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www.fpc.org.uk
T he For e ign Po l i cy C en t r e i s an i ndepend en t t h i nk- t ank
launched by Prime Minister Tony Blair (Patron) and formerForeign Secretary Robin Cook (President) to examine the impact
of globalisation on foreign an d d omestic policy. The Centre has
developed a dis t inct ive research agenda that explores the
strategic solutions needed to tackle issues wh ich cut across
borders focusing on the legitimacy as w ell as the effectiveness
of policy.
The Foreign Policy Centre has p rodu ced a range ofpublications
by key thin kers on su bjects relating to the role of non-state actors
in policymaking, the future of Europe, international security and
identity. These includ e: The Post-Modern S tate and the W orld Orderby Robert Cooper, Network Europe an d Going Public by Mark
Leonard, NGO s R ights and Responsibilities by Michael Edwards,
After Multiculturalism by Y asmi n A l i bha i - Br ow n , Trading
Identities b y W a l l y O l i n s a n d Third Generation Corporate
Citizenship by Simon Zad ek.
The Centre runs a rich and varied events programme at The
Mezzanine in Elizabeth Hou se a forum w here representatives
f rom NGOs, think- tanks , compan ies and gov ernmen t can
interact with speakers who includ e prime ministers, Nobel Prize
laureates, global corporate leaders, activists, media executives
and cultural entrepreneurs from around the world.
The Centres quarterly m agazine, Global Thinking, is a regu lar
out le t for new thinking on foreign p ol icy i ssues . Features
include profiles, exclusive interviews with decision makers, and
opinion p ieces by the Centres perm anent staff and associated
authors. The Centre runs a unique internship programm e the
UKs only route for n ew grad uates into the foreign policy arena.
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Public Diplomacy
Mark Leonard
About the authors
Mark Leonard is Director of The Foreign Policy Centre. H e has
w r i t t en w i de l y on E ur opean I n t eg r a t i on and l eg it i macyinclud ing his accla imed pam phlet N etwork Europe (Foreign
Policy Centre 1999) and The Pro-European Reader (with Dick
Leonard, Palgrave 2002). His work on Rebranding Britain led
to an international debate on branding coun tries and inspired
the Foreign Secretary to launch Panel 2000, a taskforce to advise
him on p romoting Britain abroad. Mark has bu ilt on this with
influential studies on pu blic diplomacy including the report
Going Public: Diplomacy for the Information Society (with Vidhy a
Alakeson, Foreign Pol icy Cent re 2000). Mark w r i tes and
broadcasts extensively on British, European and International
Politics. He has acted as a consultant on identity for foreigngovernments and private companies. Mark p reviously worked
as senior researcher at the think-tank Demos and as a trainee
journalist at The Economist.
Catherine Stead , the project director for the p ublic diploma cy
research, was seconded to The Foreign Policy Centre from the
British Council. Prior to that she spent three years working for
the Brit ish Cou ncil in the Balt ic States. She has ten years
experience of condu cting p ublic diplomacy in the field.
Conrad Smewing joined th e Foreign Policy Centre as Mark
Leonards assistant after completing an MPhil in InternationalRelations at th e University of Cambrid ge.
with Catherine Stead and Conrad Smewing
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v
Public Diplomacy
Acknowledgements vii
1. Introduction: Why Public Diplomacy? 1
2. The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 8News ManagementStrategic CommunicationsRelationship Building
3. Competitive and Co-operative Public Diplomacy 22Co-operative DiplomacyCompetitive Diplomacy
4. Keeping our head in a crisis 31Rapid Reaction and Surge CapabilityInternal Co-ordinationInternational Co-ordinationReconciling Long and Short-term goals
5. Beyond propaganda: working in a complex information 46environmentUnderstanding the target audienceBeyond one-way communicationsEngaging the emotional as well the rationalProving your relevance
6. Diplomacy by stealth: working with others to achieve our goals 54NGO DiplomacyDiaspora DiplomacyPolitical Party DiplomacyBrand DiplomacyBusiness Diplomacy
First published in 2002 by
The Foreign Policy Centre
The Mezzanine
Elizabeth H ouse
39 York Road
LondonSE1 7NQ
Email [email protected] .uk
www.fpc.org.uk
The Foreign Policy Cent re 2002
All rights reserved
ISBN 1-903558-131
Cover by David Carroll
Typesetting by Rory Fisher
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Acknowledgements v ii
Acknowledgements
This report is the conclusion of a two-year research p roject, and
i s t he p r od uc t o f m any peop l e s i d ea s , ha r d w o r k a ndexper ience. We grateful ly acknowledge both the f inancia l
s u p p o r t a n d i n t e l le c t u a l e n g a g e m e n t o f t h e f o l l o w i n g
organisations, who m ade this research project p ossible: The
Brit ish Coun cil, The Royal Norweg ian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs , BBC World Service , the Design Coun ci l, and the
Embassy of the United States of America in London .
This report builds on the interim report, Going Public, which I co-
wrote with Vidhya Alakeson. The research process has only been
mad e possible through th e generosity of the British Coun cil who
first seconded Liz Noble and then Catherine Stead to the ForeignPolicy Centre to d irect the research and fieldwo rk on th is project.
Liz laid the foundations for the field w ork, while Catherine
travelled to the four corners of the earth gathering data an d
ideas with considerable lan. Two other peop le have played a
nodal role in m anaging th is process: Conrad Smewing tirelessly
drafted sections and gathered source material , while Laura
Demetris conducted vital research, identified key contacts in the
relevant countries, co-ordinated w ith different p artners and
mastermind ed the international travel plans. Adam Higazi also
helped gather m aterial for the append ices.
We would like to thank all those whose contributions of time,pract ical supp or t , informat ion and ideas made th i s repor t
poss ible . Our project s teer ing group , chai red by the ever-
encouraging Sir Michael Butler, included figures with much
experience of public diploma cy: HE Tarald Brautaset, Andr ew
Fot he r i ngh am, Jona t han G r i f fi n , F r i t z G r oo t hues , F r ed
7. Assessing the spectrum of UK inst itut ions 72Three Dimensions of public diplomacyCo-ordination and planningStrategic DifferentiationEvaluationMulilateral Diplomacy: A Case Study
8. Conclusions: A Public Diplomacy Strategy 95
Appendix I. Public Diplomacy on the ground: 113a study of UK public diplomacy in the United States of America,France, Poland,India, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates
Appendix II. Niche Diplomacy: 169How Norway uses scarce resources to punch aboveits weight
Appendix III. Global Brands 178
Appendix IV. The main interviewees for the project 183
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vii i Public Diplomacy
Martenson, Dame Pauline Neville Jones and Patrick Spaven.
They provided direction and helped shape the final form of this
report. Edm und Marsden wh o was the original inspiration for
the project also provid ed very h elpful feed-back on this report.
The staff of the Foreign Policy Centre hav e all come together to
make this possible particular thanks m ust go to m y assistantPhoebe Griffith for her ideas on th e structure of the rep ort and
Veena Vasista, my d epu ty, for steering the Centre so effectively
while I was engrossed in various d rafts.
All those who helped to m ake the case study visits happen, in
particular Edmu nd Marsden, British Coun cil India, John Tod,
British Coun cil France, Richard Morgan, British Embassy Paris,
Xavier North, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Robert Sykes,
British Cou ncil Gulf States, Tim Gor e, British Cou ncil Dubai, H E
Ann Gran t and N ick Shepp ard, British High Commission South
Africa, Robert Peirce, Brit ish Embassy Washington, TeresaEvans, British Consu late-General Boston, Sara Everett, British
Informat ion Services New York, Jeremy Eyres and Iwona
Kochel , Br i t i sh Cou nci l Poland, Johan Meyer and Oyvind
Stokke, Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It is imp ossible to list all the peop le that we interviewed or wh o
took part in focus groups and discussions, but in Appendix IV,
we list some of the main people wh o were interviewed.
Mark Leonard, The Foreign Policy Centre, London June 2002
Introduction: Why Public Diplomacy? 1
1. Introduction: Why PublicDiplomacy?
Public Diplomacy: Definitions
Public diplomacy differs from tradit ional diplom acy in th at it involves
in terac t ion not on ly wi th governments but pr imar i l y wi th non-
governmental in dividuals and organisations. Furth ermore publ ic
diplomacy activit ies often present many dif fering views represented b y
private American individuals and organizations in addition to off icial
government views
(Edwar d Mu rrow , 1963, speaking as director of USIA)
Public Diplomacy seeks to promot e the n ational in terest of the Unit ed
States through understanding, informin g and inf lu encing fo reign
audiences.
