public diplomacy - mark leonard

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www.fpc.org.uk

T he For e ign Po l i cy C en t r e i s an i ndepend en t t h i nk- t ank

launched by Prime Minister Tony Blair (Patron) and formerForeign Secretary Robin Cook (President) to examine the impact

of globalisation on foreign an d d omestic policy. The Centre has

developed a dis t inct ive research agenda that explores the

strategic solutions needed to tackle issues wh ich cut across

borders focusing on the legitimacy as w ell as the effectiveness

of policy.

The Foreign Policy Centre has p rodu ced a range ofpublications

by key thin kers on su bjects relating to the role of non-state actors

in policymaking, the future of Europe, international security and

identity. These includ e: The Post-Modern S tate and the W orld Orderby Robert Cooper, Network Europe an d Going Public by Mark

Leonard, NGO s R ights and Responsibilities by Michael Edwards,

After Multiculturalism by Y asmi n A l i bha i - Br ow n , Trading

Identities b y W a l l y O l i n s a n d Third Generation Corporate

Citizenship by Simon Zad ek.

The Centre runs a rich and varied events programme at The

Mezzanine in Elizabeth Hou se a forum w here representatives

f rom NGOs, think- tanks , compan ies and gov ernmen t can

interact with speakers who includ e prime ministers, Nobel Prize

laureates, global corporate leaders, activists, media executives

and cultural entrepreneurs from around the world.

The Centres quarterly m agazine, Global Thinking, is a regu lar

out le t for new thinking on foreign p ol icy i ssues . Features

include profiles, exclusive interviews with decision makers, and

opinion p ieces by the Centres perm anent staff and associated

authors. The Centre runs a unique internship programm e the

UKs only route for n ew grad uates into the foreign policy arena.


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Public Diplomacy

Mark Leonard

About the authors

Mark Leonard is Director of The Foreign Policy Centre. H e has

w r i t t en w i de l y on E ur opean I n t eg r a t i on and l eg it i macyinclud ing his accla imed pam phlet N etwork Europe (Foreign

Policy Centre 1999) and The Pro-European Reader (with Dick

Leonard, Palgrave 2002). His work on Rebranding Britain led

to an international debate on branding coun tries and inspired

the Foreign Secretary to launch Panel 2000, a taskforce to advise

him on p romoting Britain abroad. Mark has bu ilt on this with

influential studies on pu blic diplomacy including the report

Going Public: Diplomacy for the Information Society (with Vidhy a

Alakeson, Foreign Pol icy Cent re 2000). Mark w r i tes and

broadcasts extensively on British, European and International

Politics. He has acted as a consultant on identity for foreigngovernments and private companies. Mark p reviously worked

as senior researcher at the think-tank Demos and as a trainee

journalist at The Economist.

Catherine Stead , the project director for the p ublic diploma cy

research, was seconded to The Foreign Policy Centre from the

British Council. Prior to that she spent three years working for

the Brit ish Cou ncil in the Balt ic States. She has ten years

experience of condu cting p ublic diplomacy in the field.

Conrad Smewing joined th e Foreign Policy Centre as Mark

Leonards assistant after completing an MPhil in InternationalRelations at th e University of Cambrid ge.

with Catherine Stead and Conrad Smewing


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v

Public Diplomacy

Acknowledgements vii

1. Introduction: Why Public Diplomacy? 1

2. The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 8News ManagementStrategic CommunicationsRelationship Building

3. Competitive and Co-operative Public Diplomacy 22Co-operative DiplomacyCompetitive Diplomacy

4. Keeping our head in a crisis 31Rapid Reaction and Surge CapabilityInternal Co-ordinationInternational Co-ordinationReconciling Long and Short-term goals

5. Beyond propaganda: working in a complex information 46environmentUnderstanding the target audienceBeyond one-way communicationsEngaging the emotional as well the rationalProving your relevance

6. Diplomacy by stealth: working with others to achieve our goals 54NGO DiplomacyDiaspora DiplomacyPolitical Party DiplomacyBrand DiplomacyBusiness Diplomacy

First published in 2002 by

The Foreign Policy Centre

The Mezzanine

Elizabeth H ouse

39 York Road

LondonSE1 7NQ

Email [email protected] .uk

www.fpc.org.uk

The Foreign Policy Cent re 2002

All rights reserved

ISBN 1-903558-131

Cover by David Carroll

Typesetting by Rory Fisher


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Acknowledgements v ii

Acknowledgements

This report is the conclusion of a two-year research p roject, and

i s t he p r od uc t o f m any peop l e s i d ea s , ha r d w o r k a ndexper ience. We grateful ly acknowledge both the f inancia l

s u p p o r t a n d i n t e l le c t u a l e n g a g e m e n t o f t h e f o l l o w i n g

organisations, who m ade this research project p ossible: The

Brit ish Coun cil, The Royal Norweg ian Ministry of Foreign

Affairs , BBC World Service , the Design Coun ci l, and the

Embassy of the United States of America in London .

