The Practice of Public Diplomacy

Transcription

1 The Practice of Public Diplomacy

2 Palgrave Macmillan Series in Global Public Diplomacy Series editors: Kathy Fitzpatrick, Quinnipiac University, USA Philip Seib, University of Southern California, USA Advisory Board: Nicholas J. Cull, University of Southern California, USA Teresa LaPorte, University of Navarre, Spain Donna Lee, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom Jan Melissen, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael, Netherlands Abeer Najjar, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates William A. Rugh, Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen and United Arab Emirates, USA Cesar Villanueva Rivas, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico Li Xiguang, Tsinghua University, China At no time in history has public diplomacy played a more significant role in world affairs and international relations. As a result, global interest in public diplomacy has escalated, creating a substantial academic and professional audience for new works in the field. This series examines theory and practice in public diplomacy from a global perspective, looking closely at public diplomacy concepts, policies, and practices in various regions of the world. The purpose is to enhance understanding of the importance of public diplomacy, to advance public diplomacy thinking, and to contribute to improved public diplomacy practices. The editors welcome submissions from scholars and practitioners representing a range of disciplines and fields (including diplomacy, international relations, international communications, public relations, political science, global media, marketing/ advertising) and offering diverse perspectives. In keeping with its global focus, the series encourages non-u.s.-centric works and comparative studies. Toward a New Public Diplomacy: Redirecting U.S. Foreign Policy Edited by Philip Seib Soft Power in China: Public Diplomacy through Communication Edited by Jian Wang Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia Edited by Sook Jong Lee and Jan Melissen The Practice of Public Diplomacy: Confronting Challenges Abroad Edited by William A. Rugh

3 The Practice of Public Diplomacy Confronting Challenges Abroad Edited by William A. Rugh

4 THE PRACTICE OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY Copyright William A. Rugh, Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN in the United States a division of St. Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number , of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN DOI / ISBN (ebook) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The practice of public diplomacy : confronting challenges abroad / edited by William A. Rugh. p. cm. 1. United States. Foreign Service. 2. Diplomatic and consular service, American. 3. United States Officials and employees Foreign countries. 4. United States Foreign relations administration. 5. United States Foreign relations. I. Rugh, William A. JZ1480.A5P dc A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: April 2011

5 CONTENTS Preface Acknowledgments List of Contributors vii xiii xv Part I Public Diplomacy in Europe and in Southwest Asia 1 Ameliorating Strained Relations: Public Diplomacy in Serbia 3 Lucija Bajzer 2 Revitalizing Relations with Turkey 21 Nicole E. Farina 3 Iran and the United Kingdom: A Study in Contrasts 37 Sarah M. Riley 4 Afghanistan and Pakistan: Public Diplomacy during Conf lict and Instability 55 Rachel E. Smith Part II Public Diplomacy in Africa 5 Kenya s Native Son and Enduring Local Issues 75 Mabel Ntiru 6 Sierra Leone: Public Diplomacy Unwired 91 Tulani N. Elisa Part III Public Diplomacy in Asia 7 The Staying Power of Personal Contact in South Korean Public Diplomacy 109 Yoon-Jeong Huh

6 vi Contents 8 Economic Issues and Anti-Americanism in Japan 125 Yohei Ogawa Part IV New Media or Old? 9 U.S. Public Diplomacy 2.0 in Asia: Beyond Catch-up 143 Takahiro Yamamoto 10 New Media or the Last Three Feet in Africa? 159 Rachel O. Okunubi 11 New Media or Old in Egypt and South Korea? 175 John Rahaghi 12 Finding the Right Media Formula from the Soviet Union to Russia 191 Elise S. Crane Part V New Thinking about Public Diplomacy 13 Should Public Diplomacy Be Privatized? 209 Nicole Gabrielle Kravec 14 Do Peace Corps Volunteers Do Public Diplomacy? 227 Minta Madeley 15 Conclusion: Field Experiences and Best Practices 243 William A. Rugh Index 259

