Rebirth of Public Diplomacy after 9/11

We’ve spent a lot of time recently, especially after attending the conference at GW, discussing public diplomacy. We read in Hanson’s chapter about “War and Peace in the Information Age” about how public diplomacy first became important during the Cold War. It was a war of ideas, battling the basic tenets of communism. Public diplomacy became an extremely important part of U.S. foreign policy for the first time. After the Cold War though, public diplomacy was somewhat abandoned. Cultural centers closed and the U.S. government seemed to think that since we were the “super-power” of the world that either everyone liked us, or it just didn’t matter.

9/11 quickly proved that was disillusioned thinking.  The US realized that maybe we weren’t as loved by all as we had assumed. And public diplomacy did once again become a much more important part of US foreign policy. Some actions seemed to work like Radio Sawa, a radio station aimed towards Arabic speaking youth in the Middle East. They mix popular music with news from an American viewpoint. Although it is a public diplomacy effort, the website says it is “committed to the highest standards of journalism.” I think it’s a little conflicting for something to be considered a public diplomacy effort and journalism. 

Another effort that wasn’t as successful was the Office of Strategic Influence in the Pentagon. They had plans to plant news items in the media in foreign countries and even considered planting false news to put the US in a better light. When information about these plans leaked, the office closed within four months. The New York Times reported at the time that it was hard to get information about this fairly secretive office. The Times did report on what critics of the office said though. One of the main criticisms was that if news was planted for Reuters or a similar news agency, then news could make it’s way back to the U.S. very easily. And by law, the Pentagon and CIA are not allowed to engage in propaganda in the U.S.

Many were not satisfied with the supposedly amped-up efforts and the Council on Foreign Relations put together a task force made up of former ambassadors, academics, global business leaders, representatives from global NGOs and representatives from international think tanks. They released recommendations that are really interesting, even though many of them never took effect.

First they overall, just wanted to make public diplomacy a more crucial part of U.S. foreign policy, predominantly by placing more attention on leadership within public diplomacy. They also wanted to enhance training for ambassadors and build congressional support for public diplomacy.

The most interesting aspects of the proposal included partnerships with the private and non-profit sectors. They really wanted to create a Corporation for Public Diplomacy, modeled after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This organization would work on private funding and help foster new, creative ideas for public diplomacy from the private sector. They wanted to reach out to foreign media, which is also something that probably would have been more effective if done by NGOs already working in the area.

For the most part, the extension of public diplomacy didn’t spread to the non-profit or private sectors, like CFR’s task force recommended. And that’s not too surprising. The U.S. government, like many other governments and international organizations like the UN are reluctant to allow the private sector in, but I think it could have been helpful public diplomacy in the post-9/11 days.

Governing the World One Map at a Time

It’s no longer a question whether or not governance will move beyond the state, because it already has. Governance was once almost solely at the discretion of individual countries and their leaders. Now the state shares that responsibility with industry, the media, civil society and even technology.

The aspect that I find the most interesting is technology that plays a role in governance, particularly in developing areas where you wouldn’t expect technology to play such a large role. Usually technology is a tool wielded by NGOs.

Livingstone brings up the great example of Ushahidi. Ushahidi is a free and open source software that began in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 political unrest that collects data about ongoing violence that is submitted through e-mail, social networking sites and text messages Then the information is all compiled to essentially digitally map the area and keep people informed about what’s going on where. And even though Ushahidi started in Kenya, it’s now been used worldwide in 128 countries, in all kinds of conflict zones and natural disasters. From earthquakes in Japan and Haiti to violence in the Congo, and even right here in DC during the blizzard in 2010, Ushahidi was used as a tool. 

In this case, it is a combination of technology, an NGO and regular citizens that act as the players in governance. Without the people who send in information, Ushahidi would not work. It’s fueled by crowd sourcing. The one player Ushahidi does not need to function is the state.

So we’ve established that Ushahidi takes the state out of the equation, but what makes it governance? Livingstone uses this definition of governance: “complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective interests on the global plane are articulated, rights and obligations are established, and differences are mediated. (Weiss and Thakur, 2010).” Ushahidi fits this definition perfectly. It is a mix of formal and informal institutions, relationships and processes between citizens and organizations, in this case non-governmental. Collective interests are articulated and differences are mediated, in addition to public safety being provided for. Ushahidi and other technological tools like it are great examples of a new form of governance.