This report builds on the interim report, Going Public, which I co-

wrote with Vidhya Alakeson. The research process has only been

mad e possible through th e generosity of the British Coun cil who

first seconded Liz Noble and then Catherine Stead to the ForeignPolicy Centre to d irect the research and fieldwo rk on th is project.

Liz laid the foundations for the field w ork, while Catherine

travelled to the four corners of the earth gathering data an d

ideas with considerable lan. Two other peop le have played a

nodal role in m anaging th is process: Conrad Smewing tirelessly

drafted sections and gathered source material , while Laura

Demetris conducted vital research, identified key contacts in the

relevant countries, co-ordinated w ith different p artners and

mastermind ed the international travel plans. Adam Higazi also

helped gather m aterial for the append ices.

We would like to thank all those whose contributions of time,pract ical supp or t , informat ion and ideas made th i s repor t

poss ible . Our project s teer ing group , chai red by the ever-

encouraging Sir Michael Butler, included figures with much

experience of public diploma cy: HE Tarald Brautaset, Andr ew

Fot he r i ngh am, Jona t han G r i f fi n , F r i t z G r oo t hues , F r ed

7. Assessing the spectrum of UK inst itut ions 72Three Dimensions of public diplomacyCo-ordination and planningStrategic DifferentiationEvaluationMulilateral Diplomacy: A Case Study

8. Conclusions: A Public Diplomacy Strategy 95

Appendix I. Public Diplomacy on the ground: 113a study of UK public diplomacy in the United States of America,France, Poland,India, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates

Appendix II. Niche Diplomacy: 169How Norway uses scarce resources to punch aboveits weight

Appendix III. Global Brands 178

Appendix IV. The main interviewees for the project 183


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vii i Public Diplomacy

Martenson, Dame Pauline Neville Jones and Patrick Spaven.

They provided direction and helped shape the final form of this

report. Edm und Marsden wh o was the original inspiration for

the project also provid ed very h elpful feed-back on this report.

The staff of the Foreign Policy Centre hav e all come together to

make this possible particular thanks m ust go to m y assistantPhoebe Griffith for her ideas on th e structure of the rep ort and

Veena Vasista, my d epu ty, for steering the Centre so effectively

while I was engrossed in various d rafts.

All those who helped to m ake the case study visits happen, in

particular Edmu nd Marsden, British Coun cil India, John Tod,

British Coun cil France, Richard Morgan, British Embassy Paris,

Xavier North, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Robert Sykes,

British Cou ncil Gulf States, Tim Gor e, British Cou ncil Dubai, H E

Ann Gran t and N ick Shepp ard, British High Commission South

Africa, Robert Peirce, Brit ish Embassy Washington, TeresaEvans, British Consu late-General Boston, Sara Everett, British

Informat ion Services New York, Jeremy Eyres and Iwona

Kochel , Br i t i sh Cou nci l Poland, Johan Meyer and Oyvind

Stokke, Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is imp ossible to list all the peop le that we interviewed or wh o

took part in focus groups and discussions, but in Appendix IV,

we list some of the main people wh o were interviewed.

Mark Leonard, The Foreign Policy Centre, London June 2002

Introduction: Why Public Diplomacy? 1

1. Introduction: Why PublicDiplomacy?

Public Diplomacy: Definitions

Public diplomacy differs from tradit ional diplom acy in th at it involves

in terac t ion not on ly wi th governments but pr imar i l y wi th non-

governmental in dividuals and organisations. Furth ermore publ ic

diplomacy activit ies often present many dif fering views represented b y

private American individuals and organizations in addition to off icial

government views

(Edwar d Mu rrow , 1963, speaking as director of USIA)

Public Diplomacy seeks to promot e the n ational in terest of the Unit ed

States through understanding, informin g and inf lu encing fo reign

audiences.

