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8:54 AM (1 hour ago)
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September 5, 2017
Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Bruce Gregory
Institute for Public Diplomacy
and Global Communication
George Washington University
Eleanor Albert, “China’s Big Bet on Soft Power,” Backgrounder, Council on Foreign Relations, May 11, 2017. CFR’s Albert writes that China is seeking a leadership role in globalization and economic integration by increasing its investment in international media networks, cultural centers, its “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure initiative, unconditional development assistance with South-South partners, and other soft power programs. China ranks third among the world’s international education destinations. It supports five hundred Confucius Institutes. Chinese firms are expanding investments in US entertainment companies. Despite this, opinion polls show static levels of support for China in some countries and steady decline in others. Albert argues China has yet to realize significant gains in influence due to inconsistencies between the image it seeks to convey and its actions on multiple issues: environmental pollution, food safety, overcapacity of state-enterprises, rising nationalism, territorial disputes, repression of NGOs, censorship of domestic and foreign media, and its rigid authoritarian system. If China’s actions and narratives don’t credibly address these inconsistencies, it will remain challenging to win friends and influence nations through its culture and ideas.
Alyssa Ayres, “Creating a State Department Office for American State and Local Diplomacy,” Policy Innovation Memorandum, Council on Foreign Relations, June 7, 2017. Ayres (CFR Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia) argues “a new strand in diplomacy” is occurring due to the rise of sub-national global actors (cities, states, local legislators) in domains such as investment, trade, tourism, education, climate change, and counter terrorism. She calls on the State Department to create an office to facilitate ongoing activities, clarify and deconflict messages, “prevent policy confusion,” and enhance coordination of the sub-national global activities of multiple US government agencies. Only two Department employees currently focus on sub-national diplomacy through informal networks. Ayres recommends an appropriately staffed office to manage an information bank, provide support to local leaders, and enable strategic planning to leverage American state and city diplomacy in support of national diplomacy priorities. (Courtesy of Ellen Frost)
Hamilton Bean and Edward Comor, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment,” All Azimuth, (2017): 1-16, published online, June 15, 2017. Bean (University of Colorado, Denver) and Comor (University of Western Ontario) assess efforts to measure and evaluate public diplomacy in this critique of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy’s 2014 report, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: Progress Towards Measuring the Impact of Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting Activities.” The authors make two strong claims worth close attention – and that summon equally strong debate. First, they argue the technology framed goals of the Commission’s report, and public diplomacy’s attention to digital technologies more broadly, are in part an ideological legacy of Cold War thinking, with “violent extremism” replacing the Soviet Union as the dominant threat. Here they draw on information technology scholar Paul Edwards’ concept of “closed world” discourse – meaning material and symbolic conditions that supported Cold War uses of technology. Second, they argue the report lacks clarity as to what measurable impacts public diplomacy officials seek to achieve. Bean and Comor base this claim on what they call “technological fetishism” – an adaptation of Karl Marx’s “commodity fetishism” (his argument that social relations are mediated through economic objects such as commodities and money). In developing these claims, they bring a Gramscian perspective to the work of scholars generally and those who contributed to the Commission’s report. They point to the “pragmatic complexity model” of strategic communication, advanced by Stephen R. Corman, Angela Trethewey, and Bud Goodall, as a place from which to reassess foundational premises of public diplomacy. And they warn the data-driven approach steers too close to quantitative assessment and to government interests and ambitions at the expense of mutual understanding, peace, and public diplomacy’s humanistic capabilities. For a measured critique, see Ilan Manor, “Why is Public Diplomacy Data Driven? A Response to Bean & Comor,” Exploring Digital Diplomacy Blog. August 13, 2017.
Broadcasting Board of Governors, 2016 Annual Report, available online in 2017. As with previous reports, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) provides an abundance of descriptive information on the missions, challenges, activities, audience levels, and strategic priorities of its five networks: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Middle East Broadcasting. The report provides teachers and others with an unparalleled overview of US broadcasting’s people, programs, reporting, content curation, accountability and research methods, transition to digital distribution platforms, efforts to improve inter-network cooperation, and relevance to foreign policy priorities. The BBG’s annual reports frame organizational perspectives of broadcasting’s managers, a rhetorical approach that contrasts with the journalism norms of its broadcasters. For arms length critiques of the BBG’s strengths and limitations, observers should look at Congressional hearings and committee reports; numerous reports by the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Congressional Reference Service, and General Accountability Office; and a host of wide-ranging views in blogs and opinion columns.
