Wk 7 – Nation Branding & Culture

The concept of Nation Branding as a public diplomacy tool at the disposal of governments is relatively new to the foreign ministry cadre of tools. Nation branding grows out of and possibly consists of a complex outgrowing of the country of origin, place branding, public diplomacy, and national identity. What all of these concepts – and the academic literature – skirt around but never really attribute is the place of culture in nation branding. As culture grows out of the country of origin, much of the value of a place rests in the culture of its people, a primary goal of public diplomacy is explaining culture, and national identity is created by culture, nation branding must be seen as both an outgrowing of culture, and as an indicator of cultural context and values.

Using the “GREAT” Britain nation branding campaign of 2012 as a case study, nation branding efforts are most successful when they combine deep domestic political buy-in, an appropriation of existing brands that combine both an accepted piece of the national identity and a widely-held association in international audiences, tight internal or interagency governmental coordination, and buy-in and integration by all level of participants. A key factor that touches all of these areas is the existing culture, as felt and celebrated internally and sought-after from outside of the nation. The GREAT campaign achieved all of these marks exceptionally well, one could argue, by presenting a Britain that more British – a Britain centered on itself, and coming from itself; British self-interest, British cultural products, British goals for British people using British historic lines of accomplishment. Rather than bringing the world a message of ‘Britain – we are like you,’ Prime Minister Cameron’s government focused on ‘Britain – we achieve high British standards for the British first.’ And in terms of ability to execute from within the British government apparatus, the approach worked.

I argue two things from this example: 1) That ideals of exemplary achievement and a higher-than-others order of cultural, ideological, and performance ‘place’ in the world was a preexisting British cultural trait that was the underlying reason for the campaign’s success. 2) That this example of the state co-opting aspects of national interest, cultural products, history, and underlying national identity into a state-’organized’ or ‘orchestrated’ nation brand is perhaps a new legitimate use of power privy only to a legitimate state. Like Weber’s definition of the state as having the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, perhaps a state can likewise now be defined as having a monopoly on the legitimate use of culture as its identification. In a kind of soft power turned inward while it grandstands for the the international stage, nation branding may become an evolved and subtly unilateral form of cultural export.

Contribution vs. Attribution

Should practitioners worry about Contribution versus Attribution in making claims about measurement?

Problems related to proving causality or demonstrating attribution are familiar to students of international relations and political science. Without the benefit of highly controlled environments for experimentation, social scientists face greater challenges in conclusively demonstrating causality than their counterparts in the natural sciences. International politics are complex and dynamic, making it impossible to eliminate all extraneous variables, or to discover the hidden variables that impact policy in the international arena. Scholars of international relations thus face a monumental task in attempting to attribute a policy outcome to any one input, such as a public diplomacy campaign. Furthermore, foreign affairs students are generally restricted to observing international events, which occur as single, unique instances. As social scientists lack the control and repeatability necessary to prove attribution in a scientific sense, focusing on the contributions of certain policies or practices, while less useful than attribution, will also prove less futile.

For practitioners of public diplomacy this means that the chance of definitively attributing policy outcomes to their work is extremely low. Public diplomacy efforts cannot feasibly be distinguished from other concurrent diplomatic activities, let alone the other societal and political factors which shape international policy. Given the difficulty of such a task, efforts to collect metrics in an attempt to prove a causal relationship between public diplomacy and policy objectives, represent a misuse of resources, that will likely never bear fruit. That is not to say that efforts to evaluate the performance of public diplomacy efforts should be eschewed altogether. While attempts to show that an Embassy’s Facebook page successfully dispelled misconceptions of American beliefs and values, measurements indicating how many people were reached by a Facebook page can be useful to evaluating the contribution of public diplomacy efforts to larger foreign policy goals.

However, practitioners must also be cautious to avoid construing measurements of contribution as measurements of attribution. To do so ignores the myriad of other factors which affect foreign policy and ignores the very societal complexities which make the job of public diplomacy officers so difficult and unpredictable.

-Anthony

 

Week 4 – Q.1: Do you think public diplomacy officers should be required to get more training than ‘traditional’ Foreign Service Officers?

Diplomacy – in a general way, not just Public Diplomacy – is woefully underfunded since the collapse of the U.S.S.R.  With budgets slashed, training time spent has been slashed as well; less time in language, less time spent honing tradecraft, less time gathering management skills before being pushed into a new world every couple of years exacts a greater pound of flesh from Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) over the typical 20-30 year career.  All FSOs should have more training period, yes Public Affairs Officers (PAOs) need more training, but it is unfair to compare them to other ‘traditional’ FSOs who need training in their fields as well.  