Planning grou p for integratio n of USIA into the Dept. of State, June 20,
1997)
I conceive of pub lic diplomacy as being t he publi c face of t raditi onal
diplomacy. Traditi onal di plomacy seeks to advance th e int erests of the
United States thro ugh pri vate exchanges wit h fo reign government s. It
works very much in coordination with and in parallel to the traditional
diplomatic effo rt.
(Christopher Ross, at Brookings/Harvard Forum, January 16, 2002)
The purpose of public diplomacy is to influence opinion in target
countries to make it easier for the British Government, British companies
or other British organisations to achieve their aims. The overall image of
Britain in t he country concerned is of great impo rtance but th is is not
to say that it is the only factor. The most im portant factor will usually be
the actual policies of the British Government and the terms in which they
are announced and explained by M inisters. In most count ries a broadlyinternationalist posture will be positive. A narrow and open pursuit of
national interests at the expense of others will be negative. For example,
the Governments handling of the beef crisis in the summer of 1996 had
a negative effect not only on Britains ability to get i ts way on other EU
issues, but also on the view taken of Britain in many non-EU countries.
(Sir Mi chael Butler, for mer British permanent representative to t he
European Union, 2002)
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2 Public Diplomacy Int roduct ion: Why Public Diplomacy? 3
constraints on the freedom of action of national governm ents.
This means that even more than du ring the Cold War we
need to invest as much in communicating with foreign p ublics
as with the governm ents that represent them if we are to achieve
our objectives.
There are many examp les of i ssues where the a t t i tud e of
overseas publics plays a determining role in the governments
ability to pur sue its foreign policy objectives. The Afghan an d
Kosovo conflicts saw pow erful military coalitions risk d efeat,
not in the field, but in the med ia battleground for public opinion.
In Rwand a ethnic conflict was mobilized th rough inflamm atory
radio broad casts rather than mili tary comm and chains. The
global anti-capitalist demon strations have i l lustrated a n ew
diplomat ic envi ronment w here s ta te and non -s ta te actors
compete for the publics attention. During the British BSE crisis
the French government, in breach of EU law, banned British beeflargely in response to p ublic fears abou t its safety. In a global
economy, countries compete against each other for investmen t,
trade, tourists, entrepreneu rs and highly skilled workers.
In each of these cases perceptions of Britain and other countries
combine to create an enabling or d isabling backdr op for each
s i t ua t i on . I t i s cl ea r t ha t p r opag and a w i l l no t pe r su ade
populations in reluctant countries to support the war against
terror but perceptions of Western m otivations as imp erial or
self-interested can dam age chances of success, and d ivergent
national debates can cause tensions which could eventually
break up the international coalition. Independent or nationalsources of news will not block out calls to arms from tribal radio
stat ions, but they can act as a counterweight by presenting a
calm ov erview of the ongoing tensions and giving access to
information which may be of critical importance (Rwanda had
only 14,000 phon es but some 500,000 radios). Promotiona l
It took the traged y of September 11th for the battle for hearts
and minds to rise once again to the top of the international
political agenda . After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United
States had lost its urge to sp read its values and messages to the
four corners of the world, and gradu ally run down many of the
propagan da and information tools which it had rel ied on soheavily during th e cold w ar emasculating the USIAand p aring
the Voice of America and Radio Free Europ e dow n to almost
residual proportions.
In developing countries and former comm unist states, no real
at tempts were mad e to build a p opular consensus for l iberal
democracy, and reformis t governments were expected to
persua de their citizens to swallow the bitter pill of structural
adjustment without much sugar-coating. Today policy-makers
are still trying to come to term s with the d epth of hostility to
America and the West. Of course i t is not just a problem o fcommu nication. Poverty, exclusion from the world economy,
dou ble-standard s on trade and d emocracy (part icularly the
Wests supp ort for discredited and repressive regimes), the
predatory behaviour of some western multinationals and a
range of policy positions on issues from the Arab-Israeli conflict
to the sanctions against Iraq all fuel tensions. But it is equally
clear that commu nication and building relationships d o have a
par t to p lay i f we are going to avoid s l ipp ing into a bat t le
between the West and the rest . There is a dou ble challenge:
showing that w hat you rep resent is more at tractive than the
alternative, and keeping you r coalition together which is no
longer as easy as it once was during the Cold War.
Ironically, it is the end of the Cold War wh ich has mad e pu blic
diplomacy more imp ortant: the spread of democracy, the media
explosion and the rise of global NGOs and protest movements
h a v e c h a n g e d t h e n a t u r e o f p o w e r a n d p u t e v e r g r e a t e r
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Introduction: Why Public Diplomacy? 5
research included of interviews with senior policy-makers in a
num ber of organisations representing those coun tries abroad. It
explores how public diplomacy works in practice in six case
stud y coun tries (Ind ia, South Africa, United States, France,
Poland, the United Arab Emirates) where w e have conducted
our ow n q ua l i t a t i ve r e sea r ch t h r ough f ocus g r oups andinterviews with youn g professionals, as well as drawing on
quan t i ta t ive research car r ied out by MORI for the Br i t ish
Counci l. We have sup plemented thi s w i th interviews wi th
experts in academ ia and the commu nications indu stries.
In the chapters that follow we dr aw a nu mber of imp ortant
conclus ions . Fi rs t we argue that there i s not a suf f ic ient
commitm ent of resources to this new typ e of dip lomacy. All
governm ents pay lip-service to the way tha t the rise of global
commu nications, the spread of democracy, the growth of global
N GOs an d th e d evelo p m en t of p ow er fu l m u l t i l a ter a l
o r gan i sa t i ons have changed t he na t u r e o f pow er w i t h i n
societies, and altered the craft of governm ent and diplomacy.
But these changes hav e not been ad equately reflected in the way
that governm ents as a whole deploy their resources, or the way
that foreign services in particular organise themselves and relate
to the institutions they fund .
Joseph N ye makes this point very stron gly, If you look at
expend itures in the American bud get, we spend abou t 17 times
as much on m ilitary hard p ower as we d o on all our foreign
representation, the State Department bud get, foreign aid as w ell
as the Voice of America and all the exchange program s lump edtogether. There is something wr ong with th at picture. The
picture in th e UK is very similar, with th e Ministry of Defence
receiving 18 t imes the am oun t of the FCO (24.2 bi ll ion
compared to 1.3 billion). The investment in public diplomacy is
dw arfed by the return s that come from successful work and
4 Publ ic Diplomacy
campaigns for British beef have a limited impact on the fears of
consum ers, but work to sh ow the qu ality of British science and
the integrity of our vets did p lay a role in assuag ing the French
p u b l i c s s u s p i c io n . A n d m a n y s t u d i e s h a v e s h o w n t h a t
campaigns to change the perceptions of countries like Ireland,
Spain or New Zealand can create a premium for products andservices as well as playing a role in attracting investment an d
tourists.
The American academic Joseph N ye has argued that the p ower
o f a t t r a ct i o n c a n b e a n i m p o r t a n t c o m p l e m e n t t o m o r e
traditional forms of power based on economic or military clout.
He d raws a distinction betw een hard and soft power: Soft
pow er works by conv incing others to follow, or getting them to
agree to , norms and ins t i tut ions that prod uce the des i red
behaviour. Soft power can rest on the appeal of ones ideas or the
ability to set the agend a in wa ys that shap e the preferences of
others. Because most of the messages that people pick up about
a country are beyond the control of national governmen ts -
books, CDs, films, television program mes, brand s or consumer
products with national associations, events, etc. - the activities of
governments and other organisat ions are going to have an
impact at the m argins, seeking to clear path s and give impetus
to the m ost positive messages for mass au diences while working
directly on niche aud iences.
This report explores how coun tries could work to correct the
negative perceptions prod uced by the marketplace and h arness
the pow er of other actors to increase their own voice on theworld stage. It is based on a two-year research programm e that
explored how some of the larges t indust r ia l i sed count r ies
(Britain, France, Germany, and the United States) conduct public
diplom acy. It also looked at the p ublic diplomacy of Norway, a
country th at has used pu blic diploma cy to good effect . The
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Introduction: Why Public Diplomacy? 7
p u b l ic d i p l o m a c y i n s ti t u t i o n s n e e d t o b e m u c h m o r e
i n t e r a c t i v e - b u i l d i n g l o n g - t e r m r e l a t i o n s h i p s a n d
und erstanding target groups rather than d elivering one-way
messages.
Conspicuous Government involvement in public diplomacycan be counter -product ive . Governments are not great
persuad ers. By working throu gh parties that people will trust
from N GOs and Diasp oras to brand s and p olitical parties
they are more likely to build tru st and achieve their objectives
than by acting as spokespeop le themselves.
