public diplomacy and international relations. About the reviewer Morand Fachot is a media analyst and international broadcasting consultant. He worked as a journalist and media analyst with the BBC World Service (Monitoring Service), and media officer for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). His publications include an FT Business Management Report on “European public broadcasting in the digital age” as well as articles and papers on international broadcasting; media, conflict and the military; hate media; and broadcast technology for BBC News Online, The Channel (Association for International Broadcasting, U.K.), International Affairs (U.K.), Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal (Adham Center, The American University in Cairo, Egypt), Policy Options (Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy), Commentaire (France), Diffusion Online (EBU). 2007-10-24T22:58:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:22:58:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/GGYnAM7AOQo/ #When:22:48:00Z This review first appeared in International Affairs The Voice of America (VOA), which broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of programmes in 45 languages to an estimated audience of some 115 million worldwide, is the world’s second largest international broadcaster, yet within the USA itself it is “America’s best-kept secret”. Alan L. Heil, Jr., who spent 36 years at the Voice, beginning as a newswriter trainee to retire as deputy director after holding several positions including Middle East correspondent and chief of News and Current Affairs, was uniquely placed to write this comprehensive and captivating insight into a “great, sometimes heroic, but fragile and endangered national institution”, stretching from the launch of the service, in February 1942, to its 60th anniversary. Ever since going on air for the first time, telling its German listeners: “Here speaks a voice from America (...) The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth”, the Voice has been constantly striving to uphold its editorial independence in the face of persistent political pressures and to secure appropriate funding. Heil’s detailed account of the Voice’s advances and setbacks, always set in the broader US and international contexts, shows the importance attached by successive US administrations to international broadcasting in their public diplomacy strategy. Yet, Heil’s record of the often considerable pressures from all official quarters involved in foreign policy – from the White House down to US diplomats abroad – to influence editorial content, shows how US public diplomacy itself has suffered (and continues to suffer) from this constant interference into VOA’s operations. Heil peppers his account with transcripts of radio broadcasts and personal anecdotes from dozens of VOA staff and listeners, which give this sizeable book its distinctive – and often moving or amusing – human dimension. In his “tales of great VOA escapes” Heil describes the extraordinary backgrounds of some of the Voice’s foreign staff who have made a major contribution to its reputation over the years. Many of Heil’s descriptions of the work at VOA apply to similar services in other countries and depict the very specific features that make international broadcasting such a distinctive craft: in particular, a meticulous respect for the specificities and sensitivities of foreign audiences and the care taken in transposing concepts and ideas in other languages and for people of different cultural backgrounds. Over the years VOA has developed a number of unique programmes which have contributed to its popularity and to the spread of American values abroad. Notable among those are music and VOA Special English programmes. The latter, using a vocabulary of about 1,500 words only, are read at a much slower speed than VOA’s standard English programmes. Broadcast since 1959, they have proved very popular. Music, “the universal language”, has contributed to VOA’s reputation abroad. Heil recalls, in particular, the role played by Willis Conover in bringing jazz to millions of listeners throughout the world, most notably in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, for over 40 years. The book highlights VOA’s unique nature in the US broadcasting environment: it is a genuine public service broadcaster, publicly-funded and carrying out public service duties. Heil shows how, through its incessant quest for balanced and credible news reporting, its aspiration to be a “voice for the voiceless”, its efforts to assist people worldwide through a number of humanitarian actions – special family reunification helplines for refugees in Central Africa; public health campaigns in India; human rights awareness programmes in Central America, etc. – VOA has become a highly-respected and valuable broadcaster worldwide. In spite of all this, the Voice is nearly unknown in the USA, thanks to provisions of the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act which banned the dissemination of VOA products within the country. Paradoxically also, the greatest threats to the Voice come from the US administrations – whose changing agenda and interference in the running of the Voice are very unsettling – and the existence of “too many voices of America”, as a renowned VOA media analyst once noted. New US-funded stations are indeed appearing (and disappearing) on a regular basis, leading at times to the closure of long-established VOA services, such as that of its respected Arabic service, replaced in April 2002 by Radio Sawa, a fast-paced mix of pop and Arabic music interspersed with short news aimed at young listeners in the Arab world. A closure which Heil – a former Middle East correspondent and director of VOA program centers in Beirut and Cairo – obviously regrets. Heil is also looking at the challenges the Voice – and other international broadcasters – will face in the future. The breadth and scope of this book makes it essential reading for all those involved – or with an interest – in public diplomacy, international affairs, and the media. About the reviewer Morand Fachot is a media analyst and international broadcasting consultant. He worked as a journalist and media analyst with the BBC World Service (Monitoring Service), and media officer for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). His publications include an FT Business Management Report on “European public broadcasting in the digital age” as well as articles and papers on international broadcasting; media, conflict and the military; hate media; and broadcast technology for BBC News Online, The Channel (Association for International Broadcasting, U.K.), International Affairs (U.K.), Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal (Adham Center, The American University in Cairo, Egypt), Policy Options (Canadian Institute for Research on Public Policy), Commentaire (France), Diffusion Online (EBU). 