Costas M. Constantinou, Noe Cornago, and Fiona McConnell, Transprofessional Diplomacy, (Brill Research Perspectives, 2017). In this clearly argued paper, Constantinou (University of Cypress [sic -- thanks PK]), Cornago (University of the Basque Country), and McConnell (University of Oxford) contribute to important trends in diplomacy studies – recognition that diplomatic “professionals” exist beyond the state; an expanding “diplomatic realm” that includes multiple actors with new skills and methods in spaces that are not state-based; and increased use of diplomatic practice to illuminate academic study. They frame three areas of inquiry: (1) the genealogy of diplomacy as a profession from its origins as a civic duty to its status as a vocation that, although lacking a “strict professional canon,” requires training, specific knowledge, and skills; (2) diplomacy’s functional differences from other professional categories with global reach; and (3) the proliferation of “new” diplomatic actors “working in parallel to, in partnership with, or in competition with state diplomats.” Building on Geoffrey Wiseman’s “polylateral diplomacy” and related concepts, they suggest “transprofessionalization” (not “deprofessionalization”) offers a promising approach to understanding “the expansion of diplomatic actors and spaces” and “new modes of being a diplomat.” Their arguments are compelling, but they also raise questions. How should we differentiate between diplomacy and other relationships between groups? If we rightly broaden what we mean by diplomatic actors and diplomatic professionalism, how do we avoid excessively expansive claims for both? This is an important paper that opens doors to needed further research.
Mai’a K. Davis Cross, The Politics of Crisis in Europe, (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Cross (Northeastern University) brings her well-regarded scholarship and EU optimism to this study of why EU integration continues despite successive crises. She analyzes the politics of the 2003 Iraq crisis, the 2005 constitutional crisis, and the 2010 eurozone crisis in the context of a deep dive into the media narratives they generated. These crises “to some extent are socially constructed,” she argues. They brought underlying social tensions to the surface that might otherwise have weakened integration. Cross’s innovative research and views on the effects of media, public opinion, and collective emotions on the European project have drawn positive comments and questions. For a thoughtful review, see Asle Toje, “The Politics of Crisis in Europe,” International Affairs, July 1, 2017. It will be interesting to see how her logic holds as Europeans continue to work out the consequences of Brexit and populist impulses in EU member states.
Kathy R. Fitzpatrick, “Public Diplomacy in the Public Interest,” Journal of Public Interest Communications, Vol. 1, 2017, 78-93, published online April 28, 2017. Fitzpatrick (American University) examines public diplomacy’s expanding role in supporting common social interests (problem solving, shared goals, global issues) that transcend the interests of particular countries and other diplomatic actors. Her article profiles how this evolution is reflected in study and practice. She looks at ways traditional public diplomacy tools and methods contribute to supporting the public interest in global society, the advent of varieties of diplomatic actors, and how future research can contribute to traditional public diplomacy debates and to understanding conceptual challenges to its role in global society. Her research agenda focuses on four domains: models, publics, ethics, and measurement. Fitzpatrick assumes “more relational – and more collaborative – forms of public diplomacy will define the field in the 21stcentury,” but not diminish its “critical importance” in advancing the goals of states and non-state actors. Her thoughtful paper is a helpful guide to future research. It also provides useful references to recent literature on diplomacy’s public dimension.
Suzy Hansen, Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017). Hansen, an American journalist based in Istanbul (attracted first by knowing her favorite writer James Baldwin lived there in the 1960s) is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. She has given us a compelling, intelligent, and stunningly well-written book. Part memoir of a post-9/11 Ivy League educated writer from a small New Jersey town on a voyage of discovery. Part long form reporting based on years living in Turkey and traveling in the Middle East. Part meditation on foreign perceptions of America’s place in the world and their meaning for her own identity and self-understanding. Hansen’s reflections are thoughtful and critical. On American hubris. On pretensions of virtue and power. On “American exceptionalism.” On differences between how Americans think of themselves and the United States, and the America that projects itself abroad. In trying to understand “the strange weight we [Americans] carry with us” in the world, Hansen relies mostly on foreign voices. Many provided insights into a shared history of which she was unaware. We are living in a time when “Americans abroad now do not have the same swagger, the easy, enormous smiles,” she writes. “You no longer want to speak so loud. There is always the vague risk of breaking something.” See also Hansen’s adaptation, “Unlearning the Myth of American Innocence,” The Guardian, August 8, 2017. Ali Wyne’s review,“An Eye-Opening Exploration of How Other Countries Perceive America,”The Washington Post, August 18, 2017. And Hisham Matar’s review, “The Empire in the Mirror,” New York Times Book Review, September 3, 2017.