Foreign services and p ublic diplom acy institutions need to
bu i l d t h e pos s i b i l i t y o f c r i s e s in t o t he i r p l ann i n g by
deve l op i ng g r ea t e r bud ge t a r y fl ex ib i l it y . and pu b l i c
diplomacy SWAT teams that can be m obilised at very sh ort
notice.
All countries need to prove their relevance - rather than take
it for granted. For examp le, survey data show s that even
where people have positive feelings about Britain, the fact that
they see it as a country in d ecline means that th ey will turn to
others about w hom th ey feel less favourab le.
Public diplomacy should be focused on the countries which
are most relevant to ou r interests - not those which are easiest
to influence.
We argue for a new type of mu ltilateral public diplomacy retooling em bassies to become lobbying and policy-exchange
organisations; creating an infrastructure to link u p political
parties and NGOs across borders to create a common p olicy
space; and planning p roactive commu nication campaigns.
6 Public Diplomacy
the cost of failure. For exam ple, the 200,000 foreign stud ents th at
the British Cou ncil works to attr act every year ear n 5 billion for
British higher edu cation. Equally, the disastrous imag es that
came out of Foot and Mouth h ave already cost an estimated 2
billion in lost tourist revenu e.
But i t goes beyond the re la t ionship between sp ending on
reactive military p ower an d preventative diplomacy. Diplomatic
institutions need to move beyond the old mod el of bolting on a
few new u nits and r ecruiting a couple of extra staff from N GOs
changes which are essential ly cosmetic. Instead, what is
needed is a fundam ental re-balancing of the dip lomatic offer
and a larger investment in it. Foreign services must transform
themselves from being reporters an d lobbyists on reactive issues
to shapers of publ ic debates around the wor ld. There are a
num ber of key lessons that we draw :
Governments do not pay enough attention to the way that
stories will be received abroad . The main way to engage with
mass aud iences in other countries is not through embassies on
the ground , but by working through foreign correspondents
in your own capital.
Western governments are competing with each other in 200
countries wh en they ha ve bilateral interests in just a fraction
of that num ber . This unhelpful compet i t ion u ndermines
objectives in developing coun tries while preventing a prop er
focus of resources on those count r ies where th ey have a
bilateral interest.
Governments need to change the tone of public diplomacy -
so that i t is less about winning argu ments and more about
engagem ent. In an environm ent where citizens are sceptical
of governmen t and sensitive abou t post-colonial interference,
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2. The Three Dimensions ofPublic Diplomacy
The phrase public diplomacy is often used as a eup hemism for
propagan da. Journalists have portrayed it as a crude mechanism
for delivering messages that m ay or m ay not reflect the facts.
Naom i Kleins vi tuperat ive p iece for The Guardian i s n o t
un typical: Its no coincidence that the p olitical leaders most
preoccupied w ith branding w ere also allergic to democracy and
divers i ty . His tor ical ly , thi s has been th e ugly f l ips ide of
pol i t i c ians s t r iving for consis tency of brand : cent ra l i sed
informat ion, s ta te-cont rol led media , re-educat ion camp s,
purging of dissidents and much worse.
In fact pub l ic diplom acy i s about bu i lding re la t ionships :
unders tanding the needs of other count r ies , cul tures and
peop l e s ; commu ni ca t i ng our p o i n t s o f v i ew ; co r r ec t ing
misperceptions; looking for areas where we can find comm on
cause. The d ifference between p ublic and trad itional diplomacy
is that public diploma cy involves a much broad er group of
The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 9
peop le on both sides, and a broader set of interests that go
beyond those of the government of the day.
Public diplomacy is based on the p remise that the image and
reputation of a country are pu blic goods w hich can create either
a n e n a b l i n g o r a d i s a b l i n g e n v i r o n m e n t f o r i n d i v i d u a ltransactions. Work on p articular issues will feed off the general
image of the country and reflect back on to it in both p ositive
and negative d irections. For example, Britains repu tation for
tradition w ill help h eritage brand s such as Asp reys sell their
prod ucts, and th eir advertising campaigns w ill also reinforce
Britains repu tation as a heri tage nation. Equally N orways
reputat ion for work in internat ional mediat ion wi l l help
persuad e the d ifferent factions in Sri Lanka that they are an
honest broker, which will in turn add to their reputation for
peace.
There i s a hierarchy of impacts that pu bl ic diplomacy can
achieve:
Increasing peop les familiarity with ones country (making
them think about it, up dating their images, turning arou nd
unfavourable opinions)
Increasing peop les appr eciation of ones country (creating
positive percep tions, getting others to see issues of global
importance from the same p erspective)
Engaging people with ones country (strengthening t ies from education reform to scientific co-operation; encouraging
people to see us as an attractive destination for tourism, study,
distance learning; getting them to buy our p roducts; getting to
understand and subscribe to our values)
8 Public Diplomacy
Image 1: The Circle of Public Diplomacy
Image
Issue
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The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 11
Proactively creating a n ews agenda through activities and
events which are designed to reinforce core messages and
influence perceptions
Building long-term relationships with pop ulations overseas to
win recognition of our values and assets and to learn fromtheirs
Each of these d imensions operates according to a different time-
scale. Reactive news takes place in hours an d d ays, proactive
commu nications and perception changing activity is planned in
weeks and months, while building relationships can take years
before it generates a re turn. The dimen sions a l so dem and
different skills and organisational cultures. News management
needs to be flexible, reactive and plugged into the government
machine. Proactive communications demand s highly developed
commu nications skil ls, strategic planning and the bud gets,
resources and the expertise to organize events that can capture
the imagination. Building relationships d epends on earning high
levels of trust, creating a neutral and safe environment, and can
often best be done at one remove from govern ment.
Each country ha s a different set of institutions to man age its
pu blic diplomacy strategy. Some are part of governmen t, others
are indep enden t. Each will have its own mission and p riorities,
but in ord er to p ract ice pu bl ic diplomacy ef fect ively, i t i s
important to examine the insti tutions as a spectrum and see
whether there are gap s between the institutions which are not
yet filled. In chapter seven, we examine the UK institutions inthis way and set out some lessons for how the spectrum can be
improved , but first let us examine the three dimensions.
10 Public Diplomacy
Influencing peop le (getting companies to invest, pu blics to
back our p ositions or p oliticians to tu rn to u s as a favoured
partner)
In order to achieve these goals, governm ents need to be clear
that pu blic diplomacy cannot be a one-dimensional process ofdelivering messages.
One w ay of conceptualising pu blic diplomacy is as a grid of
three rows and three columns.
O n on e ax i s a r e t he sphe r es on w h i ch i t i s p l ayed ou t :political/military, economic a n d societal/cultural. These will
car ry di f ferent weight a t d i f ferent t imes , and in di f ferent
contexts. For examp le in a develop ed coun try like Singapor e
economic messages will be importan t; in Pakistan poli t ical
messages will matter more; in Zimbabwe messages about British
diversi ty will act as a counterweight to al legations of racist
imperialism; while in Europ ean Union countries like France and
German y al l three spheres wi l l be impor tant . Events l ike
September 11th can obviously change the priority of different
issues and put the poli t ical/ military sphere at the top of the
agend a in all countries.
In each of those spheres, we can characterize three dimensions of
public diplomacy activities:
Reacting to news even ts as they occur in a way that tallies
with ou r strategic goals
Table 1: The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy
Purpose
Political/ Military
Economic
Societal/ Cultural
Reactive
(hours and days)
Proactive
(weeks and months)
Relationship building
(years)
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The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 13
subject is. Fourth, you are talking to your enemy. It was a unique
situation to know that your en emy was gett ing the clearest
indication of your intentions by watching you on television at
the same t ime you were giving that m essage. And fifth, you
were talking to the troop s. Their lives were on the line.
Parad oxically, so called dom estic stories like the race riots in
Oldham and Burnley, or the outbreak of Foot and Mouth in
Britain, or the su ccess of Le Pen in the Fren ch elections are often
as impor tant as foreign policy stories in making an impa ct on
others. Alastair Campbell, the Director of Communications in 10
Down ing Street, described this vividly in an interview with th e
auth ors: in relation to Foot and Mou th there w as this collision
between d omestic and foreign audiences. Part of our message,
once wed focused on it as a crisis man agemen t issue being led
from the top, was th at the Prime Minister was involved, sleeves
rolled u p, talking to the farmers regu larly. I admit that th is
didnt cross my mind, you get these dramatic pictures of the
Prime Minister wearing yellow suits and walking aroun d a
farmyard, an d in America they think Christ! Hes got to wear a
yellow su it! And hes the Prime M inister. Because th ats all
theyre seeing. Our m edia will only ever give a narrow context,
go further abroad it gets even narrower. And so, that is the kind
of thing you ve got to really think carefully abou t.