2007-10-24T22:48:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:22:48:00Z http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PdBookReviews/~3/LMXgmRIMXUc/ #When:17:47:00Z Whatever emerges from America’s predicament in Iraq, at some point we will say “post-Iraq” just as we speak of “post-Vietnam.” Andrew Bacevich, in The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War provides a vital guide on how to avoid the kind of post-Vietnam reaction that saw the military hit its drug-ridden nadir in the seventies, only to be elevated to the all-in-one American miracle cure for foreign headaches. He shows how the national narrative of the joys of “power projection” was woven by decades of persuasion in churches, on television, in scholarly journals. Bacevich has a good cinema sense, as seen in his analysis of the role of such Reagan-era films as An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun in the glamorization of the military. When first published in late 2005 (now out in paperback), The New American Militarism was a timely critique of what Bacevich sees as a decades-old bipartisan affliction. The passage of time only makes his book more relevant—and, as we shall see, more poignant. You don’t get more credible commentators on the American fascination with things military than Andrew Bacevich. West Pointer and retired career Army officer, Bacevich teaches at Boston University. He writes extensively on international affairs, and has been highly critical of the Bush Administration’s willful march to war in Iraq. But don’t expect another lefty screed; Bacevich is (perhaps was) a “self-described conservative.” Citizen soldier of the Cold War and Vietnam, Bacevich is concerned with the imperial-sized defense budgets that spawn global military engagements. But more than mere size and willingness to “deploy,” he sees American illusions on the efficacy of military action as a long-term danger to our republic. His prescriptions are conservative with a small “c,” and include reinstating the Constitutional role of Congress, ensuring that U.S. armed forces are used for national defense, and enhancing strategic self-sufficiency. This soldier-academician is particularly exercised at the increasing separation of the military from American society, and short of calling for a restoration of the draft, he suggests steps to reduce the gap—moves that would themselves act as a brake to the tendency to “send in the military.” In meticulously footnoted chapters tracing the rise of interventionist neo-conservatism, of the nuclear era national security “priesthood,” of messianic Christian fundamentalism suffused with martial biblical certainties, and of “mythmaking” Reaganism from the Great Communicator, it becomes clear that the American reflex to using military force overseas is not the sole domain of the current President. Bacevich sees under George W. Bush a “new Wilsonian moment,” where Bush channels our quixotic World War I President and fancies himself as remaking the Middle East in the image of America. Contemporary Democrats—Madeleine Albright prodding then General Colin Powell with “what is the point of having this superb military… if we can’t use it?”—are revealed as equally tempted by the use of force to carry out their objectives, in this case, intervention in the Balkans. Many are familiar with General-President Dwight Eisenhower’s admonition against the pervasive “military industrial complex” upon leaving the White House. But how many know that our young republic got a similar adieu from its first (and only authentic) commander-in-chief? Thanks to Bacevich we find George Washington, in his farewell address, warning about “those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.” What would Washington make of today’s global reach, with our “overgrown military establishment” stretched to the breaking point? In a key chapter Blood for Oil, Bacevich suggests that America’s Middle East problems began, not with 9/11, but with Jimmy Carter’s unhappy 1979-80 encounter with the Iranian Islamic revolution. With the Carter Doctrine, the Persian Gulf and its oil reserves were enshrined as vital American interests (reaffirming Roosevelt’s pledge to defend Saudi Arabia) to be protected by military force. Carter’s “Rapid Deployment Force,” synonymous with the failed mission to rescue American Embassy hostages in Tehran, was transformed by Ronald Reagan into Central Command and charged with leading the American buildup in the Middle East. “As the U.S. military profile in the region became ever more prominent,” writes Bacevich, “the difficulties with which the United States felt obliged to contend also multiplied.” He provides a list from the Reagan years: a disastrous Marine intervention in Lebanon; air strikes on Libya; arming Islamic insurgents in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan… Bacevich credits Carter with trying to manage public expectations in his 1979 “Crisis of Confidence” speech, when he lectured Americans about their appetite for foreign oil and limitless, unsustainable consumption of scarce resources. Right message, wrong audience: voters preferred “Morning in America” Reagan. A quarter century later, will the next President be able to convince Americans of the true cost of Middle East oil, of the climate change limits to growth? Has the militarization of America gone so far as to blind policy makers to non-military means of pursuing U.S. interests? Though he “trained as a diplomatic historian” and recognizes the value of statecraft in conflict prevention, Bacevich generally ignores the potential of American diplomacy to counter rampant militarism. Other than paraphrasing a Newt Gingrich diatribe delivered at the American Enterprise Institute, Bacevich devotes almost no space to the State Department—an unfortunate lapse in an otherwise comprehensive tome. Bacevich dedicates his book “To the memory of George Blough, Casualty of a misbegotten war.” We learn that Blough was his brother-in-law, and that this particular “misbegotten war” was Vietnam. On Memorial Day 2007, Bacevich wrote another obituary, that of his namesake son killed only days earlier in Iraq. In a heartrending tribute from a principled war critic, Bacevich lamented that his son shared his “peculiar knack for picking the wrong war at the wrong time.” The New American Militarism is a work of lasting importance, and as the United States grapples with resolution of our first twenty first century quagmire, we need to listen to Andrew Bacevich and his warning of the “toxic” dangers of the mindset that imagines only military solutions to the world’s ills. About the reviewer Gerald Loftus is a former U.S. Foreign Service Officer.  He left the U.S. State Department in 2002, after 24 years in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, last serving as Chargé d’Affaires of the American Embassy in Luxembourg.  Most recently a consultant to the Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies and the U.S. Joint Forces Command, he provides advice on the nexus between diplomacy and defense.  His website, Avuncular American, comments on world events as seen by an expatriate in Europe. 2007-09-19T17:47:00+00:00 http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/research/book_reviews/#When:17:47:00Z