Ilan Manor, “The Digitalization of Diplomacy: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Terminology,” Working Paper #1, Exploring Digital Diplomacy, August, 2017. Manor (University of Oxford), seeks clarity in the variety of terms and concepts scholars and diplomats use to find meaning in the ways digital technologies influence diplomacy. His candidate term going forward is “the digitalization of diplomacy” – a phrase he uses to focus on normative and temporal influences of digital technologies and to construct a taxonomy with four dimensions and four fields. His dimensions are diplomacy’s audiences, institutions, practitioners, and practices. His fields are (1) norms, values, and beliefs; (2) behavioral changes consequent to adoption of norms and beliefs; (3) patterns of use and standard operating procedures; and (4) concepts, metaphors, and mental schemata used to imagine the world. His paper explores characteristics of his dimensions and how they influence each other. Particularly helpful are his links to the research of leading diplomacy and communications scholars. Reactions and discourse on his definition and taxonomy will be of interest – as will case studies that illuminate and give meaning to his concepts.
William Marcellino, Meagan Smith, Christopher Paul, and Lauren Skrabala, “Monitoring Social Media: Lessons for Future Department of Defense Social Media Analysis in Support of Information Operations,”RAND Corporation, 2017. In this 92-page study, RAND’s policy analysts take a deep dive into legal, technology, and national security issues in building social media analysis capabilities while navigating US laws and norms under conditions of uncertainty. Although they focus on requirements of the Department of Defense, they provide an informed assessment of the literature on social media technologies, concepts and methods in social media analysis, best practices, legal and ethical constraints, and the accelerating pace and reach of communication networks. Diplomacy scholars and practitioners will find their insights and recommendations useful.
Caitlin E. Schindler, The Origins of Public Diplomacy in US Statecraft: Uncovering a Forgotten Tradition, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). Missing in the abundant literature on US public diplomacy are careful studies of its pre-institutional origins in the nation’s history and culture. Schindler (Institute of World Politics) has made a significant contribution to filling this void. Her deeply researched book, filled with insights and rich detail, illuminates ways the US engaged and sought to influence foreign publics from the American Revolution through the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. She reveals patterns in the nation’s diplomatic and civil society traditions and provides informed assessments of how the nation’s past enables and constrains US diplomacy today.
Giles Scott-Smith, guest editor, “The Evolving Embassy: Changes and Challenges to Diplomatic Representation and Practice in the Global Era,” New Global Studies, Volume 11, Issue 2, July 2017. Are embassies still necessary? How should they adapt to changes in global and domestic contexts? New governance structures. City diplomacy. New non-state actors. Changing norms and practices. In his balanced and well-reasoned introduction, Scott-Smith (University of Leiden) discusses contrasting views of those who argue embassies remain essential and critics who see them as increasingly irrelevant. Case studies examine these issues from historical and social science perspectives. Small-state diplomacy. Diplomatic practice in extreme situations. Insights from specific diplomatic practices, i.e., labor attaches, honorary consuls. Scott-Smith finds consensus on the growing importance of city diplomacy. Going forward, he argues, “embassies will survive,” debate will continue, and their numbers will decline reflecting a “shift to more flexible forms of ‘presence.’” Contains a useful list of resources.
Giles Scott-Smith, “Introduction.”
Pascal Lottaz (Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo), “Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan.”
Louis Clerc (University of Turku), “Global Trends in Local Contexts: The Finnish Embassy in Paris, 1956-1990.”
Geert Van Goethem (Ghent University), “Bevin’s Boys Abroad: British Labor Diplomacy in the Cold War Era.”