As well as u nforeseen crises, there are pred ictable dom estic
events which come up every year an d can play ou t badly in
other coun tries. Examples include the release of the Brit ish
Crime Survey w hich frequently results in erroneous stories suchas, Crime in London is worse than N ew York, or the start of
the Norwegian whaling season which results in acres of negative
pr es s cove r age a r ound t he w or l d ( f o r N or w eg i an pub l i c
diplomacy strategy, on whaling and other issues, see App endix
12 Public Diplomacy
News Management
The first dimension is the m anagement of communications on
day - t o -day i s sues , r e fl ec t ing t he g r ow i ng n eed t o a l i gn
commun ications with trad itional diplomacy.
The need to ally comm un ications with trad itional diplomacy isdescr ibed by the US diplomat , Chr is topher Ross , who w as
brought back from retirement to mastermind public diplomacy
with the Muslim world: I conceive of public diplomacy as being
the pu blic face of traditional dip lomacy. Traditional diplomacy
seeks to advan ce the interests of the United States through
private exchanges with foreign governmen ts. Public diplom acy
seeks to suppor t t radi t ional diplomacy by add ressing non-
gove r nm ent a l a ud i ences , i n ad d i t i on t o g ove r n men t a l
aud iences, both mass and e l ite . It works very m uch in co-
ordination with an d in parallel to the tradit ional diplomatic
effort. This imp lies that em bassies must p lan pu blic diplomacy
strategies for all of the main issues they d eal with and explore
the comm unications angles of all their activities.
This job is comp licated by th at fact that it is increasingly d ifficult
to isolate different news stories for different au diences, foreign
and d omestic. Although most TV, radio and p rint media are still
created with a national or local audience in m ind, their networks
of foreign correspond ents will ensure that messages do get
transferred from one region to anoth er. As Secretary of State
Colin Pow ell put it: During Desert Storm w e really were seeing
this 24-7 phenomenon , at least in my jud gment, for the first time
I used to tell all of the mem bers of my staff, Remember, w henwe are out there on television, communicating instantaneously
around the w orld, were talking to five au diences. One, the
reporters wh o ask the question imp ortant aud ience. Second
audience, the American people wh o are w atching. The third
aud ience, 170 capitals who may have an interest in what the
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The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 15
deeper sen se of ident i ty can help compan ies di f ferent ia te
themselves from their competition. Opinion surveys show that
three quarters of Fortune 500 companies actually see national
identi ty, or place of origin, as one of the key factors that
influence their d ecisions about bu ying goods and services. Many
consumer comp anies have bu ilt on this insight. In the 1990s, theGerman AEG (Algemeine Elekt r i sche Gesel l schaf t ) ran a
pu b l i ci t y camp a i gn i n Br i t a i n w hi ch w as based a r ou nd
redef ining thei r ini t ia l s as Advanced Engineer ing f rom
Germany. The centrepiece of their ad vertising camp aign was
t h a t i t w a s a G e r m a n c om p a n y , a n a t i o n a l i m a g e t h a t
represented brand quality.
Strategic communication is different from relationship-building.
It is a set of activities more like a po litical camp aign: setting a
num ber of strategic messages, and planning a series of activities
over a year or so to reinforce them. This is what Cha rlotte Beers
descr ibes as magni f icat ion: An imp ress ive example was
del ivered by the team in ECA when they ar ranged to send
stunn ing photograp hs of Groun d Zero by Joel Meyerowitz to
open in 20 countries.What I app reciate so mu ch about this
program is that it gives us an aud ience beyond the government
officials and elites - the young and people in sm aller town s as
the exhibit travels to cities around these countries and reaches
others through very good p ress coverage. Thats what w e mean
by mag nifying the results from a single event.
It is important for all the pu blic diplomacy organisations to have
a stake in the totality of messages which are put ou t about thecountry, and a sense of how they can co-operate on prom oting
them.
Chris Powell, the chairman of advertising company BMP DDB
Needham argues that these messages must be simple: Have
very few, preferably one, message. People are exposed to
14 Public Diplomacy
II). The domestic departments involved in these issues need to
prov ide the foreign service with the no tice and the information
they need to contextualise the stories.
Strat egic Communications
Governments have trad itionally been good at commu nicatingtheir stances on particular issues, but less effective at ma naging
perceptions of the country as a whole. One of the reasons for this
is the fact that d ifferent institutions have been respon sible for
dealing with politics, trade, tourism, investment an d cultural
relations. But on man y issues, it is the totality of messages w hich
people get about the UK which will determine how they relate
to us. This is the second d imension of pu blic dip lomacy: the
strategic messages we p romote abou t the UK.
Sir Michael Butler, who was previously the British Permanent
Representative to the EU, argues that perceptions of the country
generally w ill shape the d iplomatic environment: We need to
have a broad ima ge which is favour ably perceived in the key
countries where w e are based. If your governm ent is perceived
as self-interested, reactionary and un helpful, it will seriously
hamp er your ability to get your way as the US is finding a t the
moment. And unless there is a lot of work done over a long
period of time to create a more positive context, all attempts at
communicat ions w i ll be viewed w i th add ed su spic ion. An
official in the White H ouse confessed to m e, We havent mad e
any attempts to commu nicate with ordinary Arabs u nless we are
bombing th em or imposing sanctions on them I wouldn t like
us if I were them.
In the economic realm, the power of national perceptions is even
clearer. As prod ucts, investm ent environm ents and tou rist
destination s become mor e al ike, it is becoming difficult to
differentiate oneself in terms of qu ality alone. Tapp ing into a
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The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 17
however important to remember that there are givens in how
we are seen abroad. If the dynamic tradition positioning is
adopted , the survey data shows that our promotional efforts will
need to be weighted toward s the dynam ic end of the spectrum
as that is the area w hich people are m ost sceptical about.
There is a dan ger in this idea of articulated p ositioning. When
Robin Cook established the P anel 2000 taskforce to advise him
on the projection of Britain overseas, it debated long and hard
which messages should be p romoted before deciding on a list of
f i ve messages ( r e l i ab i li t y and i n t eg r i t y , c r ea t i v i t y and
innovation, Britains heritage, free speech and fair play and
openness to the wor ld) wh ich rough ly corresponded to the
interests of the five main pu blic diplomacy insti tutions and
allowed the different partners to carry on performing as they
had don e before. I have written elsewhere abou t the fact that
perceptions of Britain are out of da te and have set ou t a strategy
to attempt to turn th em roun d in Britain the report wh ich
launched an international furore about Rebranding Britain. But
there are also pitfalls for any coun try surrou nding national
branding.
Many peop le have attacked the idea that something as complex
as a national id enti ty can be sold in the same way a s soap
powd er. This is obviously true, and clumsy attempts to market
countries even in specific sectors such as tourism run the risk
of reducing the excitement and diversity of a national culture to
a homogenous, antiseptic commodity. The clearest example of
this is the attemp t to sell beach holid ays: one image of a whitebeach and some blue sea is practically indistinguishable from
another. When th is happen s, the net effect of brand ing is not to
add value bu t to detract from it as the key differentiator in this
sort of commodified market w ill be price.
16 Public Diplomacy
thousand s of messages every day. They probably recall only a
t iny fraction of these. The task is to cut thro ugh this fog by
imagination and repetition. A contrast between diplomacy and
advertising is that in ad vertising an enormous amount of work
goes into the prepara tion boiling ideas dow n into very, very
simple concepts, and then repeating that m essage over and overagain until we are all thoroughly bored w ith it. When you are so
bored w ith it that you feel like giving up , the listener m ay just
have beg un to register the messa ge. So stick at it. The Drink
Drive campaign h as been going for years and is as relevant
today as it has ever been because th e message is simple, clear
and logical.
But to what extent is it possible to hav e a single message that
uni tes a l l the d i f ferent p layers f rom the Br i t ish Tour is t
Auth ority to the Foreign Office? And how relevant w ill it be to
different aud iences, from citizens in th e Midd le East to potential
investors in Au stralia?