Public Affairs Officers need training especially in: the various programs available through the Department of State – valuable programs and lessons learned worldwide, management, budgeting with allocating and reporting, and managing programs without a budget.  The skills and traits necessary to Public Diplomacy work have evolved in the modern era, the ‘New Diplomacy,’ from putting a nice image on the ‘America’ brand to demonstrating American values directly to the local non-elites by engaging with the people, bypassing the government entirely in some cases. 

There are other arguments for training that address additional questions from this week:

       1)  More training creates better prepared diplomats, firmly entrenched and versed in U.S. foreign policy who can then be trusted to speak more on behalf of the touted U.S. government.  Plurality of thoughtful, educated American foreign policy opinions can only demonstrate the strength of our democracy. 

       2)  Also, longer, more in-depth training should give PAOs a better view of Washington machinations and political motivations to create a PAO who comes from a whole of government approach.  These qualities should instill confidence in the U.S. embassy leadership, and demonstrate the leadership role of the PAO at post, naturally integrating PD work with the rest of the diplomatic efforts.  Such a situation would lead to the PAO de facto autonomy as the PAO moves from a role of noisome cultural context informer or reminder to trusted adviser. 

Should public diplomacy officers be permitted to openly comment?

In his chapter on Traditional Information Channels, Ambassador William A. Rugh describes the diametric tension between PDOs speaking both candidly and often to the media and the fallout that may occur if they do so. 

The Public Diplomacy Council also discussed this same issue during its 2013 Fall Forum. In the Future of Public Diplomacy panel discussion, Rajiv Chandrasekaran spoke about the need for the State Department to move away from a risk-averse media culture.  Chandrasekaran emphasized the need for U.S. diplomats to not be seen as slow and defensive and to speak with truth, accuracy, and transparency.  According to Chandasekaran, the U.S. military is much better at empowering officials and soldiers to speak openly and honestly with the media about challenges and limitations. He emphasized that posts lack sufficient delegated authority to make smart decisions. 

Is there a difference, though, between when a diplomat speaks to the press and when a military officer does so?  I think there is.  When a diplomat speaks, they inevitably speak to the U.S. policy position due to their role. When a military official speaks, they are often talking about the implementation of U.S. policy, or day-to-day operations.   These are two very different things. 

U.S. Embassy Cairo’s tweet condemning the film “Innocence of Muslims,” posted on September 11, 2012, highlights this difference well.  The tweet – issued not only as protesters breached the grounds of U.S. Embassy Cairo, but also only a few hours after the fatal attack on U.S. Embassy Benghazi – quickly became fodder for the 2012 Presidential race. The tweet, made by a diplomat, was construed domestically as an Obama administration foreign policy strategy of what Romney called “apology diplomacy.” While this can easily be attributed to a vitriolic domestic presidential race, it very clearly points out the huge difference between a soldier and a public diplomacy officer: the public conflates diplomats’ role representing the United States abroad with the role of formulating foreign policy, whereas the public sees the military’s role as merely implementing a subset of foreign policy.  Although Chandrasekaran has an excellent point, one worthy of careful consideration, lessons learned in the military may not always be appropriate for the diplomatic corps because of the stark differences between the two.  Chandrasekaran provided further evidence of this difference, specifically in risk aversion, between to the two corps, saying “Congress is more likely to criticize civilians who take risks in complex environments and fail than members of the military.”

 Public Diplomacy officers should be enabled to speak timely and transparently, so long as they do so carefully. I tend to agree with Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs under the Bush Administration, who strongly encouraged U.S. diplomats to be proactive in approaching the media and to “think advocacy;” however, there is a fine line between being proactive and seeking opportunities to engage with the media on one side and having the authority to speak candidly without clearance from those that make policy on the other. Unfortunately, the clearance process and a culture of risk aversion cause Public Diplomacy officers to often shy away from opportunities.   

Am I wrong? Is it avoidable?  What are your thoughts?  Is there a better agency to which we can look for an example?

– Tiffany Law

Public Diplomacy Skills

 

In order to fully realize the benefits of a fleet of foreign-based public diplomacy officers, they need to be fully equipped with a variety of skills and capabilities. Although public diplomacy officers will gain many of these skills during training, they should also have a capacity to learn, as they will need to acquire other essential skills while working.

Rugh discusses several important skills necessary for public diplomacy officers to operate effectively. As mentioned previously, it is more effective for the officer to learn some of these skills while working, rather than in training.

