Public Diplomacy

Public Diplomacy is a Cognitive Science class taught by James Miller.

Course Description
Public diplomacy is the use of culture in relations between nations. Cultural exchanges of various kinds are meant to augment the principal means of international relations, which are political, economic and military. Increasingly, however, culture is seen as an important example of "soft power," a way of exerting global influence without seeming to be threatening. Some of this influence occurs when big countries seek to modernize or Westernize smaller countries that are said to be in transition - post-communist, democratizing, developing, etc. This one-way flow raises important questions about cultural imperialism, claims that some cultural practices or forms are universal, notions that some culture fosters democracy or freedom while others do not, etc. This course will explore mainly US public diplomacy but also efforts by multilateral organizations like the UN and by international NGOs. Students will help lead class discussions, write short response papers and two essays and conduct a final research project.

February

 * 23: Celebrity Diplomacy: The concept
 * Essay 1 due for in-class discussion
 * 25: Discussions
 * Gilboa (Ben K)
 * Arndt (Eammon)

March

 * 2: The Concept: Propaganda?
 * Jowett and O’Donnell (Claire)
 * Scott-Smith (Saugat)
 * 4: The Concept: Exchanges
 * Nye (Chris)
 * Snow (Brendan)
 * 9: Defining Public Diplomacy
 * Final Project Proposal due
 * 11: No Class Meeting
 * Essay 2 due by 4:30 Thursday in JM’s CS mailbox
 * 16: Spring Break
 * 18: Spring Break
 * 23: History: Hot War
 * Rosenberg (TBA)
 * 25: History: Cold War
 * 30: Cultural imperialism
 * Endy
 * White

April

 * 1: Post-Colonial Cultural Realtions
 * Appiah
 * 6: Final Project Update
 * 8: The Third Sector: NGOs
 * DeMars (Miller)
 * 13: The Third Sector: Universalism
 * TBA
 * 15: TBA
 * 20: Student Presentations
 * 22: Student Presentations
 * 27: Student Presentations
 * 29: Student Presentations

Written assignments
All response papers, the two essays and the final paper are due by noon in Miller’s CS mailbox on Monday, 4 May. Please put your materials in a self-addressed manila envelope. They will be in your campus mailbox when you return in the fall. If you want them sent to your home, be sure to put stamps on the envelope. Please email me or give me on a disk a copy of your slide show/a-v presentation.
 * First essay (11 February): Find one current example of celebrity diplomacy that is not discussed in the readings and explain how it is an instance of cultural relations between nations. 3-4 pp., double-spaced, stapled, titled.
 * Second essay (2 March): Write a persuasive memo to an appropriate Obama administration official laying out the definitional/conceptual aspects of public diplomacy so as to prepare for later public diplomatic projects. 3-4 pp., double-spaced, stapled, titled.
 * Final project proposal: (1) identify a likely subject, (2) write a problem statement of no more than one page (what I am studying, why it is significant, what is at issue, what sort of information will I need), (3) find at least one substantial reference that will get you started. We will discuss your proposals and you will hand in the problem statement.
 * Final project, oral presentation and essay: You may write about the history or the future of public diplomacy. Historical case studies (of Voice of America, Alliance Francaise, the British Council, Goethe Institut) are especially welcome. Speculative analyses of emerging and future supranational and transnational agencies, the Third Sector and other non-state actors in a networked world are another possibility. Consider the future of celebrity diplomacy, public diplomacy in hot and cold wars, public diplomacy in the nonWest/nonNorth, in states like Venezuela, Cuba, the USSR or Nazi Germany, etc.; 6-10 pp., double-spaced, titled; minimum of five serious references (journal articles, books/book chapters, studies and reports). The oral presentation should involve a slide show that includes audio-visual imagery that brings your subject alive.

Readings on the Course Website
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. “The case for contamination,” New York Times Magazine, 1 January 2006.

Arndt, Richard T. “Sunset or new dawn?” in the First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005.

Castells, Manuel. “The new public sphere: Global civic society, communication networks and global governance,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616:1, March 2008 (“Public Diplomacy in a Changing World”).

Cooper, Andrew F. Celebrity Diplomacy. Paradigm Publishers, 2008. Our book.

Cull, Nicholas J. “Public diplomacy: Taxonomies and histories,” The Annals.

DeMars, William E. “Your NGO starter kit” in NGOs and Transnational Networks: Wild Cards in World Politics. London: Pluto Press, 2005.

Endy, Christopher. “The ugly American: The travel boom and the debate over mass culture” in Cold War Holidays: American Tourism in France. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Gilboa, Eytan. “Searching for a theory of public diplomacy,” The Annals.

Jowett, Garth S. and Victoria O’Donnell, “What is propaganda, and how does it differ from persuasion?” in Propaganda and Persuasion, 3rd ed. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1999.

Miller, James. “NGOs and the ‘modernization’ and ‘democratization’ of media: Situating media assistance,” Global Media and Communication, 5:3, December 2009 (in press).

Nye, Joseph S., Jr. “Public diplomacy and soft power,” The Annals.

Rosenberg, Emily. “The cultural offensive: 1939-1945” in Rosenberg, Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansionism, 1890-1945. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.

Scott-Smith, Giles. “Mapping the undefinable: Some thoughts on the relevance of exchange programs within international relations theory,” The Annals.

Snow, Nancy. “International exchanges and the US image,” The Annals.

White, Livingston A. “Reconsidering cultural imperialism theory,” Transnational Broadcasting Studies, no. 6, Spring/Summer 2001.