Many countries have shown the power of having a clear national
narrative which can unite the different stakeholders. The m ost
famous examp le is probably Spain, wh ere Miros Espana image
signaled a determinat ion to shed th e ghost of Franco and
become a modern, European democracy. There are two key
dan gers in not creating a clear narrative. One is the idea of
discordant m essages. In th e case of Britain, i t wou ld ap pear
strange if the Brit ish Council heavily promoted the UK as a
mod ern, mu lti-ethnic and creative island, w hile the Brit ish
Tourist Authority simply re-iterated national stereotypes abouttradition, ceremony and history. One solution to this conundru m
that has been prop osed is to make a virtue of the parad ox and
develop an iden ti ty around th e idea of dyn amic tradit ion
playing on a binary identity which was famously d escribed by
l i fe-s tyle guru Peter York as pu nk and pagean t ry . I t is
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The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 19
Research by th e British Tourist Auth ority showed that p eople
who come to the UK invar iably repor t tha t they leave the
country with a more p ositive impression of it than wh en they
arrived . Joseph N ye makes this point eloqu ently: It is not that
the student goes back converted but they go back with a mu ch
more soph isticated idea of our strengths and weaknesses. Youcomplexify their thinking. So they will go back and be critical of
American policy on Israel or they w ill go back and be critical of
American policy on capital punishm ent. But they w ill have a
deeper u nderstand ing of why i t is that Americans treat gun
control differently than Europeans. This may grow out of the fact
that I spent tw o years as a student in Britain right out of college.
It took me about a m onth to realise, My God, these p eople are
strange! At the en d of tw o years I th ough t I can see Britains
faults and I can see Britains greatness and they are all mixed u p
together. I think it was in Britains interests that I would develop
a nu anced view of Britain rather than either an Angloph il ic
idealisation or an Anglophobic characterisation. And I think that
aspect of soft pow er is prob ably most effective.
C har l o t t e B ee r s , t he U nder sec r e t a r y o f S t a t e fo r Pu b l i c
Diplomacy in the United States, points to the staggering su ccess
of the Fulbright scheme w hich has been taken u p by ov er 200
current or former head s of state: Coming from the p rivate
sector , i t s hard to f ind anyth ing comparab le to the sheer
p r od uc t i v i t y o f ou r Fu l b r i gh t and I n t e r n a t i ona l V is i t o r
exchanges. The $237 million w e will spen d in 2002, for some
25,000 exchan ges, is magn ified by the 80,000 volun teers in th e
U.S. and matching supp ort from many countries like Germanyand Japan. Considering that some 50 percent of the leaders of the
International Coalition were once exchange visitors, this has got
to be the best buy in the government.
Relationship building h as traditionally been seen as a p rocess
that mu st be conducted face to face and on a personal level. The
18 Public Diplomacy
People have also pointed out that the only way to fully manage
a national bran d is to have a totalitarian state, as most of the
impr essions that people get of a coun try come from things
outside govern ment control such as m eeting British people,
buying British p rodu cts and services, watching films, reading
newsp apers e tc . Because the car r iers of the brand are sodiverse, any attemp t to sell a country that d oes not reflect the
reality of that country is doom ed to be und ermined by p eoples
actual experience. This reflects the fact that the m ost successful
perception-changing campaigns have been carried through by
countries that had undergone dramatic and genuine change
for examp le Spain after Fran co or Ireland in th e 1990s and
rooted in a commonly own ed national story.
Relationship Building
The third dimen sion of public diplomacy is the most long-term:
developing lasting relationships with key individuals throu gh
scholarships , exchanges , t ra ining, semina rs , conferences ,
building real and v irtual networks, and giving people access to
med ia channels. This differs from th e usu al diplomatic practice
of nurtu ring contacts as i t is about developing r elat ionships
between p eers politicians, special advisers, business people,
cultural entrep reneur s or academics. This can take place across
the three spheres of public diplomacy and is aimed at creating a
common an alysis of issues and giving people a clearer idea of
the motivations an d factors effecting their actions so that by the
time they come to d iscussing individ ual issues a lot of the
background work has been d one already. It is importan t not just
to develop relat ionships bu t to ensure that the experienceswhich peop le take away are positive and that th ere is follow-up
afterwards. Building relationships is very different from selling
messages because it involves a genuine exchange and means
that peop le are given a warts and all picture of the country.
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The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 2120 Public Diplomacy
most effective instruments for building enduring relationships
are scholarships, visits and other exchange programmes that
require complex planning and administration and come with a
h i gh u n i t cos t . Bu t a s soc i e t i e s become mor e open an d
pluralistic, particularly in large transitional economies where the
target aud iences number several millions, this traditional modeof working is unlikely to reach the cri t ical mass of people
necessary to significantly affect the opinions an d choices of those
audiences.
To what extent will the new information and commu nication
technologies enable the relat ionship building p rocess to be
scaled u p to include m uch larger group s of people? In India, the
Brit ish Cou ncil has identified a su ccessor generation tar get
aud ience of 7 million p eople aged b etween 20 and 35, nearly 90%
of whom live in 25 cities, whose profile suggests that at different
stages of their education and early working lives they would be
receptive to the Cou ncils information an d edu cational services.
At present th e Council operates in 11 cities and at an y one time
provides services to about 120,000 members and visitors to their
libraries and information centres.
The Council is now planning to u se new app roaches to online
and distance learning and a specially developed on line library to
extend its services to a m uch larger clientele. The quality of the
engagem ent with this larger aud ience will not be of the same
order as that achieved through m ore traditional and expensive
face to face programm es which wi l l cont inue to play an
impor tant role in India. Howev er, by increasing to at least300,000 over a three year period, the number of people in regular
contact with th e Coun cil either face to face or online, the Cou ncil
believes that it w ill achieve the critical mass necessary to affect
at t i tudes and choices among the w ider target groups in key
cities.
The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme
The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme invites young collegeand university graduates from overseas to participate in international
exchange and f oreign language education t hroughout Japan. The
programme has earned a high r eputat ion, bot h in Japan and overseas,for its effort s in human and cultural exchanges, and has become one of
the largest cultural exchange programmes in Japan. The program offerscol lege and un iversi ty gr aduates the opport uni ty t o serve in local
government organizations as well as public and private junior and seniorhigh schools. Begun in 1987 with the co-operation of the governments of
the part icipating countries, the programme h as grow n up year by year.
The number of JET participants who are currently w orking in Japan hasreached over 6,000 and t he numb er of ex-JET part ic ipant s fro m
approximat ely 40 countri es totals around 30,000. The JET Progr ammealso includes a great deal of fol low -up and netw ork bui ld ing. For
example, the JET Alumni Association i s int ended to streng then the bonds of f riendship developed by former part icipants. With o ver 44
local Chapters in 11 countries, it currently enjoys a membership of over10,000 individu als.
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Competitive and Co-operative Public Diplomacy 23
French or the Americans to be its most influential ally. These are
countries where public diplomacy should be co-operative.
I n t h i s chap t e r , w e a r gu e t ha t i t i s i mpor t an t f o r pub l i c
diplomacy strategies to reflect this situation, and to mak e a clear
dist inction between competi t ive and co-operative pu blicdiplom acy. The natu ral interest of any institution is to compete
for power and influence wherever i t can, and to expand th e
scope of its activities as much as resou rces allow. But we arg ue
in this report that i t makes sense to choose the countries for
compet i t ion according to c lear cr i ter ia , and to pr ior i t i se
resources accordingly. Some p eople will argue that it is d ifficult
to have a black and white picture of where our interests lie, and
that attempts to p rioritise are often confounded by history (who
would have p ut Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, or Rwanda in their
priority list?). But we are explicitly not arguing for a withdrawal
f rom developing coun t r ies on the cont rary w e cal l for a
consolidation of resources into a co-ordinated mu lti lateral
programme and an end to damaging competition. It is true that
there will always be shad es of grey and a need for a regu lar
review of count r ies pr ior i t ies but that cannot act as an
argum ent against trying to create a framew ork for defining
priorities.
Co-operative public diplomacy
In most parts of the world there is no advan tage in making civil
society-bui lding act ivi ty , prom ot ing good g overnan ce or
prom otion of Western values, an activity explicitly originating
from Britain. I t is not just that i t could b e better and mor eeffic ient ly car r ied ou t mu l t i la tera l ly; there are impo r tant
disadvantages in conducting this activity und er an umbrella of
national self-promotion.
In the first place, by divorcing activity designed to prom ote
democracy, human rights and the ru le of law from a country-
22 Public Diplomacy
3. Competitive andCo-operative PublicDiplomacy
There are some parts of the world w here Western countries have
a clear and incontrovertible national interest in carrying out
bilateral public diplomacy work. In these countries the worlds
largest econom ies and m arkets, regional powers like Nigeria or
South Africa, coun tries of emerging strategic importan ce they
compete w ith others for access to markets, for investment, for
political influence, for tourism, for immigration talent, and for a
host of other things w hich will bring direct benefit to them
alone. This i s of ten a competitive zero-sum game. In these
countries, there will always be a n eed for m ultilateral activitieson par t icular issues ( for example EU work on prom ot ing
multi lateralism in the Un ited States, or work in Pakistan on
maintaining th e coalit ion against terror) but because of the
strong bilateral interests it will be important for m any p ublic
dip lomacy activities to be explicitly associated w ith Britain, or
whichever country is promoting itself.