7 PREFACE This book seeks to convey an understanding of public diplomacy as it is practiced by professionals at American embassies abroad. Public diplomacy is a term that has recently acquired new definitions, as respected scholars have sought to broaden the concept to acknowledge new circumstances, by saying that nongovernmental actors also engage in public diplomacy. 1 But this book uses the traditional definition that is, a government s effort to reach out to the public in foreign countries because this definition is still in use by the U.S. government, and this book focuses on government practice. Public diplomacy has been the subject of considerable discussion and debate in the United States since the 9/11 events, when many Americans sought to identify the motivation for the anti-american hostility behind the attack, and wanted to address the problem. Media commentators, think tank reports, and the academic literature offered a variety of ideas and reform proposals. Many believed that the attack showed the United States failure to communicate its values and policies abroad to foreign publics, and suggested that something was amiss in our public diplomacy. Has the U.S. government failed in its duty to address foreign complaints and misunderstandings about the United States? Was the task so difficult that the government should call upon the American private sector, known to be skilled at marketing and branding, to step in and help repair America s image? Were officials of the Department of Defense better able to manage communication with foreign audiences than the State Department s diplomats, because we were now fighting a Global War on Terror? This discussion and debate reinvigorated a conversation about public diplomacy, a topic that in the past had failed to attract significant public or scholarly attention. The books and articles on public diplomacy published since 9/11 have provided many new insights and theories

8 viii Preface that constitute a rich literature. Yet one aspect of the topic has received relatively little attention: the actual daily practice of public diplomacy by U.S. officials at embassies and consulates abroad. The central importance of field offices has rarely been stressed. 2 There are several reasons for the neglect of public diplomacy practice in the field. First, it is admittedly difficult for anyone sitting in the United States to know much about the daily functioning of an American diplomat working at an embassy or consulate in a foreign country. How does an American official charged with carrying out a public diplomacy program abroad go about its planning, execution, and evaluation? What tools and methods are used? Is the official simply a conveyor of U.S. policy as enunciated in Washington, or is there some room for creativity and leeway in the process? Many Americans have heard about the Fulbright Program or VOA, but do they know how useful these and other public diplomacy instruments are in actually communicating with foreign publics? These are important questions, but ones that very few Americans can answer because they have not had an opportunity to observe an embassy operation from the inside. In fact, not even members of Congress, or the administration s political leaders, have a thorough understanding of how an embassy works. As one experienced Foreign Service officer has written, among the U.S. public, and even among Washington policy makers and politicians, there is little knowledge of what it [public diplomacy] is, what it can and cannot do, how it is practiced and by whom. 3 Second, the U.S. media have been unhelpful in educating the American public on this topic. Prior to 9/11, the New York Times rarely mentioned public diplomacy; even when it did the writer was often unfamiliar with the topic and it only created confusion on the part of readers about what public diplomacy is. 4 Today there are very few American correspondents stationed abroad, so media reporting on diplomacy naturally focuses on the more visible actions of officials in Washington. Third, while scholars have substantially increased their research and publication efforts on public diplomacy, they have found it much easier to study the Washington end of the process than to investigate the particulars of our diplomatic missions. Speeches by senior U.S. officials are well documented, as are public statements by members of Congress. While this constitutes an important part of public diplomacy because these are official communications heard by foreign audiences, there is a dearth of material available on public diplomacy

9 Preface ix activities conducted by American diplomats abroad, which is arguably equally important. This book seeks to fill that gap and serve as a companion to other basic works. It does not attempt to make a detailed review of public diplomacy theory, but instead seeks to present the field officer perspective on public diplomacy by means of case studies. These studies offer empirical evidence of field practices as they are taking place today, filling a hole in the literature. They should be read in conjunction with the existing theoretical works in order to form a complete picture of the subject. What about writing by those who have actually practiced the profession of public diplomacy? Although some books have deliberately included essays by practitioners, most of these practitioners have not been career officers with field experience; instead they have been Washington-based policymakers or short-term political appointees. 5 It is true that a few retired public diplomacy professionals with field experience have written books about their experiences doing public diplomacy abroad, 6 and others have written short articles in the same vein 7 These works provide valuable insights into local conditions that shaped public diplomacy programs abroad but they are rare. As one book points out, while the former public diplomats focus on what happens abroad, everyone else focuses only on what happens in Washington, because Unfortunately there is a dearth of field-based research on the subject. 8 Moreover, most of these accounts by diplomats are accurate for the time periods they are talking about in a particular country; by nature, they deal with divergent eras and are difficult to use comparatively. 9 One scholar, concerned that the opinions of public diplomacy experts had not been heard, conducted a survey of more than two hundred former U.S. Information Agency officers who had been professional public diplomacy practitioners between the 1950s and This USIA Alumni Study is valuable, presenting a composite picture of the practitioners views and offering generalizations about the practice. The study has been very helpful in analyzing consistent factors through time and across geographic boundaries. But by its nature it does not provide local context. As every public diplomacy practitioner who has worked abroad for the U.S. government knows, his or her working environment and the circumstances of the moment have an enormous impact on the actual public diplomacy strategy and program. Every country in the world is different, and the practice of public diplomacy in the field varies significantly with the public s concerns and priorities, the political constraints, and the available tools. Most publications

