James Pamment

What Became of the New Public Diplomacy?: Recent Developments in British, US and Swedish Public Diplomacy Policy and Evaluation Methods

This article examines the relationship between theories of the ‘new’ public diplomacy and recent attempts by foreign ministries in the United Kingdom, United States and Sweden to develop public diplomacy strategies for the early twenty-first century. It provides a summary of policy debates in each nation alongside analysis of the evaluation methods that have been designed to support them. The article argues that expressions of a new public diplomacy are best explained within the constraints of different institutional and national cultures. Innovations in public diplomacy have typically taken place within the context of domestic demands for public accountability and value for money, pressures for empirical data to inform policy-making, and the increased centralization of public diplomacy activities. Evaluation plays an important role in improving actors’ capacities for newer forms of public diplomacy, but often by measuring the public diplomacy institution and its objectives, rather than whether the needs of foreign publics are met. This suggests that any paradigm shift from old to new public diplomacy has in practice centred on domestic and organizational concerns rather than the achievement of normative goals such as increased dialogue with foreign citizens.

'Putting the GREAT back into Britain' : National identity, public-private collaboration & Transfers of brand equity in 2012's global promotional campaign

Research Highlights and Abstract This article provides A ‘zeitgeist’ analysis of how the Coalition leadership tried to make the most of Britains ‘big year’ of 2012, particularly in terms of the governments ‘prosperity agenda’; Rich empirical data about high profile, government-wide trends in British promotional strategies and practices in the context of austerity; Analysis of the consequences of these promotional activities from a number of perspectives, including: GREAT as an alternative to existing promotional structures; strategies for drawing upon national identity in support of economic growth; disciplining techniques for enforcing brand identity; approaches to co-branding corporate and governmental Britain; the metrics used to demonstrate impact. The GREAT campaign is one of the most ambitious national promotion efforts ever undertaken. Timed to make the most of Britains raised profile during Olympic year, the aim was to promote trade, investment and tourism under a unified identity emphasising British achievements. However, the campaign raises a number of issues. The first is how and why GREAT emerged as an alternative to established structures for soft power, public diplomacy and marketing in the UK. The second is the ways GREAT engages with collective identity through the nationalisation and commodification of symbolic resources. Third is the practices used to include and exclude specific target groups and stakeholders. Fourth is the interaction between economic and symbolic resources, including public-private collaboration and the evidence used to determine impact and value. These themes contribute to an analysis of GREAT that will be of interest to scholars of politics and IR in the UK and internationally.

The Mediatization of Diplomacy

Practitioners and scholars are increasingly aware that an array of new actors, communication technologies, agendas and expectations are changing the institution of diplomacy. How diplomatic actors are known and experienced through their representation assumes an increasingly important, and uncertain, role. This article argues that these changes to the field should be considered in terms of the shifting ontological and epistemological conditions for representing and experiencing diplomatic identities. In support of this, the article investigates the influence of mediated communication upon the production of knowledge and the ability to experience others through use of the term ‘mediatization’. Mediatization refers to the ways in which communication technologies have become so integrated into everyday activities that our knowledge and experience of the world is significantly altered, often in ways that appear banal and taken for granted. In the diplomatic context, mediatization involves placing pressure on actors to negotiate issues and identity salience in new ways; to coordinate and negotiate over codes and norms for representation within different mediated environments; and to strategically manage identities, messages and representational modalities within objective-led campaigns. This analysis is used to question further the relationship linking communication, diplomacy and public diplomacy, with the conclusion that public diplomacy can no longer be considered as entirely external communicative activities attached to the diplomatic world, since these are — in an age of mediatization — necessarily part of diplomacy proper. Rather, public diplomacy makes most sense in that coordinating role, as a form of semiotic and normative coalition-building within organizations and among connected stakeholders.

Digital diplomacy as transmedia engagement: Aligning theories of participatory culture with international advocacy campaigns

Contemporary diplomacy is subject to the same pressures of globalization as many other communication industries. However, insights from different areas of Media and Communication Studies have only been partly explored in the context of diplomacy. This article applies theories of transmedia storytelling, transmedia engagement and surveillance upon a case study of the recent Campaign to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. The aim is to investigate the ways in which contemporary diplomatic advocacy campaigns cope with fundamental problems such as media repertoires, co-created content, collective intelligence, digital convergence and stakeholder management. The article contends that co-creation and co-option of shared values through transmedia engagement techniques perform a disciplining role for stakeholders that may be linked to theories of surveillance and biopolitics. This study will be of much relevance to those interested in the significance of participatory culture theories to contemporary international advocacy, including its policies, strategies and mediating practices.