But th ese are not the only p laces where countries like the UK
have an interest in d oing pu blic diplomacy work. In the rest of
the world, there is a clear interest in carrying out w ork that
prom otes stability, economic development, hum an rights andgood government. H owever, that interest differs from a bilateral
interest in one key resp ect: it is not a uniqu ely British interest but
is rather an indivisible interest of all Western countries. There is
l i tt le purp ose, for instance, in the UK competing for inward
investment from Malaw i, and little more in competing w ith the
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Competitive and Co-operative Public Diplomacy 25
Some exampl es o f t h i s dama gi ng compe t i t i on i n pub l i c
diplomacy come from Western involvement in Afghanistan. The
International Crisis Groups Asia Program Director Robert
Templer claims th at the rebuilding of Afghanistan has exhibited
a conspicuous failure of pu blic diplomacy. It is vital for thesuccess of the Loya Jirga process that it have the su pp ort of the
people, a vital prerequisite of which is effective dissemination of
information abo ut th e process itself. Yet, Temp ler argues, the UN
has no indep enden t radio sys tem in place in Afghanis tan
(placing it a step behind , for instance, the Iranians an d th e BBC
World Service) and has been slow to publish information on
how the Loya Jirga will be condu cted or wh at its aims will be.
Templer argues that man y Western nations have concentrated
on slapping country brand ing on their (much-needed) aid and
assistance in a competitive fashion that has the dangerous side
effect of robbing the fledgling central Afghan a dm inistration of
profile, legitimacy an d, u ltimately, stability. The French, forexample, have proud ly reopened the Lycee in Kabul and played
on old links to Ahmed Shah Massoud in an attempt to promote
their influence in the area. They also und ermined th e un ifying
symbolism of the return of the old King, Zahir Shah, by very
publicly receiving the Defence Minister who ha d chosen to snub
24 Public Diplomacy
specific context, you also d ivorce it to an extent from a n eo-
colonial context that is da mag ing to its effectiveness. Bilateral
British attemp ts to prom ote democratic reform in Zimbabw e, or
French attempts to do the same in its own former colonies like
A l ge r ia , unavo i dab l y r u n i n t o t he r he t o r i ca l l y pow er f u l
response that colonial control is being re-exerted throu gh theback door of hum an rights un iversalism. Removing the n ational
brand ing from this work retains all of its usefulness to the West,
and increases its effectiveness by sid e-stepping th e sensitivities
that understandably surround it.
A second, and equally damaging, aspect of attempting to carry
out this kind of vital Western public diplomacy bilaterally is that
it can lead to great game-style competition for influence which
detracts from the good su ch work could be d oing. The French or
the British essen tially attempt to create zones of influence in the
developing w orld zones that centre naturally on the former
colonia l emp ires , and w hich seem jus t i f ied becau se of an
emphasis on the importance of historical l inks for country
prioritisation in the calculations of, for instance, the British
Council. This agenda of competition is an institutional hangov er
from colonial days (or in the case of the United States a result
partly o f self-proclaimed exceptional status) an d is, objectively
speaking, absurd . Despite increased co-operation on substantive
issues (for examp le, the co-operation on Africa init iated by
Robin Cook and H ubert Vedr ine) there is still a good d eal of
competition on p ublic diplomacy. Part of this is simply to do
with institutional rivalry between the BBC World Service and
RFI or betw een d ifferent p osts some of it has also to do withthe fact that the BBCs impact has in the p ast been measu red by
its global aud ience figure rather than i ts reach am ong target
audiences.
Table 2: Competitive and Co-operative
Public Diplomacy
Competitive
(roughly 50 countries)
Co-operative
(roughly 140 countries)
Countries Targeted
G20
EU 15 + Accession
Top 20 Tourist, Trade andInvestment Partners
P5
NATO
Diaspora Links
All other developing
countries
Interest
Political influence
Military co-operation
Trade
Investment
Tourism
Coalitions in IGOs
Policy exchange
Promoting democracy,
good governance, human
rights, regional stability
Mode of operation
Bilateral (on issues
specific to us)
Multilateral (on issues
we share with others)
Multilateral
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Competitive and Co-operative Public Diplomacy 27
This would be easiest to organize at least initially w ithin the
European Un ion. Tony Blair could u se the Danish EU sum mit
this Autumn to suggest that the European Union develops a
plan for co-operatively funded and executed p ublic diplomacy
activity in the vital majority of the worlds countries wh ere the
members of the European Union h ave no differentiated interests,but instead a pressing communal need.
In the mean -time it would be sensible to create a more informal
system of burden-sharing within the Western governments,
where the Brit ish contribution wou ld be th e exist ing World
Service an d Brit ish Coun cil good governa nce activit ies in
developing countries, and where other countries would agree to
contribute complementary activity in kind or cash funding.
Britain shou ld take a lead by deliberately down -grading the
Britishness of its activities in those countries and consulting
allies at country level. This would bring the World Service, and
also much British Council activity, into a culture that emphasises
the importance of programm es for the host country, rather than
the donor. This would go some way, at least, toward divorcing
pu blic diplomacy activity in the d eveloping world from a great
game model of interests, which it is the accepted du ty of the
FCO to manage and p ursue.
Competitive Public Diplomacy
A v ery impor tant corollary of removing the British flag from
pu blic dip lomacy activity in the ma jority of countr ies is that it
af fords an oppor tu ni ty for t ru ly ef fect ive p r ior i ti sa t ion of resources in the remaining 50 or so bilaterally targeted countries.
Norway i s one count ry that has expl ici t ly recognised thi s .
Instead of attempting to gar ner influence with pu blics in every
country where it happ ens to have an embassy, the Norwegian
government has concentrated all its pu blic diplomacy activity
on w hat it regard s as its six key coun try au diences: the US, the
26 Public Diplomacy
the King by being in Paris at the time of his return . This kind of
political jockeying is highly damaging to the broad Western
interest in Afghanistan and in failed states generally.
The Voice of America, the BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle
and RFI compete for aud ience, for frequency, and for influencein the developing world when this brings miniscule additional
benef i t s to the na t ions concerned ( the US, UK, France or
German y). The VOA bolstered by a large v ote of fund s from
Congress in the wak e of September 11th has been bidd ing for
presence on FM frequencies in Somal ia agains t the World
Service, and is in dan ger of causing price inflation throu gh the
large amounts they are paying for FM frequencies in the Arab
World. Wh ile it is clear tha t that th e BBC World Service has ver y
different editorial values from VOA, and that it would d amage
its reputation for ed itorial ind epend ence if it were to join forces
with it on prod uction, it is imp ortant to ensure th at competition
between the two services is always worthw hile and that it does
not simply result in precious resources being squand ered in a
bidding war for frequencies. These concerns about ed itorial
values do n ot, however, apply to other European services. It
seems p erverse for the BBC to be in comp etition with RFI in
Francophone Africa, rather than joining forces and creating a
European service which could serve the local popu lat ions
equally well and p roduce m odest savings for France and Britain.
Consequently, instead of running competitive public diplomacy
progr amm es in the large majority of countries that do not h ave
significant bilateral relat ions with the individual Westerngovernments, the West should combine its resources and co-
ordinate efforts on th is kind of activity. If the activities of the
World Service, and of the Brit ish Council in many places,
amount to at the least a Western p ublic good, then they should
be harnessed as a m echanism that encourages contribution from
all the governments of the West.
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Competitive and Co-operative Public Diplomacy 29
diplomacy w ork based in part of the extent of its historical links
with th e UK is code, in m ost cases, for its colonial links an d can
lead to d ecisions being mad e on the basis of our interests in the
nineteenth century rather than tod ays pressing needs.
But the most d amaging criteria applied to p rioritising countries,and one that is a central part of, for instance, the British Cou ncil
and the World Services calculations regar ding future a ctivities,
is that of potential impact. Potential impact is judged on the
bas i s o f demand f o r s e r v ices among t a r ge t g r oups and
competing influences. But these seemingly inn ocuous criteria
are in danger of pu tting the cart before the horse and acting as a
justification for the statu s quo. There is a dan ger that d ecisions
are taken not to prioritise key mark ets because the traditional
pu blic d iplomacy tools (English-language tu ition, ed ucational
reform, radio) are unlikely to work, rather th an d efining the
priority countries according to objective criteria and devising
strategies for making an imp act in these conditions.