Giles Scott-Smith, “Edges of Diplomacy: Literary Representations of the (Honorary) Consul and the Public-Private Divide in Diplomatic Studies.”
Kenneth Weisbrode (Bilkent University, Ankara), “Coda: Ten Questions for a Diplomat.”
The Soft Power 30: A Global Ranking of Soft Power 2017, Portland and USC Center on Public Diplomacy, July 18, 2017. Of particular interest in this 152-page third annual report on the soft power of 30 countries (a collaboration between Portland, a strategic communication consulting company, and USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy) are its essays by prominent scholars and practitioners. Topics include selected national perspectives on soft power, practical advice from USC’s CPD, and insights on varieties of tools, methods, and actors (public diplomacy, city diplomacy, digital technologies, cultural relations, and activities of non-state actors). Contributors: Moira Whelan (formerly State Department and USAID), Martin Davidson (Great Britain-China Center), Yoichi Funabashi (Asia Pacific Initiative), Tomas Kroyer (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Argentina), Victoria Dean (Portland), Laura Kyrke-Smith (International Rescue Committee), Philip Hall (Portland), Jordan Bach-Lombardo (Portland), Erin Helland (Youth for Understanding), Gail Lord (Lord Cultural Resources), Nicholas J. Cull (University of Southern California), Joel Day (Human Resources Commission, San Diego), Katherine Brown (Council on Foreign Relations), Tom Fletcher (British Diplomat, author of Naked Diplomacy: Power and Statecraft in the Digital Age), Jay Wang (University of Southern California), and Corneliu Bjola (University of Oxford). The report’s rankings, analyzed by Portland’s Jonathan McClory, compare six categories of soft power resources. Key 2017 findings: France ranks first, an advance of three places from 2016. The UK remains in second place. The US ranks third, a drop from first place in 2016 attributed to the Trump Administration’s “zero sum nationalist rhetoric” and “mercurial approach to foreign policy.”
Ioannis D. Stefanidis, “American Projection and Promotion of Democracy: The Voice of America, The Greek Dictatorship, and Ceausescu’s Romania,” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, University of Minnesota, Volume 32/33, 2016/2017, pp. 166-238 (publication online forthcoming). In this study, deeply researched in US archives and literature on the Voice of America (VOA) and US Information Agency (USIA), Stefanidis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) examines VOA’s broadcasts to Greece during its seven-year military dictatorship (1967-1974) and to Romania under the Ceauşescu government. His concerns are to assess VOA’s role in promoting democratic change, illuminate the interplay between principle and expediency in US policies toward different types of authoritarian regimes, and test the extent to which US broadcasts may have contributed to the demise of these regimes. He provides insights into VOA’s broadcasting priorities and programs of its Greek and Romanian services. He explores listening habits of their audiences and the policies of their governments. Tensions arising from VOA’s commitment to journalism norms and US foreign policy guidance from USIA and the State Department are an underlying theme. Stefanidis shows how democracy promotion was subordinated to other policies (encouraging Greece’s cooperation in NATO and Romania’s association with the West) and how this played out in VOA’s broadcasts. He concludes that VOA, despite its strong commitment to the norms of its Charter, “was widely regarded as the mouthpiece of the US government,” unlike the BBC, Radio Free Europe, and Deutsche Welle. VOA’s influence was limited because it could not “offset the damage of what was perceived as a policy of double standards: tolerating dictatorship in some cases, castigating it in others.” An offprint can be purchased for $5.00 from the Modern Greek Studies Program, 325 Social Sciences Building, University of Minnesota 267–19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Also available at www.academia.edu.
Catherine Tsalikis, “A Foreign Service Worth Fighting For,”OpenCanada.org. July 26, 2017. Tsalikis (Senior Editor, OpenCanada.org, Centre for International Governance Innovation) interviewed current and former Canadian foreign service officers to explore “a battle for the soul” of a diplomatic corps seized with “fundamental questions about the role of a diplomat and the future of the service.” Issues include: the benefits of personal diplomacy and nurturing relationships, flawed public perceptions of glamour and the gritty reality of 24/7 diplomatic practice, damage to the foreign service under the former government of Stephen Harper, and gaps between promise and delivery under the current government of Justin Trudeau. She also explores downsides of “golden ageism” and a “culture of complaint” when career diplomats reflect on the past. Among these are different comparative advantages of a career officer corps and non-career diplomats with different skills and experiences in a world where distinctions between foreign service officers and others doing foreign work are blurring. The knowledge and methods of Canada’s diplomats continue to give scholars and reform-minded practitioners much to work with.