The skills that public diplomacy officers can learn from training include program management, nation-specific information (such as information about the nation’s economy, society, politics, etc.), linguistics, and knowledge of U.S. culture, society, and politics. Also, public diplomacy officers can learn to communicate effectively through several methods, including reading, writing, and oral communication. Public diplomacy officers also need to be comfortable working on a team and individually. There are not as many public diplomacy officers stationed in embassies and consulates abroad. As such, many times the officer will have to behave autonomously and make decisions quickly without any external input. For example, the officers often speak with ordinary citizens on a regular basis while stationed abroad. The officer will have to use his or her training and understanding of the culture to decide which topics are appropriate to discuss with local society members. On the other hand, the officer needs to be able to work with a team including locally employed staff, higher and lower-level officials in the U.S. and abroad, and society members.

Many of these learned skills would be sharpened with job experience, while other skills will only come after the public diplomacy officer has spent some time working in the foreign nation. Some of the skills that grow with job experience include cultural awareness and openness, tolerance, and successful networking abilities.

Finally, there are some skills that are inherent in the personality of the public diplomacy officer himself. Specifically, good public diplomacy officers will have strong interpersonal skills, an innate curiosity about other cultural traditions, respect for different societies, and the ability to lead a team.  

            Carnes Lord and Helle Dale (2007) noted that public diplomacy was important in the collapse of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, even though the practice of public diplomacy was not yet fully developed or operational. Because the idea of public diplomacy was undefined, Congress did not fund many efforts. Although the practice of public diplomacy was not exercised as fervently during the Cold War as it is today, many of the skills public diplomacy officers employ today are the same as the ones used decades ago. There have been a plethora of technological advances since the Cold War, which have changed the method that we use to communicate information. Technology has also made this communication much faster and easier. Therefore, the biggest change in public diplomacy skills since the Cold War has been in communication. Now, public diplomacy officers can use social media, electronic sources, television, and email to distribute information. The remaining skills mentioned previously have changed entirely since the Cold War. Instead, these skills have been easier to acquire because of technological advances. For example, the Internet has made it easier and quicker to learn about different cultures.

External References:

Lord, C. and Dale, H. (2007). “Public Diplomacy and the Cold War: Lessons Learned” http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/09/public-diplomacy-and-the-cold-war-lessons-learned

 

~LaTiesha 

Cultural programing to meet audiences where they are at

In thinking about question one this week, that asks ‘which kind of cultural diplomacy do you think is best?’ I reflected back on an article I read in classes on culture and conflict resolution.  The article,  “Towards EthnoRelativeism,” Milton Bennett describes the different ways people react to cultural differences and how someone can progress through those stages.  He set up a model that is separated into two categories, ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism.  The first three stages are ethnocentric.  When an ethnocentric person comes in contact with another culture, they may move towards the stages of denial, separation, and finally minimizing another’s culture as one sees their own culture as central to reality.  As a person has more and more exposure to and experiences with another culture, one may replaces his or her ethnocentric worldview with an ethnorelative position.  The stages of ethnorelativism include accepting another culture, eventually adapting to it, and possibly developing a pluralistic worldview that is identified by internalizing one or more different cultural frames of references.

As Cynthia Schnider points out in her article “It’s the Culture, Stupid,” cultural diplomacy is a very effective way of conveying one’s culture to a foreign public. It utilizes creative expression to evoke an audience’s emotions, thereby influencing their opinion. In reading several chapters fromFront Line Public Diplomacy: How U.S. Embassies Communicate with Foreign Publics, by William Rugh, it is apparent that different forms of cultural diplomacy meets people at different points along the ethnorelative/ethnocentric scale.

Bennett describes music, food and multicultural exhibits as the best way of moving an Other past the initial phases of ethnocentricism.  Cultural programing such as artistic and creative exhibits, sports diplomacy, and even books introduce foreign publics to U.S. culture.  It addresses those who may have an ethnocentric point of view by introducing them to the positive aspects of another culture and asks them to analyze it through their lens.  Robert Abro in a 2012 blog post warns that a foreign public may not always interpret cultural diplomacy events in the same way that a public diplomacy officer (PDO) may want. Regardless, through exposure to another culture, an individual may begin to move up the ethnocentric scale.

Through more sustained contact, such as through American centers and American Corners that Rugh discusses in chapter 8, individuals may move towards the “minimization” in the ethnocentric phase.  During this phase people are able to see similarities between their culture and that of another.  Individuals who seek out ad attend American Corners are welcomed into a place where they can meet with U.S. citizens, or staff that are very knowledgeable of U.S. culture.  They access materials and engage in a variety of activities, programs, and resources. Speaker series also seem to accomplish this.