10 x Preface about public diplomacy, therefore, focus on the macro level and the few existent micro-level studies are selective. Forming a true picture of the micro level at any given moment has been elusive. This book attempts to help fill that important gap by looking closely at several individual countries and by listening to public diplomacy s practitioners. The studies in this book confirm that the public in each foreign country has a unique set of concerns and priorities, which usually differ from Washington s. As one experienced career diplomat puts it, Washington does wholesale while embassies do retail, and the perspectives are very different. 11 Congressman Thomas P. (Tip) O Neill famously said All politics is local, and although not all public diplomacy is local, much of it is. Relying heavily on scores of first-hand accounts collected through interviews, the studies examine the practice of public diplomacy largely from the perspective of American practitioners in different countries. The analyses follow the standard field officer approach, asking systematically: what issues in local public opinion should we be addressing; who should we engage; how can we best engage them; and how well are the programs working? This is an ongoing process at every field post, involving local staff and constant attention to contacts. The studies in this book focus on field operations during one period of time, broadly from the end of the Bush administration to the early Obama administration, so comparisons can be made between them to determine which practices are common and which are unique. They examine salient questions that have recently been posed by those seeking to understand and theorize about public diplomacy, such as: the role of new information technology; the possible role of the private sector; the use of dialogue instead of monologue; the Obama effect ; and measuring effectiveness; plus some best practices in coping with governmental restrictions and other barriers to communication. Above all, the studies make clear that the work of American officials on the ground, who are in a good position to understand the local culture and attitudes, and to engage directly with local audiences, is essential to the public diplomacy task. The first chapters in this book offer analyses of public diplomacy operations in specific countries in Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia, and Asia. Four other chapters focus directly on the specific question being asked by practitioners and scholars today: What is the role of the new media in public diplomacy? Two chapters present findings that advance our understanding of the role of the private sector, and the parallel roles of the State Department and the Peace Corps. The final chapter summarizes best practices from recent field experiences.

11 Preface Nearly all of the authors have had direct experience living and working in the countries about which they write. In addition, each study presents original material gleaned by interviewing current American public diplomacy professionals with direct knowledge of the subject, as well as some retired professionals who provided historical perspective. These insights offer unique and original material that sheds critical light on the most pressing questions of public diplomacy today. xi Notes 1. For example, see Geoffrey Cowan and Nicholas J. Cull, eds., Public Diplomacy in a Changing World, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 616 (March 2008), p. 6; or What is Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, See also Philip Seib, Remarks presented at Chatham House, March 3, 2010, 2. Two exceptions are William P. Kiehl, The Case for Localized Public Diplomacy, in Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor, eds., Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp ; and Mike Canning, The Overseas Post: The Forgotten Element in Our Public Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy Council, December 1, 2008, publicdiplomacycouncil.org/uploads/canningoverseasposts.pdf. 3. Hans N. Tuch, Why Americans Don t Appreciate Public Diplomacy, Foreign Service Journal, January 1991, p Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy: An Uncertain Fate (Boston: Brill, 2010), pp. 28 and For example, Jan Melissen, The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2007); and Cowan and Cull, Public Diplomacy in a Changing World, p For example, Hans N. Tuch, Communicating With the World: U.S. Public Diplomacy Overseas (New York: St. Martin s Press, 1990); Yale Richmond, Practicing Public Diplomacy: A Cold War Odyssey (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008); Richard J. Schmierer, Iraq: Policy and Perceptions (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 2007); Wilson P. Dizard Jr., Inventing Public Diplomacy, The Story of the U.S. Information Agency (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004); Allen Hanson, USIA: Public Diplomacy in the Computer Age, 1989; and William A. Rugh, American Encounters with Arabs: the Soft Power of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab World (Westport CT: Praeger/ Greenwood, 2005). 7. For example, Peter J. Kovach, The Public Diplomat, a First Person Account, in Snow and Taylor, eds., Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy, pp ; and Dan Sreebny, Public Diplomacy, the Field Perspective, in William P. Kiehl, ed., America s Dialogue with the World (Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, 2006), pp Fitzpatrick, The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy, pp An Advisory Commission on U.S. Public Diplomacy, created by Congress in 1948, has been almost invisible to the American public and has not helped them understand what the practitioners are doing. 10. Fitzpatrick, The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy, p. 8; she cites her USIA Alumni Study throughout this book. 11. Interview with a serving senior State Department official, March 2010.