Vivian Walker, “From Pylos to Pyongyang: What Thucydides Can Teach Us About Contemporary Diplomacy,” Small Wars Journal, August 28, 2017. Walker (USC Center for Public Diplomacy Faculty Fellow) continues to provide illuminating and teachable case studies (e.g., Benghazi: Managing the Message). This time she draws on Thucydides account of Sparta’s negotiations with Athens following Sparta’s defeat at Pylos. Walker sets the scene and discusses implications for understanding others, diplomatic persuasion and compromise, credible communication with publics and negotiators, and the importance of public opinion at home and abroad. She concludes with brief comments on the case’s relevance to challenges of diplomacy with North Korea.
Richard Wilke, Bruce Stokes, Jacob Poushter, and Janell Getterolf, “U.S. Image Suffers as Publics Around the World Question Trump’s Leadership,” Pew Research Center, June 2017. In a study of 37 countries, Pew’s researchers find a steep and rapid decline in US favorability ratings and trust in the US president and his policies. A “median of just 22% has trust in Trump to do the right thing when it comes to international affairs” in contrast to a median of 64% in the final years of the Obama presidency. In other findings, Trump gets higher ratings than Obama in Russia and Israel. Germany’s Angela Merkel gets higher ratings globally than Trump, China’s Xi Jinping, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Overall, Americans are viewed more positively than the US as a country, with a median of 58% holding positive views of Americans. Although a median of 64% like American popular culture, lower marks are given to the US government’s respect for personal freedoms, American ideas about democracy, and American ideas and customs spreading in their country.
U.S. Department of State, “Official Communication Using Social Media,” 10 FAM 180, August 24, 2017. State’s Office of Policy Planning and Resources for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R/RPPR) has updated regulations in the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM) on official use of social media for public diplomacy purposes. Covered issues include required approvals for creating and using social media accounts for official purposes, social media advertising, content restrictions on personal social media accounts, social media site management, impersonations on social media, terms of use and terms of service, and protecting government social media accounts. The new regulations link to earlier FAM requirements that still apply. (Courtesy of Greta Morris)
US Government Accountability Office (GAO), “Department of State: Foreign Language Proficiency Has Improved, But Efforts to Reduce Gaps Need Evaluation,” GAO 17-318, March 2017. GAO, which periodically examines the State Department’s “persistent foreign language shortfalls,” finds that Foreign Service officers who did not meet language proficiency requirements fill 23 percent of overseas language-designated positions. Although this is an 8 percent improvement from 2008, significant gaps remain that affect “State’s ability to properly adjudicate visa applications, effectively communicate with foreign audiences, address security concerns, and perform other critical diplomatic functions.” GAO’s report provides a detailed critique and examples showing how language proficiency strengthened and constrained effective public diplomacy.
Recent Blogs and Other Items of Interest
“America’s Answer to Russian Propaganda TV,” June 15, 2017, The Economist.
Anne Applebaum, “If This Were the Cold War, America Would Be Poised to Lose,” August 4, 2017, The Washington Post.
Martha Bayles, “A Teachable Moment,” August 7, 2017, The American Interest.
Roger Cohen, “The Desperation of Our Diplomats,” July 28, 2017, The New York Times.
Noah Daponte-Smith, “The State Department in Crisis,” July 6, 2017, National Review.
Max Fisher, “Canada’s Trump Strategy: Go Around Him,” June 22, 2017, The New York Times.
Tom Fletcher, “If Diplomacy Did Not Exist, We Would Need To Invent It,”June 26, 2017, Oxford University Press Blog.
Gardiner Harris, “Diplomats Question Tactics of Tillerson, the Executive Turned Secretary of State,” August 6, 2017; “State Dept. Restores Job Offers to Students After Diplomat Outcry,” June 30, 2017, The New York Times.
