Robin Brown, Public Diplomacy, Networks and Influence
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April 5, 2016
One of the points I was making at the ISA Convention a couple of weeks ago was that in the real world public diplomacy organizations find it difficult to be strategic in the sense of creating a strong connection between their objectives and their means. In part this is because public diplomacy organizations are always on, the routine logistical requirements of running a programme both on a day to day basis and in the longer term overwhelm the capacity of organizations to be strategic. There’s no point worrying about SMART goals if you are more worried about keeping the show on the road at all.
Anyway another exhibit to buttress my cases emerged yesterday a US State Department Inspector General’s report on how the public diplomacy work of the embassy in Baghdad was contributing to the counter messaging part of the overall strategy against ISIL
The report obviously thinks that there should be plans but that’s not my point: lots of public diplomacy is reactive, and improvised rather than strategic. From an analytical perspective it’s often better to look public diplomacies it through an organizational lens rather than an intentional one.
The first item from the summary:
“Embassy Baghdad’s public diplomacy activities operate without formal strategic planning and goals.”
Public diplomacy is not discussed within the embassy’s Integrated Country Strategy and there is no Public Diplomacy Implementation Plan.
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