Intermap

Let me begin by saying that I deeply respect Patricia Kushlis’s thoughts on public diplomacy, and have been a long-time reader of her blog. Kushlis’s recent dismissive remarks about the academic study of public diplomacy, however, are thought-provoking and prompted me to write some kind of response. Kushlis follows what appears to be a recent trend of theory-bashing in international relations – and argues about the irrelevance of academic contributions to the practice of PD. Her statements sound as if the so-called scholars of PD have little place in construction of new and viable practices.

Consider the following statement:

…in the newly minted “field” of public diplomacy – a hybrid “discipline” that draws upon the social sciences, journalism, foreign language and cultural expertise. Public diplomacy is foremost a skill, like it or not, that is most effectively learned from practitioners and best acquired on the job.

Public diplomacy in this view is more art than science, which presents problems when the pool of artisan practitioners who might pass on this skill has shrunk. The amount of people working in public diplomacy with actual experience in the job has been reduced considerably since the closure of the USIA. And since the people who actually “do” public diplomacy are the only ones qualified in this view to teach PD –U.S. public diplomacy is in trouble. In any case, Kushlis writes:

To cede public diplomacy training to the theoreticians is not only a disservice to students but a vacuous undertaking that does not serve the country well.

To be fair, I think her argument in her essay is really about the colonization of the PD concept by strategic communication experts and, institutionally, by the Defense Department’s own efforts at “PD.” But I do think it’s necessary to provide some defense of academic contribution (since that’s what I do for a living).

First, I’m not sure what academic “field” Kushlis is referring to, nor do I get a sense of the theory that is so divergent from practice. Diplomacy Studies is a relatively small and isolated segment of International Relations scholarship, and Public Diplomacy but a small piece of that group. Public diplomacy is certainly not a discipline – it is a “field” where scholars from various disciplines conduct inquiry over a common set of questions and problems. There is hardly anything canonical about public diplomacy scholarship. If the 2009 International Studies Association meeting is any indication – there is no consensus on what the term public diplomacy even means. And more to the point – there is no public diplomacy theory.

Yes, that’s right. There is no public diplomacy theory. No rarified, irrelevant, jargon-laden formulation spewed forth from the Ivory tower to distort the views of public diplomacy practitioners and distract them from the real world. There are certainly calls for a theory of public diplomacy – but nothing we could reasonably call a theory. Just read Eytan Gilboa’s plea for more theoretical and rigorous social science on this subject. What academia does have are numerous attempts to categorize public diplomacy policies – the starting point for subsequent investigation. But boxes and categories are not theories. They are descriptions that enable systematic inquiry.

There may be no public diplomacy theory, but there are certainly a good number of books written by practitioners and of course, excellent historians like Nick Cull. If anything, contemporary public diplomacy researchers (like myself) rely heavily on these accounts to formulate new questions and provide means to compare the past with the present. What public diplomacy has become is a fertile ground to consider theoretical dynamics from other avenues of inquiry that might advance what practitioners already know. Plus, public diplomacy is one of those rare subjects where we (academics) can see a number of different academic assumptions colliding – such as the changing role of the nation-state, the role of communication in facilitating new international actors, and the transformational power of media technologies upon traditional concepts of national, identity, and indeed politics itself.

Right now, public diplomacy scholarship is drawing together researchers from communication, political science, international relations, public relations, American studies, and of course history. There are even psychological and educational studies of public diplomacy. The challenge for many of these scholars is to first get past definitional debates about “What is public diplomacy” and second, sort out what ideas and theories might be useful for studying public diplomacy in order to craft useful, theoretically informed observations.

There is necessary kind of eclecticism to this early stage of public diplomacy scholarship – as Bruce Gregory’s thoughtful essay about the origins of this new “discipline” reveals. His essay is illustrative of the various strands of scholarship that are being accessed and woven together to form new ideas about PD.