Chris Hensmen and Shawn Powers, “Can Public Diplomacy Survive the Internet?” July 19, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Katherine E. Hone, “Would the Real Diplomacy Please Stand Up?” July 5, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Mariami Khatiashvili, “George Balanchine: The Public Diplomat Beyond the Ballet Master,” August 30, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Amanda Kolson Hurley, “Diplomatic Design: New U.S. Embassies Make an Architectural Statement,” July 20, 2017, CNN.com
Paul Kyumin Lee, “What is Information Dissemination, and Why is It Important for North Korea,” (Interview with Jieun Baek, author of North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground is Transforming a Closed Society), August 18, 2017, The National Bureau of Asian Research.
Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer, “State Department Reorganization Eliminates Climate, Muslim and Syria Special Envoys,” August 29, 2017, Foreign Policy Blog.
Tom Malinowski, “Did the United States Interfere in Russian Elections?” July 21, 2017, The Washington Post.
Ilan Manor, “Can National Leaders Influence National Brands?” August 1, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Andrew Natsios, “Tillerson Wants to Merge the State Dept. and USAID. That’s a Bad Idea,” June 28, 2017, The Washington Post.
Dana Priest and Michael Birnbaum, “Europe Has Been Working to Expose Russian Meddling for Years,” June 25, 2017, The Washington Post.
David Rank, “Why I Resigned From the Foreign Service After 27 Years,”June 23, 2017, The Washington Post.
Shaun Riordan, “Stop Inventing ‘New Diplomacies,’” June 21, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy. [JB - see also John Brown, "Diplomacies, from Public to Pubic), Huffington Post ]
Jeffrey Robertson, “Embassy Websites: First Impressions Count,” August 11, 2017, CPD Blog, USC Center for Public Diplomacy.
Josh Rogin, “The State Department Just Broke a Promise to Minority and Female Recruits,” June 18, 2017; “State Department Distances Itself From Trump, Creating an Alternate U.S. Foreign Policy,” June 6, 2017, The Washington Post.
Jennifer Rubin, “What is Going On at the State Department,” August 16, 2017; “State Department Dysfunction Reaches New Highs,” August 2, 2017, The Washington Post.
Cindy Saine and Marissa Melton, “Changes at State Department Lead to Questions About Its Mission,” August 6, 2017, US Politics News, Voice of America.
“@StateDept Loses One More Under Secretary as Bruce Wharton (Public Diplomacy/Public Affairs) Steps Down,” July 29, 2017, Diplopundit.
Nahal Toosi, “Tillerson Moves Toward Accepting Funding For Fighting Russian Propaganda,” August 31, 2017, Politico.
Nick Wadhams, “Tillerson Tightens Limits on Filling State Department Jobs,”June 28, 2017, Bloomberg Politics.
Ilir Zherka, “International Exchange Programs Receive Unprecedented Support,” July 20, 2017, Huffington Post.
Gem From The Past
Richard T. Arndt and David Lee Rubin, eds., The Fulbright Difference, 1948-1992, (Transaction Publishers, 1993). As diplomacy scholars and historians turn increasingly to “practice theory” and insights of field practitioners to supplement top down perspectives in foreign ministry archives, presidential papers, and blue ribbon commission reports, two resources in US diplomacy are making a significant difference: the extensive oral interviews compiled by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (searchable by last name, countries, and subjects) and the recently published online archive of all past issues of The Foreign Service Journal(1919-present). In this context, forty-one essays compiled by retired diplomat and former Fulbrighter Richard Arndt (author, The First Resort of Kings) and professor David Lee Rubin (University of Virginia) in The Fulbright Difference deserve a fresh look. These essays, written by former Fulbright scholars and former diplomats, some also former Fulbright grantees, are arranged by decade. They include stories and reflections on personal and national identity, ethnicity, political implications of academic exchanges, the goals and character of the Fulbright program, and perennial issues of administration and structure. These are primary source insights of passionate participants – a rich collection that deserves interrogation by scholars and others interested in dispassionate assessment of academic exchanges and cultural diplomacy. Includes a foreword by Stanley Katz (Princeton University) and an afterword by Robin W. Winks (Yale University).
An archive of Diplomacy's Public Dimension: Books, Articles, Websites(2002-present) is maintained at George Washington University's Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication. Current issues are also posted by the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy, the Public Diplomacy Council, and
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