Abstract
Global issues are diffuse and rest on the decisions and behaviour of millions, if not billions, of people. Governments must respond by changing the way they practise diplomacy, offer development assistance and deploy force. This means making the new public diplomacy a core foreign policy tool. For any issue, there will typically be three goals. The first is to build shared awareness, a common understanding of an issue around which networks of state and non-state actors can coalesce. With that in place, a shared platform can be built to campaign for change. The end point is a shared operating system: a framework for a collective response to a joint problem. These goals can be pursued through distinct public diplomacy strategies that sit on a continuum that runs from consensual and open at the one end to covert and controlling at the other. Together, these strategies form the kernel of a theory of influence for twenty-first-century diplomacy.
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Notes
For a good historical account that emphasizes the continuities between Islamist terrorism and previous waves, see Burleigh (2008).
As Marc Sageman has shown in a recent study, the Islamist threat continues to evolve in this direction, as Al-Qaeda the organization degrades into Al-Qaeda the movement (see Sageman, 2007).
For a good discussion, see Kimmage (2008).
Francis Fukuyama has dubbed this as the problem of ‘getting to Denmark’ (see Fukuyama, 2004).
Pakistan public opinion poll, conducted from 19 to 29 January 2008, International Republican Institute, Washington DC.
This is a fruitful way of seeing the intersection between nation branding and public diplomacy (see the essay by Simon Anholt in this volume).
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Evans, A., Steven, D. Towards a theory of influence for twenty-first century foreign policy: The new public diplomacy in a globalized world. Place Brand Public Dipl 6, 18–26 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2010.5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/pb.2010.5