Consider my own discipline – communication studies. If attendance at communication conference panels about public diplomacy are any indication – there is no danger of communication suddenly churning out theories to further corrupt the practice of public diplomacy. One reason is that communication – arguably the field with the most to say about the practical implications of message strategy, interpersonal dynamics, and the nuts and bolts of persuasion – has a historically ambivalent attitude towards the subject that can be traced back to its abandonment of propaganda studies and a history of what we could euphemistically call “administrative research.” But a new generation of scholars are working to revive interest in PD as a field of interest within the discipline.

Consider, for the sake of argument, some of the contributions that communication scholarship (broadly conceived) can make to the practice of public diplomacy:

1. Understanding how media framing and agenda setting work to constrain attempts at media advocacy, as well as the efficacy of international broadcasting.

2. Crafting better messages through understanding routes to persuasion, as constrained in various contexts, media formats, and technologies – from both a humanistic and social-scientific perspective.

3. Understanding the role of cultural products in carrying messages and indeed, cultivating attitudes, about the United States.

4. Observing the impacts of cultural products and media content that might threaten local cultural sensitivities and harm local communication/cultural industries.

5. Assessing the outcomes of network associations compiled from exchange program participation.

6. Understanding difficulties faced by exchange students in intercultural and cross-cultural encounters that might impact program effectiveness.

7. Considering the social implications of communication technology usage and adaptation on ideas such as identity, nationality, and supra-national social formations like participation in civil society/NGOs as well as extremist groups.

8. Understanding the pervasive power of narratives, tropes, and rhetorical devices in enhancing or constraining communication objectives.

9. Providing a theoretically grounded (both humanistic and social scientific) understanding of how visual argument works to influence, persuade, and otherwise communicate.

10. Consider the role of media representation in the construction of other social forms, cultural practices, and perceptual filters for news about the United States.

11. Using audience analysis to understand how media and communication work to sustain attitudes or create barriers to attitude change.

12. Providing informed communication strategies for dealing with intercultural encounters (such as the PAO interacting with local press).

This list is obviously not exhaustive. But it suggests that academic thinking about public diplomacy has a lot to offer. These are not public diplomacy theories. They are theory-inspired contributions that can be applied to public diplomacy.

The list also offers more than simply sweeping templates for nation-state interest, foreign policy paradigms, or historical trends in how foreign ministries organize. Scholarship can also dig deeper into subjects like soft power. Esteemed political communication scholar Robert Entman has engaged the question of public diplomacy. And drawing insight from the excellent studies put out by Stephen Corman’s Consortium for Strategic Communication at Arizona State is hardly a “vacuous undertaking.”

If there is a danger from theory to public diplomacy – it is the application of bad theory or misrepresentation of theory to the practice of public diplomacy. The “magic bullet” or “hypodermic” messaging model that was evident throughout much PD practice in U.S. history has been discredited in mass communication and political communication scholarship for decades. And now it’s wasted taxpayer money. Who is watching Al-Hurra these days? I would argue it would be hard to find a political communication expert who agrees with that channel on principle.

Engineers take classes from engineering professors. Some salespersons and marketers take business classes from (gasp) professers that may have more experience in academia than in the business world. The same could certainly be said of public relations professionals. So what’s the problem with an academic study of public diplomacy helping out public diplomacy practitioners? Yes – I would agree that public diplomacy can be an applied skill, but that doesn’t preclude the benefits of good scholarship to help with that skill.

The biggest problem I see in the relationship of the academy to public diplomacy is that there simply are not enough rigorous and comprehensive research products to provide insight to practitioners. At least not yet.

Sure there are a lot of white papers and speculative pieces – but this stuff is arguably preliminary. So why not let the academics continue to study public diplomacy – and build a work-able and instructive knowledge base to refine the practice of something I think we all can agree needs more attention and improvement. And I don’t think advocates of public diplomacy need any less people on board who consider themselves stakeholders for the concept. I do think Kushlis is right to be skeptical of definitive scholarly treatments now – there simply isn’t a lot of good scholarship out there at this moment. I also think that practitioner perspectives will continue to be the biggest resource for public diplomacy planners. But let’s not dismiss the PD scholars waiting in the wings – who already have to contend with potential prejudice within their own disciplines.