Areas of PDC activity, including academic study, professional practice and advocacy
A proposal to reorganize the Department of State is due later this month. Secretary Rex Tillerson called for it, and teams in State and USAID have been working on the “redesign.” How this will affect public diplomacy is not known; PD is not one of the primary topics singled out for attention after a consultancy’s…
By Alan Heil In a briefing to a record crowd at the First Monday forum of the Public Diplomacy Council and USC’s Annenberg School June 5, the State Department’s senior advisor to the Helsinki Commission laid out principles for meeting those challenges. As Scott Rauland put it: “Don’t expect to combat the firehose of falsehoods…
By Joe B. Johnson “Asserting U.S. leadership and influence” includes core public diplomacy programs, according to the White House budget for 2018. We don’t have a formal strategy or a reorganization plan from the new administration, but a budget may be the most important statement about its new directions. And this page from the State Department lays…
By Donald Bishop When my paper copy of the Foreign Service Journal arrives, I set aside time to go through it from cover to cover. There’s always something about foreign affairs that I haven’t seen in the various newspapers, newsletters and electronic sources I receive. The American Foreign Service Association has announced recently an electronic…
In 1966 the Brookings Institution published a book by Charles Frankel entitled: The Neglected Aspect of Foreign Affairs – American Educational and Cultural Policy Abroad. Frankel argued that “in comparison with the sophisticated analysis devoted to U.S. military, economic, and diplomatic policy, little intellectual attention has been given to international cultural exchange”. Although more than…
By Joe B. Johnson I still remember a very old New Yorker cartoon showing two dogs — one at a computer, remarking to its friend: “On the Internet, no one knows I’m a dog.” That’s no longer funny in a world where robots amplify propaganda messages and can even write news stories of their own.…
Joe B. Johnson Donald J. Trump employs public diplomacy as much as any President we’ve seen. Yet his public diplomacy staff has not faced so much uncertainty in decades. The State Department, supposed leader for the United States outreach to the rest of the world, named a new press spokesperson this week: one of the…