Strategic Narratives in US Public Diplomacy : A Critical Geopolitics

The United States has historically held a unique, complex, and dynamic relationship to international geopolitical space. From the Monroe Doctrine to Cold War demarcations such as containment and détente, the United States has sought to define its geopolitical position in relation to other nations through narratives which have served as popular reference points for interpreting shifts in international power relations. Why, then, is it unable to produce a compelling story of geopolitical space for the 21st century? This article examines historical examples of geopolitical discourse used by the United States in promoting its foreign policies in order to explore the question of why post-9/11 narratives have failed to successfully build upon narratives of popular struggle against the Soviet Union. There are, however, historical examples which suggest possible directions for rejuvenation.

Digital containment: Revisiting containment strategy in the digital age

Since the Ukraine conflict began in 2014, there has been an increased awareness of the threat to EU interests posed by Russia. In early 2015, the EEAS created the East StratCom Team to respond by promoting the EU’s soft power, strengthen media resilience, and catalogue disinformation. This article categorizes several examples of Russian disinformation in order to conceptualize the conduct of digital warfare and suggest how it might be contained. We argue that Russian disinformation earns its effectiveness by focusing upon efforts to exploit differences between EU media systems (strategic asymmetry), the targeting of disenfranchised or vulnerable audiences (tactical flexibility), and the ability to mask the sources of disinformation (plausible deniability). We argue that the EU and NATO’s response should be informed by a strategy of digital containment based on the tenets of supporting media literacy and source criticism, encouraging institutional resilience, and promoting a clear and coherent strategic narrative capable of containing the threat from inconsistent counter-messaging.

Strategic Communication Campaigns at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Managing Mediatization During the Papal Visit, the Royal Wedding, and the Queen’s Visit to Ireland

This article investigates strategic communication in the context of the wider adoption of “campaign” approaches to public diplomacy at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The three case studies are the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom, the marriage of HRH Prince William to Kate Middleton, and Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to Ireland. The analytical framework seeks to situate strategic communication theory within a political–economic environment pervaded by a dependence on the media and its institutions for sociopolitical knowledge. Therefore, while affirming the growth and influence of strategic communication as a social phenomenon, this article questions how processes of mediatization impact strategic communication, its organization and practices. The case studies reveal characteristic techniques such as managing mediated spaces for meetings and discussion; shaping the salience of target groups, stakeholders, and participants; an emphasis on values and norms that may be tailored efficiently to different circumstances; and, a strong focus on achieving strategic consistency across diverse messages and messengers. The results will be of interest to researchers and students interested in better understanding how organizations utilize complementary communicative techniques to shape knowledge and steer experiences of political events in ways supportive of their overarching goals.

West European Public Diplomacy

There are many kinds of public diplomacy (PD) currently practiced in Europe. Perhaps the most familiar of these is the national level advocacy and cultural promotion work conducted by foreign and cultural ministries. This chapter explores the PD policies of the “big three” in Europe: France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK). Although the UK is well represented in recent scholarly debates, there are surprisingly few studies of French and German PD in the English language.1 In particular, there are no studies that assume a comparative perspective upon their PD as a whole; research has instead focused on cultural diplomacy and broadcasting.2 My argument here is that comparison of these three countries can reveal important themes and issues in the evolution of PD debates that have not been sufficiently represented in contemporary scholarship.

Rethinking Diplomatic and Development Outcomes through Sport : Toward a Participatory Paradigm of Multi-Stakeholder Diplomacy

Abstract Sport diplomacy provides a challenging example of how diplomatic practice is changing in light of a proliferation of actors, agendas, and modes of communication. This context has inspired greater interest in techniques for managing the participation of others in the pursuit of desired outcomes, such as debates surrounding multi-stakeholder diplomacy, public diplomacy, and soft power. However, these debates often derive from an instrumentalist perspective of exerting influence and securing outcomes. Sport, on the other hand, involves sites and practices capable of supporting communities in the identification of their own goals, and of supporting the development of strategies and skills that can achieve those goals. Its participatory qualities challenge instrumentalist approaches to diplomatic objective setting, and potentially reveal some of the ways in which diplomacy can be more diffuse and inclusive. This article uses the example of sport diplomacy to question the basis for instrumentalist diplomatic objective setting and to explore the theoretical basis for participatory models of multi-stakeholder diplomacy.

Introduction: New Dimensions in the Politics of Image and Aid

This interdisciplinary collection explores new dimensions in the politics of image and aid. The approach taken by this timely volume is to consider a variety of cases drawing upon a combination of theoretical and conceptual lenses that each in their own way combine a focus on aid with a focus on image. The cases in this volume consist of empirical contributions in regions as diverse as Kosovo, Korea, Mexico, Turkey, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sweden, Colombia, Russia, and China. They seek to explore foreign policy trends originating with some of the most powerful Northern donors in order to see how they are influencing patterns of national development. This introduction outlines some essential themes in the relationship between soft power, public diplomacy, development communication, and nation brands.