The division of the spectrum of public diplomacy activities into
d i f f er en t i n s t i t u t i ons can hav e nega t i ve r e su l t s i n t hese
situations, because each institution calculates its priorities in
terms of what it thinks it can achieve through its own bu nd le of
activities, rather than tailoring activities to the countries where it
is vital that public diplomacy impact be achieved. One clear
example of this concern with the ability to make an impact is the
telling lack of pub lic diplom acy work b y the British Coun cil in
the USA, the richest and the most p owerful country on Earth.
The British Coun cil carries ou t very little activity in the UnitedStates, on th e basis that there is little imp act that it could h ave on
a mature democracy with a thriving dom estic media and close
informal transatlantic links and becau se the Embassy has
historically had a major information p rogram me. But it is clear
28 Public Diplomacy
UK, Germany, Russia, Japan and France (see Append ix II). The
UK has more global aspirations than Norw ay, and so w ould seek
to spread its influence more wid ely than a Spartan six countries,
but th e central idea of clear prioritisation for bilateral public
diploma cy is a good one.
Priori tisat ion is a thorny issue, and one mad e harder by th e
Foreign Offices reluctance to admit to any country that it is not,
in fact, central to the UKs foreign policy in one w ay or another.
In some areas th e UKs pr ior i t ies are c learer than others .
Economic relations, under the remit of Trade Partners UK and
Invest UK, are reasonably easy to quan tify and hence prioritise.
It is uncontentiou s that the UK should actively promote i ts
prod ucts and businesses bilaterally amongst th e largest markets,
and the larges t economies , in the wor ld a t the same t ime
includ ing some of the most p romising emerging markets. The
members of the G20 and the EU, for instance, would m ake a
good centr al core of countr ies to concentra te up on. Equally, in
terms of European political influence, the UK has a clear interest
in developing political links and political influence with some of
the most importan t EU accession countries. The Britain Abroad
Task Force, for instance, has recently add ed th e Czech Republic
and Hu ngary to its original target list of 18 countries (wh ich
al ready includ ed Poland an d Turkey) . Imp or tant regional
pow ers like Nigeria, South Africa and Ind onesia wou ld also be
central candidates for targeted bilateral relations for any country
whose interests were p rojected on a global stage.
This kind of prioritisation is, of course, already carried out by
UK pu blic diplomacy institutions, but th e criteria u sed are often
not sufficiently clear-eyed for the pu rpose. One exam ple is the
British Cou ncils determ ination of country importance based on
historical, as well as political and econom ic, grounds. This idea
of rating a countr ys impor tance as a target for British pu blic
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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 31
4. Keeping Your Head in a CrisisEnsur ing crisis responses do not divert
governments from long-t erm goals
P u b l i c d i p l o m a c y o p e r a t e s i n c e n t u r i e s, o r i n s e co n d s :
combining the long-term background th rough w hich events are
perceived wi th the ins tant shock that can be pivota l to an
international relat ionship. This temporal du ali ty comes out
strongest in a m ajor crisis.
Relations with the Mu slim world were framed by differing
degrees of engagement from the time of the crusades, through
colonial times, the creation of Israel to the Gulf War, but in an
instant the attack on the World Trade Centre reframed th e power
dynam ic in the relationship. Britains image arou nd the worldhad been def ined for decades through images of the pomp,
circum stance and cool reserve of the British Monarchy, bu t the
pu blics reaction to Princess Dianas death in an instan t buried
man y associations of Britain with th e stiff upp er lip. Equally, a
single night of violence at the Heysel stadium supp lanted the
idea of the English gentlemen in the consciousness of many
European p opu lations with its polar opp osite: the hooligan.
Each shock or crisis represents an op portu nity to effect radical
paradigm shifts in p ublic diplomacy, opportun ities that can be
seized and turned to the advantage of a country. However, thevery natu re of the shock mak es i t difficult to deal with: i t is
unexpected, i t is out of control , i t may be h ighly posit ive or
highly negative in i ts ini t ial effect , it can su ck up enormou s
resources in its wake, and it is rarely repeated in th e same form.
Governments are not very good at planning their resources
aroun d the id ea of shocks which makes it even more difficult to
30 Public Diplomacy
that there is an imp ortant need for public diplomacy activity in
the Uni ted Sta tes, and as the case s tudy demonst ra tes ( see
pp endix I) i t is not d ifficult to imagine a series of activit ies
designed around long-term relationship building, and political
edu cation which could ha ve a considerable impact.
What is needed is a clear strategy for these different types of
countries with different goals for each of the institutions. We set
this out in Chap ters Seven and Eight.
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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 3332 Public Diplomacy
up in buildings and staff which m akes i t difficult to free up
program me m oney in a cr i s is . This makes i t imp oss ible to
develop new programm es on the scale of the American response
(which was able immed iately to draw on emergency funds), but
also hampers the rapid deployment of staff. For example, several
interviewees comp lained about th e fact that it took weeks to gettelephones and emails set up in the Coalition Information Centre
in London (in contrast with th e Washington office). The World
Service and the British Cou ncil have m ore flexibility as they are
more able to redeploy resources within the year or country
bud gets but both will have to w ait for the next financial cycle
to be able to carry out strategic plans for the future. Given the
f r equen cy o f unf o r eseen shocks , i t i s ce r t a i n l y w o r t h
investigating the strategic flexibility that w ould be p rovided by
a centrally-managed pot of crisis money.
Another issue is geograp hical/ physical f lexibili ty. Ideally,
inst itut ions need a presence that can be scaled up and d own
without gen erating the adverse med ia attention that the closing
a ph ysical presence generates. This is something that th e MOD
or DFID are naturally good at. There is a case for thinking about
creating a rap id-reaction pu blic diplom acy squad th at could set
up in any crisis situation within 24 hours. As the Perm anent
Und er Secretary to the Foreign Office Sir Michael Jay says: How
do you cope with su rges? Much of the FCOs life is coping with
surges. But MOD and DFID know how to set up in a crisis. We
need a rap id reaction diplomacy that will allow u s to set up a
mission in Kabul in hou rs.
One solution might be to d evelop a residual capacity that can be
deployed in the event of a crisis. The United States are currently
reconstituting the remains of the Washington CIC as a regional
team for Middle East media wh ose primary function wou ld be
to engage in regional dialogue. This would inv olve a readiness
respond in spite of the fact that there has barely been a year th is
decade w hich has not had a major public diplomacy shock. 2001
was p erhaps atyp ical, but for the UK it was a year d efined by its
pu bl ic diplom acy cr ises : the outbreak of Foot and Mo uth
disease, the collapse of the railway system, riots in Bradford ,
Burnley an d Old ham as well as September 11th. The response toeach crisis needs to be targeted, w ell resourced an d ru n like a
poli t ical campaign rather tha n a d iplomatic effort . The key
challenges are:
Rapid reaction: an integrated response that will span changes
in policies, the deploymen t of resources and comm unications
Internal co-ordination
International co-ordination
The ability to keep track of long-term goals
Rapid Reaction and surge capability
T he boxes on t he nex t f ew p ages summar i se some o f t he
responses in Br i ta in an d the Uni ted Sta tes to the cr i si s on
September 11th. I t was inevi table that the Un i ted Sta tes
response would be of far greater magn itude than the UKs both
because the attack took p lace in Amer ica, and because of the
relative size and power of the American nation. But although the
initial pu blic response of the British Governm ent was masterful
both on a symbolic and p ractical level there remain a nu mber
of bureaucratic and ad ministrative barriers that can hamp er arapid response.
The first constraint is th e lack of bud getary flexibility. Because
the Foreign Offices bud get has been pared dow n over the years
in the interests of cost-effectiveness, m ost of its resour ces are tied
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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 3534 Public Diplomacy
The UK Public Diplomacy Reaction to September 11th
In the immediat e aftermat h of t he September events, No 10 took overdirect control of news management, working closely with the FCO to
create an incident room to manage the day to day control of the crisis. In
due course, the Coalition Inform ation Centres (CIC) and t he Islamic MediaUnit were created to coordinate messages and provide a direct
information response in Arabic. The Public Diplomacy Department of theFCO prod uced a publicatio n, Never Again, which echoed an American
web site wi th a similar pu rpose, and it s Broadcasting and Allied MediaUnit started producing regular news updates through its radio and
Br i t i sh Sate l l i t e News netw orks . In addi t ion, i t embarked on a
programme of targeted news articles and press briefings.
The timet able of responses was as follow s:
W ith in hou rs, BBC Worl d Service start ed a 45 hour news progr amme -their longest ever.
Within weeks No 10 and the FCO had established Coalition Information
Centres (CICs) in W ashingt on, London and Islamabad in cooperation wit hmajor coalit ion alli es. They had also set u p th e Islamic Media Unit .
In j ust over one mo nth, UKwit hNY, a previously planned major eventopened in New York having been re-branded to suit the r evised message.