Those that can see the positive aspects of U.S. culture, through the above activities may be ready to engage in further activities that will move them past ethnocentrism and towards ethnorelativism.  Educational and professional exchanges bring individuals who are interested in U.S. culture to the United States for a time. As Rugh discussed in chapter 10, upon return to their home country, participants have a deeper, more sophisticated understanding often United States. They can have a pro-American view and often explain aspects of the United States to their others in a more sympathetic way.  This indicates that participants have accepted U.S. culture and perhaps even empathize with it, showing that participants have entered stages of ethnorelativism.

Milton Bennet’s scale makes it apparent that not every public diplomacy activity is well suited to someone at different ends of the scale.  An exchange would not work for someone who is denying American culture (first ethnocentric stage), and an art or cultural exhibition may not help someone at the acceptance stage of ethnorelativism move beyond that.  Because of this, I don’t believe that any one program is more important than another.  Instead, a PDO needs to understand his/her audience very well in order to identify the most effective programs for their audiences and allocate funding accordingly.

– Tiffany Law

Please enjoy the below video.  It is a flash mob that U.S. Embassy Yerevan performed in the center of a busy public shopping area.  This is an example of introducing people to fun and exciting parts of U.S. culture and inviting them to learn more.  While individuals high on Bennett’s scale will enjoy this video, it will likely not help them move higher up Bennett’s scale.  Rather, this kind of activity meets someone low on Bennet’s scale an may invite them to engage in further programming that will help them move up it.

Week 3 – Q.1: What kind of “cultural diplomacy” do you think would be most effective as a component of a larger public diplomacy program?

Cultural diplomacy programs are those that bring American artists, academics, athletes, and other specialized professionals to a foreign nation to showcase an aspect of American life and culture beyond the policies of the U.S. government.  The most successful cultural diplomacy programs are well-integrated into the larger Public Diplomacy efforts at the embassy or consulate, and take the total mission into account.  As there has been a resurgence of U.S. government interest in cultural programs as part of our diplomacy effort abroad since 9/11, it almost seems as though the cultural programming has been intent on parading American ethnic diversity, which is important, and trying to find people to tell our friends-turned-critics and outright enemies to like us, which didn’t work so well.  

 

Historically, cultural diplomacy programs have brought famous and less-famous figures to foreign audiences to share, teach, and practice, and the most effective have been those who spoke their minds, demonstrating confidence in U.S. rule-of-law by criticizing government policy without any apparent fear of reprisal, and embodying values official diplomats iterate and reiterate like freedom of expression and religion, and valuing human rights.  These ‘American’ citizen ‘diplomats’ did more to show that those ideals really mean something in America, are practiced and valued, while official United States government policy might have been different.  

U.S. government policy is just beginning to shift from a unilateral stance to a multi-lateral and poli-lateral point-of-view.  Programs that bring listeners, and people who tell a much louder and more impactful sub-textual message than whatever surface message appeases a critical or outright hostile foreign government.

Public Speakers and Cultural Diplomacy

What kind of “cultural diplomacy” do you think would be most effective as a component of a larger public diplomacy program? 

 

Though many examples of cultural diplomacy discussed by the authors in this weeks readings are doubtless complimentary to one another, if one were to choose a single program to accompany a larger public diplomacy program, I would recommend a program similar to the “American Speakers” program described by William Rugh. Under this program U.S. Embassies identify American public figures of interest to local publics and encourage such speakers to give presentations or speeches to foreign audiences. Such a program gives the opportunity to reach a wider audience at lower costs than many of the alternatives presented by Rugh. 

By selecting a variety of prominent speakers from different fields speakers can reach a wider potential audience than more focused cultural exchanges such as the “sports diplomacy” articulated by Rugh. Cultural programming directed at any subset of a foreign audience can be conducted by simply promoting different speakers. A prominent musician might speak one month, to be followed by a technological entrepreneur, capturing vastly different demographics and interests among foreign audiences and providing exposure to different aspects of a state’s culture.

Utilizing speakers also provides geographic flexibility.  While a presence at World Expos or the creation of cultural corners can provide valuable exposure to local populations, these they are limited to those with geographic proximity to the structures. Speakers can be booked at venues around the country; any place to which a speaker is willing to travel is a potential site for a cultural diplomacy campaign.

For the U.S., promoting American speakers also takes advantage of the existing preeminence of American culture, relying on famous figures or brands that appeal to foreign audiences without any intervention from the U.S. State Department. This also helps to keep costs down.  Rather than having to construct large and elaborate structures for expos, the State Department can recruit prominent Americans traveling as a part of their normal job responsibilities to dedicate some time to cultural diplomacy programs.

