DEMOS

Our project on new the new public diplomacy is beginning to produce some interim outputs. Readers may be interested in the following talks:

The new public diplomacy and Afghanistan – a talk at a Defence Academy seminar on Strategic Communications, Public Diplomacy and Afghanistan.

Technology and public diplomacy – a talk to the University of Westminster Symposium on Transformational Public Diplomacy

Next month, the Foreign Office will publish a book on the new public diplomacy, with a chapter from David and Alex that offers a preview of their Demos pamphlet. The book will be launched in Washington at the Brookings Institution and in London at Chatham House.

From the chapter’s abstract:

Today’s global risks – climate change, HIV, radicalisation to name just three – have something in common: they are diffuse, involving the decisions of millions if not billions of people.  So when policymakers deal with the most important global risks, they are – inevitably – engaging in public diplomacy.

This chapter argues that public diplomacy has three goals.  The first is to build shared awareness: a common understanding of an issue around which a coalition can coalesce.  With that in place, shared platforms – networks of state and non-state actors who can campaign for a collective vision or preferred solution – can be assembled.  These platforms in turn work towards shared operating systems: frameworks for a collective response to a joint problem.

These goals can be pursued through four distinct public diplomacy strategies, which we term engagement, shaping, disruptive and destructive.  Together, they offer the prospect of a theory of influence for 21st century public diplomacy.

Full text will be posted here following publication.