12 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors of this book interviewed dozens of American Foreign Service officers currently serving at embassies and consulates abroad and at the State Department in Washington. They also interviewed many retired American diplomats who served in important public diplomacy positions in the past, and who could provide important historical perspective. Some of the current officials spoke on conditions of anonymity because of the sensitivity of their comments. Every one interviewed gave generously of their time and freely shared their firsthand knowledge of the subject, and we are very grateful to them. This book would have been impossible without their support. I want to thank the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy for giving me an opportunity to teach there. And special credit also goes to Ms. Elise Crane who ably assisted with the editing of the manuscript, in addition to writing one of the chapters. William A. Rugh

13 CONTRIBUTORS Lucija Bajzer was born and raised in Zagreb, Croatia. She lived in Croatia during the beginning of the conflicts in South Central Europe in the 1990s before moving to the United States. She holds a BA in political science and organizational communication summa cum laude from Creighton University and an MA in law and diplomacy from Tufts University. In the summer of 2009 she worked at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, assisting in the economic and public diplomacy sections. She is fluent in Croatian and Serbian. Elise S. Crane is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she majored in international relations and Russian studies. She studied in St. Petersburg, Russia, and then taught English in Prague. After that, she was employed for nearly three years as the representative of an international media organization based in Prague. In that position she traveled widely throughout Central and Eastern Europe, including to Russia and the Baltic states, and she met with newspaper editors on six continents. She has also interned in the State Department s Office of South Central Europe. She speaks French, Russian, and Czech. Tulani N. Elisa was born and raised in Boston, but she spent a number of her formative years in Brussels, Belgium, while her father worked for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). She earned a BA in history from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and an MA from Tufts. Between 2006 and 2008 she was a legislative assistant for Congressman Edward J. Markey in Washington, D.C., working on appropriations, welfare, the arts, transportation, and women s rights/ domestic violence. In 2009 she was an intern in the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy in Freetown, Sierra Leone. She is fluent in French.

14 xvi Contributors Nicole E. Farina is a native of Massachusetts. She holds a BA in international studies from Boston College, and has an MA from Tufts University. She has worked for an immigration law firm in Boston, assisting clients with visa and green card petitions, and applications for asylum. She has also worked on several development projects with an NGO in Lima, Peru, and has spent two years in Madrid, where she taught English to civil servants in Spain s Ministry of the Environment. In 2009 she studied Turkish at the Izmir University of Economics on a State Department Fellowship. She is also fluent in Spanish, and speaks Italian and Portuguese. Nicole Gabrielle Kravec received her BS cum laude with distinction in research from Cornell University, where she studied communication, business, and industrial and labor relations. She graduated from Harvard Business School where she wrote case studies and developed pedagogy as a research assistant. She has worked for the World Wildlife Fund in Kenya. She lived in Prague while studying international business and negotiation, and she has also studied communication, development, and tourism issues in Africa, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. She speaks Spanish, Czech, and Italian, and some Swahili. Minta Madeley is a U.S. Foreign Service officer. Originally from Texas, she grew up in California, England, and Saudi Arabia. She holds a BA in Arabic from Georgetown University and an MA from the Fletcher School. She served in the Peace Corps in Jordan from 2006 to In 2009 she returned to Jordan to work at the Jordan Institute of Diplomacy s Regional Centre for Conflict Prevention, where she prepared case studies on conflict resolution techniques. She is fluent in Arabic. Mabel Ntiru is a citizen of Uganda. She was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, but moved to New York City in She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 2004 with a major in English, and she has an MA from Tufts University. She worked as a communications analyst for Mercer, a global human resources consulting firm. She has also taught English to high school students in Hunan, China, and has worked in the corporate public affairs department at ExxonMobil. She is proficient in Swahili and French. Rachel O. Okunubi is a native of Washington, D.C. She received her undergraduate degree from Princeton University and did graduate work at Tufts University. She has conducted ethnographic research regarding sociopolitical transitioning in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam,