W ithi n th ree month s, the British Council had ident ified 2m savings and
developed initial ideas for Connecting Futures (then Open M inds), a
progr amme of action specifically aimed at connectin g the M uslim andChristian w orlds.
With in t hree mont hs the BBC World Service increased it s hours of
out put in Urdu , Arabic, Pashto , Persian and Uzbek by b etw een 18 percent and 104 per cent.
Over the next three months, the British Council continued to operate inPakistan and processed 20,000 exam candidates and 5,000 Chevening
scholarship applications as usual. In contrast, the USIS in Islamabad closedand handed over its theatre to CIC.
W ithin four mont hs the British Tourist Auth ority launched UKOK as a
way of re-assuring people about tourism to t he UK.
The US Public Diplomacy Reaction to September 11th
From September 12th, every key government speech and policystatement was produced in six languages on t he day of p ublication and
in up to 30 languages by a few days later.
Large numbers of in terviews with US Officials took place on the Arab
media.
The Stat e Department co-ordinat ed wi t h the Whit e House andDepartment of Defense to create special media centres to cover a rolling
news cycle and gain a rapid-response capabilit y.
Leaflet b ombs dropped on Af ghanistan, each with 100,000 flyers
depict ing, e.g. Tal iban beating a group of women and bearing t hemessage, "Is this the fut ure you want f or your children and women" in
Pashtu n and Dari.
Sing le channel wind-up r ad ios dropped on Af ghanistan. VOAbroadcasts in Pashtu n and Dari. C-130E radio jamming planes flying over
Afghanistan.
Media t ours to th e U.S. for foreign journalists, particularly Muslim
journalists, were mounted swiftly.
Voi ce of Ameri cas Arab ic service rebranded to Radio Sawa (RadioTogether ) broadcasting 24 hours a day and aimed at a youth market wit h
popular music int erspersed w ith news bullet ins. Radio Sawa has a budg et
of c. $30m.
Produced a four-colour bo oklet, Network of Te r r o r i s m, released onNovember 6th by the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP),
to visually and emotively illustrate the impact of September 11th. Thisproduct became the most widely distributed public diplomacy document
ever produced. It is now in 36 different languages. Disseminated as an
insert i n publ ications like Italys P a n o r a m a and Kuwaits a l - Wa t a n and as afull insert in the Arabic edition of N e w s w e e k .
Photographic exhibition of Ground Zero by Joel Meyerowitz t o open in
20 countries. By the first-year anniversary date of 9/11, thi s exhibit willhave opened in 60 cities. To increase relevance and broaden interest it
was tailored t o local circumstance, e.g. th e exhibit in London, w hichshowed pictures of the Blitz in World War II alongside.
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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 3736 Public Diplomacy
Future US September 11th related Public Diplomacy
Expenditure and Plans
Planned US public dip lomacy expendit ure f or FY 2003 is $595,711,000,whi ch represents a 5.4 per cent increase over t he FY 2002 fundi ng level.
Of this amount $247,063,000 is for Educational and Cultural Exchangesand $287,693,000 is for public diplomacy activities within the Diplomatic
and Consular Programs.
Some pl anned uses of thi s money include:
$15 million w ill be used to f und an agg ressive campaign o f m essage
placement. Short video programs will air profiling the lives of certainMuslim Americans - teachers, basketball players, fi remen - on t argeted
media outlet s in nine predominately M uslim countries. The intendedmessage is that the U.S. is an open society, to lerant and accept ing o f all
religions, and specifically a countr y where Muslims are free to practiceIslam.
$17.5 million w ill be empl oyed fo r init iatives such as American Corners,
where multi-media rooms would be installed in partnering instit utions intarget countries to bring an American environment and experience tokey audiences, especially you nger generatio ns.
Another plan is to reinvigorate English Teaching t o for eigners in their
own schools, whi ch is seen as an eff ective way of exposing t hem t oAmerican values and preparin g them f or pro ductive lives in a modern
world.
The US plans to acquire television, fi lm, and radio right s for use in
Muslim-majority states to broadcast t he output of existing programmesin t he p r i vat e sect or , i nc lud ing curren t event s prod uc t ion s ,
documentaries, docu-dramas and dr amatic feat ures.
An ECA exchange prog ram fo r Mu slim yout h, teachers and young
polit ical leaders, adapting pre-existing models and programmes to t heIslamic wor ld.
New projects designed to educate the foreign public on the war against
terr orism and t he U.S. commitm ent t o peace and prosperity across allnations
including $5.3 million for expansion of outreach programs to improve
communications and provide support for a global public diplom acycampaign.
Enhanced Int ernational Informat ion Program (IIP) activities, including
improved content and presentat ion on t he websi te v ia the latest
technology for delivery of mat erial to t arget users, who w ill includeperceived critical international leaders and opinion makers.
Increased t ranslation s of Inf oUSA, a combined Internet and CD-ROM
informat ion pr oduct wit h t ext materials detailing U.S. laws, governance,education, society, and cultu re. It is updated daily on the Int ernet, and
30,000 CD-ROMs are distribut ed every six mont hs to users worldw ide.
Recipients range from executive branches and government ministries toacademic institu tio ns, NGOs and medi a out lets.
Increased polli ng by t he Bureau of Intellig ence and Research in Muslim
countries.
Expanded Office of Broadcast Services coverage of special internationalevents, remote pr oductio ns, facilit ative assistance eff ort s, dialogu es and
Foreign Press Centr e jour nalist t ours. These activiti es include wor kingwith foreign broadcasters to produce documentary reports that highlightaspects of American life, cultur e or community. The documentaries are
then shown o n nation al foreign television. Foreign jour nalist tours focuson report ing to urs for journalists in strategically important regions - the
Mid dle East, t he Balkans, and South Asia - th at have f ew o r no US-basedcorrespondents
Some of t he supplement al public diplomacy fund ing fo r 2002 will beused to magnif y the benefit s of Fulbright and Internati onal Visitor (IV)
exchanges by, for instance, setting up an alumni data bank. 50 per centof International Coalition leaders had once been exchange visitors to the
US. The prog ramme f unds 25,000 exchanges and visits wit h 237 mill ion.
Plans for a VOA satellit e news broadcast t o th e Midd le East t o compete
with Al-Jazeera et al, to broadcast 24 hours a day, with funding ofapproximately $250 million.
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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 39
the DCMS were consulted as the impact on tou rism became
clear, the fact that the Governm ent tends to involve d epartments
ra ther than non-depar tmental pu bl ic bodies meant that the
British Tourist authority w as not involved in COBRA. Foot and
Mout h t ook on such monu ment a l p r opor t i ons t ha t it w as
even t ua l l y t r ea t ed a s an i n t e r na t i ona l is sue un l i ke t heproblems with the railways and the race riots which have been
treated exclusively as dom estic stories. The stru ctural problems
around news man agement are discussed in greater detail in
chapter seven.
Alastair Campbell explains the importance of centralising
commu nications in a crisis: The thing abo ut crises is that you
never know where theyre going to come from. Foot & Mouth:
we didn t know that was going to happ en. When it does happ en
the r i sk i s you d efaul t to an assump t ion that your exis t ing
structures will be able to cope. Now the point about crises is that
they don t always cope. What may m ake it a crisis is that your
existing structures arent able to manage. You d o have to throw
things out, and get on with absolutely relentless focus. Whatever
the enquiries are going to say on foot and mou th, the truth is that
in many ways we did actually perform miracles by gett ing i t
und er control as quickly as we did. A lot of that was through,
adm ittedly in my view too slow, centralisation: things being
brough t to the centre. All the different bits of government likely
to be involved being locked in together. When you talk about a
huge international story, like September 11th, that gets ever
more d ifficult. Youve got to work ou t, where are the m ain points
o f ac t i v i t y an d i n f o r m a t i on ? O bv i ou s l y A m e r i ca an dAfghanistan were the main two. You had Pakistan, you had the
whole Midd le East situation as a factor. And then you had other
zones of opinion.
The importan ce of gett ing clear leadership from th e top of
governmen t is confirmed by Tucker Eskew, Bushs appointee to
38 Public Diplomacy
to relocate and reorgan ise on a regular basis, liasing with som e
of the 35 US agencies that cur ren t ly mainta in an overseas
presence. Alastair Campbell argues that we should ad opt a
similar ap proach in the UK: obviously you w ill never ever h ave
totally fool-proof crisis managem ent systems, because what
makes it a crisis is the fact that its d ifferent. But, wha t w eregoing to do is have a CIC operation ready to be activated at an y
point tha t we or the Foreign Office think that it shou ld be. With
ready to roll l inks into other governments d epartments, and
hopefully ready to roll links into other countri