Indian Soft Power: Cinema As someone who’s interested in pop culture and the film/television medium as tools for public diplomacy, I really enjoyed this article about Indian cinema being a contemporary “phenomenom” and a huge aspect of Indian soft power. Because of how widespread Indian movies are throughout the world, you could probably ask anyone […]
Soft power guru Joseph Nye recently assailed the Chinese and Russians for “failing miserably” at being attractive. Yes, in international relations countries can be attractive or in this case, less desirable. Nye argues that these two countries don’t understand the fundamental aspects of leveraging a soft power, which can lead to attractiveness. What seems to […]
As we approach the end of the semester, I wanted to reflect back on a concern that has been mentioned over and over in various discussions I have had with PD and non-PD scholars alike – how to measure and evaluate public diplomacy. How do we know when public diplomacy is successful? Evaluating the effectiveness […]
In his piece “American Public Diplomacy,” Bruce Gregory highlights the prevailing structural challenges facing public diplomacy practice in the US. As more actors have become involved in PD formulation and execution, stakeholders are diversified across many US agencies, departments, and branches of government. Gregory stresses the importance of more horizontal cooperation amongst the various players, rather […]
In a recent New York Times article,”Egyptians Struggle as Wary Tourists Stay Away,” Kareem Fahim details Egypt’s current struggles with tourism in the face of continued political upheaval. Fareem notes, “Tourism plummeted in 2011 with the fall of President Hosni Mubarak and the unrest that followed. Some tourists have started to return, but officials say they […]
Media has been discussed as a critical facet of public diplomacy. Undersecretary for U.S. Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine recently published several remarks on media freedom during her visit to Tbilisi, Georgia. Sonenshine state that media freedom is important because “information is the oxygen that a free and civilized society needs to breathe. […]
As of Wednesday morning, the number of hunger strikers in Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) has increased to 52 out of 166 detainees. The legal and physical treatment of detainees is widely denounced by the international community. Nonetheless, their predicament of has largely been left out of the national spotlight since President Obama’s reelection. That is now […]
In a recent video posted on the Economist’s website, the current state of the Internet in China is examined as a means of greater control by the State. The success of ‘The Great Firewall’ in blocking international content and the ‘Golden Shield’ in blocking domestic content are described as extensive and wildly successful controls placed upon […]
Soft power and public diplomacy are increasingly popular subjects in China, and the efforts exerted by the central government of the PRC demonstrate this concern. Zhou Qingan & Mo Jinwei’s article entitled “How 21st-Century China Sees Public Diplomacy as a Path to Soft Power” describes the triple-sided approach by Beijing to solicit positive relations in […]
The relationship between middle powers and public diplomacy is an interesting one and one that I had not really considered at all. This past week in class, we discussed how important PD is for states that are not great powers and yet want to ensure their position in the international community. Middle powers, such as […]
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