Public Diplomacy and the New Public Diplomacy

Public Diplomacy had been until recently a practice almost exclusively carried out by states. It was governments which sought to generate information to influence public opinion in foreign countries in an attempt to promote their national interests and achieve its foreign policy goals (USC Center on Public Diplomacy, 2003). This was particularly evident during the Cold War, where the two world superpowers the Soviet Union and the US directly orchestrated public diplomacy efforts to influence the outcome of the war (Pigman, 2010, p. 32). For example, the US created the United States Information Agency (1955 – 1999) in order to have a centralized body that focused entirely on public diplomacy, this allowed the US to control the content of the information being produced and the distribution of material to their chosen audiences (Bardos, 2001).

However, since then, there have been some important shifts in public diplomacy. Some academics refer to it as the new public diplomacy; there are new futures in the new public diplomacy which seem to reflect contemporary international relations affairs. These involve the emergence and engagement of non state actors such as NGOs and individuals in public diplomacy, the development of global technology like the internet has allowed these non state actors to communicate with world publics in real time so gaining importance and influence in international affairs and public diplomacy, technology has also made the world a “smaller place” so formerly rigid borders dividing domestic and international news spheres are declining (Cull, 2009, p. 13). Furthermore, Nye suggests that in new public diplomacy prestige and credibility have become crucial, hence the introduction of concepts borrowed from marketing into new public diplomacy such as nation branding and soft power (Nye, 2010). However, despite these shifts Cull argues that the concept of public diplomacy and the new public diplomacy remains the same (Cull, 2009, p. 12).

Nonetheless, Cull also argues that the most significant feature of new public diplomacy is the emphasis on people – to – people contact for mutual enlightenment, as opposed to the one way communication with foreign audiences usually carried out by the state. This top down approach is now changing; governments are now playing the role of facilitators (Cull, 2009, p. 13). As a result, the main objective of new public diplomacy is to build relationships with civil society actors and facilitating networks between non- governmental parties domestically and abroad (Nye, 2010), it seems that in current times too much control of states over their public diplomacy could undermine credibility thus damaging the prospects of achieving foreign policy goals.

References

Bardos, A. A. (2001). "Public Diplomacy": An Old Art, A New Profession. Retrieved February 27, 2010, from The Virginia Quartely Review: http://www.vqronline.org/articles/2001/summer/bardos-public-diplomacy/

Cull, N. (2009, October). Public Diplomacy: Lessons from the Past. Retrieved February 26, 2011, from USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School: http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/publications/perspectives/CPDPerspectivesLessons.pdf

Nye, J. S. (2010, February 10). The New Public Diplomacy. Retrieved March 1, 2011, from Project Syndicate a World of Ideas: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nye79/English

Pigman, G. A. (2010). Contemporary Diplomacy. Cambridge: Polity Press.

USC Center on Public Diplomacy. (2003). What is Public Diplomacy? Retrieved February 27, 2010, from USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School: http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/about/what_is_pd