15 Contributors xvii Tanzania. She worked in the Bureau of African Affairs, Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in 2009 and has been accepted into the Foreign Service as a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellow. She speaks Swahili. John Rahaghi is a graduate of Northeastern University with a degree in graphic design. He worked for an Internet consulting firm for two years as a multimedia designer before joining the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer in He has been stationed in Japan, California, South Korea, and Italy serving in such roles as air intelligence officer for an F/A-18 Squadron, weapons of mass destruction analyst, and military liaison officer. Sarah M. Riley completed her undergraduate degree with honors in international relations at Brown University in She attended law school on a full academic scholarship at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, obtaining her J.D. cum laude in In 2002 she worked in Washington, D.C. for Congressman Patrick Kennedy and Senator Jack Reed. In 2004 and 2005 she worked for the Rhode Island Office of attorney general. From 2007 to 2009, she clerked for the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the bar in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. Ms. Riley has published several articles in law reviews and journals. William A. Rugh was a Foreign Service officer for thirty-one years, during which he served in several public diplomacy positions in Washington and abroad, and as ambassador twice. He is the author of American Encounters with Arabs: The Soft Power of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab World (2005), and the editor of Engaging the Arab and Islamic Worlds through Public Diplomacy (2004), and has written articles on public diplomacy and foreign policy. He holds a PhD from Columbia University and speaks Arabic and German. Rachel E. Smith graduated from the University of California Irvine in 2007 with a major in political science and economics. She studied at the Institut d Etudes Politiques in Grenoble, France, in 2005 and In the summer of 2006 she interned with the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels, Belgium. Upon graduation she interned and then worked for the Sudan Programs Group within the U.S. Department of State s Bureau of African Affairs from 2007 to She worked for Dyncorp International, a U.S. government contractor, from November 2008 until May 2009 where she was the assistant program manager of a U.S. grant that provided logistical support to the

16 xviii Contributors implementation of Sudan s two peace agreements and their signatories. In this role, she traveled frequently to the region. Rachel has been admitted to the Foreign Service as a U.S. Department of State Rangel Fellow. She is fluent in French. Takahiro Yamamoto is a citizen of Japan. He holds a BA in international relations from the University of Tokyo and an MA from Tufts University. He has worked as a consultant in a Japanese information technology firm. He has worked in the International Affairs Division of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as well as at the Russian Division of Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2007 to 2008 he worked at Purdue University on a research project in disaster recovery, and has worked as a researcher for a joint project on international migration sponsored by the Hitachi Research Institute and Tufts University. In addition to being a native speaker of Japanese, he reads Chinese. Yohei Ogawa is a citizen of Japan, and a native speaker of Japanese. He is an officer of Japanese Ministry of Finance, where he worked in the Tax Policy Research Division and International Tax Policy Division in 2004 and He worked as a tax examiner in a regional taxation bureau in Shikoku area of Japan in He also worked in the Planning Division of the Elderly Health and Welfare Bureau of Japanese Ministry of Health from 2007 to 2009 by interministerial personnel exchange. He holds a BA in international relations from the University of Tokyo. Yoon-Jeong Huh is a citizen of the Republic of Korea, and a native speaker of Korean. She has been a Foreign Service officer in the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for three years. In the ministry she has served in the Consular Systems Division and in the West Europe Division. She received a BA in political science from the Seoul National University, and has done graduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University.