Planning grou p for integratio n of USIA into the Dept. of State, June 20,

1997)

I conceive of pub lic diplomacy as being t he publi c face of t raditi onal

diplomacy. Traditi onal di plomacy seeks to advance th e int erests of the

United States thro ugh pri vate exchanges wit h fo reign government s. It

works very much in coordination with and in parallel to the traditional

diplomatic effo rt.

(Christopher Ross, at Brookings/Harvard Forum, January 16, 2002)

The purpose of public diplomacy is to influence opinion in target

countries to make it easier for the British Government, British companies

or other British organisations to achieve their aims. The overall image of

Britain in t he country concerned is of great impo rtance but th is is not

to say that it is the only factor. The most im portant factor will usually be

the actual policies of the British Government and the terms in which they

are announced and explained by M inisters. In most count ries a broadlyinternationalist posture will be positive. A narrow and open pursuit of

national interests at the expense of others will be negative. For example,

the Governments handling of the beef crisis in the summer of 1996 had

a negative effect not only on Britains ability to get i ts way on other EU

issues, but also on the view taken of Britain in many non-EU countries.

(Sir Mi chael Butler, for mer British permanent representative to t he

European Union, 2002)


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2 Public Diplomacy Int roduct ion: Why Public Diplomacy? 3

constraints on the freedom of action of national governm ents.

This means that even more than du ring the Cold War we

need to invest as much in communicating with foreign p ublics

as with the governm ents that represent them if we are to achieve

our objectives.

There are many examp les of i ssues where the a t t i tud e of

overseas publics plays a determining role in the governments

ability to pur sue its foreign policy objectives. The Afghan an d

Kosovo conflicts saw pow erful military coalitions risk d efeat,

not in the field, but in the med ia battleground for public opinion.

In Rwand a ethnic conflict was mobilized th rough inflamm atory

radio broad casts rather than mili tary comm and chains. The

global anti-capitalist demon strations have i l lustrated a n ew

diplomat ic envi ronment w here s ta te and non -s ta te actors

compete for the publics attention. During the British BSE crisis

the French government, in breach of EU law, banned British beeflargely in response to p ublic fears abou t its safety. In a global

economy, countries compete against each other for investmen t,

trade, tourists, entrepreneu rs and highly skilled workers.

In each of these cases perceptions of Britain and other countries

combine to create an enabling or d isabling backdr op for each

s i t ua t i on . I t i s cl ea r t ha t p r opag and a w i l l no t pe r su ade

populations in reluctant countries to support the war against

terror but perceptions of Western m otivations as imp erial or

self-interested can dam age chances of success, and d ivergent

national debates can cause tensions which could eventually

break up the international coalition. Independent or nationalsources of news will not block out calls to arms from tribal radio

stat ions, but they can act as a counterweight by presenting a

calm ov erview of the ongoing tensions and giving access to

information which may be of critical importance (Rwanda had

only 14,000 phon es but some 500,000 radios). Promotiona l

It took the traged y of September 11th for the battle for hearts

and minds to rise once again to the top of the international

political agenda . After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United

States had lost its urge to sp read its values and messages to the

four corners of the world, and gradu ally run down many of the

propagan da and information tools which it had rel ied on soheavily during th e cold w ar emasculating the USIAand p aring

the Voice of America and Radio Free Europ e dow n to almost

residual proportions.

In developing countries and former comm unist states, no real

at tempts were mad e to build a p opular consensus for l iberal

democracy, and reformis t governments were expected to

persua de their citizens to swallow the bitter pill of structural

adjustment without much sugar-coating. Today policy-makers

are still trying to come to term s with the d epth of hostility to

America and the West. Of course i t is not just a problem o fcommu nication. Poverty, exclusion from the world economy,

dou ble-standard s on trade and d emocracy (part icularly the

Wests supp ort for discredited and repressive regimes), the

predatory behaviour of some western multinationals and a

range of policy positions on issues from the Arab-Israeli conflict

to the sanctions against Iraq all fuel tensions. But it is equally

clear that commu nication and building relationships d o have a

par t to p lay i f we are going to avoid s l ipp ing into a bat t le

between the West and the rest . There is a dou ble challenge:

showing that w hat you rep resent is more at tractive than the

alternative, and keeping you r coalition together which is no

longer as easy as it once was during the Cold War.

