Diplomacy Paradigm Shift to Public Diplomacy

As Joseph Nye pointed out projecting soft power for promoting positive images of one's country has been more than attracting countries to be democracies after the cold war. Actually, with the victorious success in US for last decade, almost half of state-nations adopt the democracy now. Along with emergence of new power such as BRICs, EUs, ASEAN so on, the world paradigm has been changed to multi-lateral power. This also illustrates that the power of public has been increased. In order to pursuit the foreign diplomacy to other nations, it is needed to be friendly to its national leaders as well as its publics. This tells why the new diplomacy paradigm named "public diplomacy" is required.

Korea has been developed its economy for last half-centuries and Korea reached to the 12th by purchansing Power Parity (PPP) and 15th by nominal GDP in the world. Now, Korea is seeking its way to be an active actor in the global politics. Korea hosted G20 summit in 2011 and be a member of DAC in OECD in 2010. Fortunately, the Korean culture also has been welcomed to the world. Especially to those countries in Asian region.

In the middle of the Korea's public diplomacy, the Korean Foundation (http://www.kf.or.kr/eng/main/index.asp) actively held events that introduce its culture. Korea Foundation also provide a section named "Public Diplomacy." Mainly, it supports Korean research and studies overseas. For instance, KF funds to bilateral forum helding in overseas. One thing interesting here is that KF value the NGOs which actively involved in the diplomacy field. This is significant change because the Korean government has been so powerful and Korea has been top-down based operated country. To acknowledge NGOs in Korea is related to Joseph Nye's words that in transinational period, there is a borad range of alternatives such as NGOs, media, corportation, and so on. It is relatively short that Korea has been stepped into public diplomacy field comparing to China and Japan. China's Confucious Institute and Japan's Cultural diplomacy with its Manga and Animation are evaluated as good examples of public diplomacy.

The diplomacy has been extended from reaching to the leaders to reaching to the nation's public. As Joseph Nye said, role of credibility, self-criticism, and the role of civil society generating soft power as well as smart power in public diplomacy area.