While the cultural power of the United States would make such programs difficult to replicate for smaller countries, for the U.S. and other major geopolitical powers with private-sector stars, a public speaking program, provides opportunities to interact with diverse foreign audiences for relatively low costs. 

-Anthony

Cultural vs. Public Diplomacy (W3, Q2)

Cultural diplomacy and public diplomacy are not polar opposites. The two ideas are very similar in terms of objectives. However, steps taken to achieve those objectives differ between the two. Specifically, the goal of both is to ultimately forge a relationship of understanding amongst nations with different cultures, attitudes, and political perspectives. In order to develop this deep level of understanding, public diplomacy efforts must consider political, institutional, and economic systems of a foreign nation. Cultural diplomacy efforts, however, must consider the ethical and emotional standards of a foreign nation. Instead of considering cultural diplomacy completely different from public diplomacy, we should recognize it as a necessary means to achieve holistic and effective diplomatic engagement amongst nations.

Cultural diplomacy, alone, is ineffective at forging deeper relationships because cultural representations are not fully representative of a society’s people and politics. Based on Albro’s (2012) survey responses, people understand cultural diplomacy to be any efforts to enlighten others to their society’s values by putting their culture on display in the international community. This is typically accomplished through performing arts, music, television programs, and movies. However, it is not necessarily conclusive that the audience will accurately interpret the real “message” conveyed by the nation. This is because cultural representations are not very interactive. To elaborate, cultural demonstrations, such as those mentioned previously, generally involve performers and an inactive audience. Even if audiences are able to participate in the demonstration, they still do not have the deep cultural knowledge to empathize with the performers. This type of understanding comes from studying and living amongst a society for a great deal of time. Fortunately, diplomats abroad have the advantage of living with and studying the foreign society.

Although cultural diplomacy is limited in some respects, it addresses many of the voids remaining from public diplomacy efforts. Specifically, with public diplomacy, methods are generally targeted towards political and foreign policy-related understanding. This is because public diplomacy aims to influence foreign nations’ perspective of the domestic nation. In this respect, public diplomacy can be considered self-serving, and cultural considerations are not fully recognized. This is important for a high level of engagement amongst government officials. Cultural diplomacy, however, is not as self-serving, and invites average citizens to engage with foreign nations. Because public diplomats present their culture in a genuine fashion, they can foster a level of trust among communities that foreign policy advocacy alone cannot. It is essential to understand the culture of the societies looking to engage in order to for public diplomacy efforts to be effective.

 

-LaTiesha 

 

Week 2 – Q.2: Do you think PD is too hampered by organizational and institutional contexts, and what could remedy this phenomenon?

Public Diplomacy, especially the New Public Diplomacy, is emerging as an area of study, and as a recognized integrated policy practice area.  After 9/11, much of the U.S. government scrambled to re-evaluate community outreach and pour out messages.  Over the 10+ years, we have learned that talking is not the only form of communication our audiences pay attention to – nor is it the most credible in many cases.  We as a nation have gained truly intercultural experience in the opportunity to see ourselves as we are seen, and it has mostly been a harsh light.

This experience and transformed acceptance of PD as ‘a thing’ has introduced public diplomacy as a necessary part of policy formation, rather than a PR clean-up job.  All U.S. government agencies contribute to policy formation, and several of them are interested in working out their own methods of communicating with foreign publics and governments, and affecting the Department of State as they do so.  As evidenced by the literature, state-run PD by the United States is controlled or steered by several factors:  Congressional funding and mandates, operational hierarchies at post and in Washington, lack of “proof” in verifiable research of impact, lack of coordination, and by virtue of its newness in that most Public Affairs Officers (PAOs) are not sufficiently trained for the many tools available and emerging in their own field.  I believe these boundaries and the friction they cause practitioners (and academics!) are evidence of growing pains.  PD is trying to transform, and is transforming in some sectors with the emergence of more multi-national NGOs and other non-state international actors who practice international engagement and branding without coordination with their original states’ PD message.  State-run PD must, and will transform, if only begrudgingly in order to keep up.  The confines to new approaches and networks like going through hierarchical channels to approve messaging and being informed of policy rather than centrally shaping it are literally the former democratic modes of speaking with one voice.  They arise out of old, unilateral mindsets that evidence shows are shifting at high levels of government.  Addressing these many factors across all state-players, and implementing changed processes should, and likely will come about in small movements, embassy by embassy.  There is no legislation, no charismatic leader, no revolutionary initiative that could implement and sustain so dramatic a shift; there is no panacea.  Transformational change to U.S. public diplomacy will happen person-to-person, in the “last three feet.”