This drive to inform and engage with the public is reinforced by the knowledge that NATO is accountable to its member governments and their taxpayers who fund the Organization. As such, and in a spirit of transparency, it explains its policies, activities and functions.
The Committee on Public Diplomacy (CPD) acts as an advisory body to the NAC on communication, media and public engagement issues. It makes recommendations to the NAC regarding how to encourage public understanding of, and support for, the goals of the Alliance.
As a student in our public diplomacy and global communications (PDGC) program, you will learn to communicate and build relationships in an international setting on behalf of governments, organizations and corporations to improve the public good.
As public diplomacy assumes a more prominent role in the diplomatic affairs of nations, scholars and practitioners are challenged to define the 'new' public diplomacy's purpose and goals, to develop the theoretical foundations of the discipline, and to articulate principles of practice for effectively and ethically achieving a nation's foreign affairs' objectives. This article demonstrates the potential for the public relations theory of relationship management to advance contemporary thought and practice in public diplomacy. The study finds that by defining public diplomacy's central purpose as relationship management, unifying the functions under one overarching concept, adopting a management (rather than communication) mindset, and recognizing the importance of diplomatic deeds that support communication practices, practitioners will be better equipped to conduct public diplomacy effectively.
Defining Public Diplomacy
The study of public diplomacy is a new and expanding field. CPD defines it as the public, interactive dimension of diplomacy which is not only global in nature, but also involves a multitude of actors and networks. It is a key mechanism through which nations foster mutual trust and productive relationships and has become crucial to building a secure global environment. There is no single agreed-upon definition of the term; this lack of definitional consensus may well prove to be a good thing. To view various definitions used by practitioners, academics, research institutes, or governments, along with the latest scholarship on the topic please visit CPD's comprehensive public diplomacy PD Hub.
Due to the fact that this program integrates the study of diplomacy alongside international governance (i.e. public analysis, international political economy, law and management), students will only select one thematic or regional concentrations (excluding diplomacy) ; rather than two for other PSIA programs.
International Governance and Diplomacy students may typically consider careers in the diplomatic corps, local, national or international administrations, in intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations or in transnational firms. They typically seek work in domains such as international cooperation, development or new public-private sector partnerships, consulting in international organizations or in the private sector.
The mission of American public diplomacy is to support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics and by expanding and strengthening the relationship between the people and Government of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world.
Bruce Wharton, Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs leads America's public diplomacy outreach, which includes messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism. The Under Secretary oversees the bureaus of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Public Affairs, and International Information Programs, as well as the Global Engagement Center, and participates in foreign policy development.
In international relations, public diplomacy or people's diplomacy, broadly speaking, is any of the various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influence with the aim that this foreign public supports or tolerates a government's strategic objectives.[1] These also include propaganda.[2] As the international order has changed over the twentieth century, so has the practice of public diplomacy. Its practitioners use a variety of instruments and methods ranging from personal contact and media interviews to the Internet and educational exchanges.
In his essay "'Public Diplomacy' Before Gullion: The Evolution of a Phrase," Nicholas J. Cull of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy writes, "The earliest use of the phrase 'public diplomacy' to surface is actually not American at all but in a leader piece from the London Times in January 1856. It is used merely as a synonym for civility in a piece criticizing the posturing of President Franklin Pierce." Cull writes that Edmund Gullion, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a distinguished retired foreign service officer, "was the first to use the phrase in its modern meaning."[3] In 1965, Gullion founded the Edward R. Murrow Center of Public Diplomacy, and Cull writes "An early Murrow Center brochure provided a convenient summary of Gullion's concept":
Public diplomacy . . . deals with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies. It encompasses dimensions of international relations beyond traditional diplomacy; the cultivation by governments of public opinion in other countries; the interaction of private groups and interests in one country with another; the reporting of foreign affairs and its impact on policy; communication between those whose job is communication, as diplomats and foreign correspondents; and the process of intercultural communications.[3]
The most important roles public diplomacy will have to play for the United States in the current international environment will be less grand-strategic and more operational than during the Cold War. Support of national policy in military contingencies is one such role, and probably the most important.
The United States Information Agency (USIA), which was the main government agency in charge of public diplomacy until it merged with the Department of State in 1999, described it as "seek[ing] to promote the national interest and the national security of the United States through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign publics and broadening dialogue between American citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad."[5] For the Planning Group for Integration of USIA into the Department of State (June 20, 1997), public diplomacy meant "seek[ing] to promote the national interest of the United States through understanding, informing and influencing foreign audiences."[5] According to Hans N. Tuch, author of Communicating With the World (St. Martin's Press, NY, 1990), public diplomacy is "official government efforts to shape the communications environment overseas in which American foreign policy is played out, in order to reduce the degree to which misperceptions and misunderstandings complicate relations between the U.S. and other nations."[5]
Standard diplomacy might be described as the ways in which government leaders communicate with each other at the highest levels, the elite diplomacy we are all familiar with. Public diplomacy, by contrast focuses on the ways in which a country (or multilateral organization such as the United Nations) communicates with citizens in other societies.[6] A country may be acting deliberately or inadvertently, and through both official and private individuals and institutions. Effective public diplomacy starts from the premise that dialogue, rather than a sales pitch, is often central to achieving the goals of foreign policy: public diplomacy must be seen as a two-way street. Furthermore, public diplomacy activities often present many differing views as represented by private American individuals and organizations in addition to official U.S. government views.[7]
Traditional diplomacy actively engages one government with another government. In traditional diplomacy, U.S. Embassy officials represent the U.S. government in a host country primarily by maintaining relations and conducting official business with the officials of the host government whereas public diplomacy primarily engages many diverse non-government elements of a society.[7]
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