Ironically, it is the end of the Cold War wh ich has mad e pu blic

diplomacy more imp ortant: the spread of democracy, the media

explosion and the rise of global NGOs and protest movements

h a v e c h a n g e d t h e n a t u r e o f p o w e r a n d p u t e v e r g r e a t e r


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research included of interviews with senior policy-makers in a

num ber of organisations representing those coun tries abroad. It

explores how public diplomacy works in practice in six case

stud y coun tries (Ind ia, South Africa, United States, France,

Poland, the United Arab Emirates) where w e have conducted

our ow n q ua l i t a t i ve r e sea r ch t h r ough f ocus g r oups andinterviews with youn g professionals, as well as drawing on

quan t i ta t ive research car r ied out by MORI for the Br i t ish

Counci l. We have sup plemented thi s w i th interviews wi th

experts in academ ia and the commu nications indu stries.

In the chapters that follow we dr aw a nu mber of imp ortant

conclus ions . Fi rs t we argue that there i s not a suf f ic ient

commitm ent of resources to this new typ e of dip lomacy. All

governm ents pay lip-service to the way tha t the rise of global

commu nications, the spread of democracy, the growth of global

N GOs an d th e d evelo p m en t of p ow er fu l m u l t i l a ter a l

o r gan i sa t i ons have changed t he na t u r e o f pow er w i t h i n

societies, and altered the craft of governm ent and diplomacy.

But these changes hav e not been ad equately reflected in the way

that governm ents as a whole deploy their resources, or the way

that foreign services in particular organise themselves and relate

to the institutions they fund .

Joseph N ye makes this point very stron gly, If you look at

expend itures in the American bud get, we spend abou t 17 times

as much on m ilitary hard p ower as we d o on all our foreign

representation, the State Department bud get, foreign aid as w ell

as the Voice of America and all the exchange program s lump edtogether. There is something wr ong with th at picture. The

picture in th e UK is very similar, with th e Ministry of Defence

receiving 18 t imes the am oun t of the FCO (24.2 bi ll ion

compared to 1.3 billion). The investment in public diplomacy is

dw arfed by the return s that come from successful work and

4 Publ ic Diplomacy

campaigns for British beef have a limited impact on the fears of

consum ers, but work to sh ow the qu ality of British science and

the integrity of our vets did p lay a role in assuag ing the French

p u b l i c s s u s p i c io n . A n d m a n y s t u d i e s h a v e s h o w n t h a t

campaigns to change the perceptions of countries like Ireland,

Spain or New Zealand can create a premium for products andservices as well as playing a role in attracting investment an d

tourists.

The American academic Joseph N ye has argued that the p ower

o f a t t r a ct i o n c a n b e a n i m p o r t a n t c o m p l e m e n t t o m o r e

traditional forms of power based on economic or military clout.

He d raws a distinction betw een hard and soft power: Soft

pow er works by conv incing others to follow, or getting them to

agree to , norms and ins t i tut ions that prod uce the des i red

behaviour. Soft power can rest on the appeal of ones ideas or the

ability to set the agend a in wa ys that shap e the preferences of

others. Because most of the messages that people pick up about

a country are beyond the control of national governmen ts -

books, CDs, films, television program mes, brand s or consumer

products with national associations, events, etc. - the activities of

governments and other organisat ions are going to have an

impact at the m argins, seeking to clear path s and give impetus

to the m ost positive messages for mass au diences while working

directly on niche aud iences.

This report explores how coun tries could work to correct the

negative perceptions prod uced by the marketplace and h arness

the pow er of other actors to increase their own voice on theworld stage. It is based on a two-year research programm e that

explored how some of the larges t indust r ia l i sed count r ies

(Britain, France, Germany, and the United States) conduct public

diplom acy. It also looked at the p ublic diplomacy of Norway, a

country th at has used pu blic diploma cy to good effect . The


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p u b l ic d i p l o m a c y i n s ti t u t i o n s n e e d t o b e m u c h m o r e

i n t e r a c t i v e - b u i l d i n g l o n g - t e r m r e l a t i o n s h i p s a n d

und erstanding target groups rather than d elivering one-way

messages.

Conspicuous Government involvement in public diplomacycan be counter -product ive . Governments are not great

persuad ers. By working throu gh parties that people will trust

from N GOs and Diasp oras to brand s and p olitical parties

they are more likely to build tru st and achieve their objectives

than by acting as spokespeop le themselves.

Foreign services and p ublic diplom acy institutions need to

bu i l d t h e pos s i b i l i t y o f c r i s e s in t o t he i r p l ann i n g by

deve l op i ng g r ea t e r bud ge t a r y fl ex ib i l it y . and pu b l i c

diplomacy SWAT teams that can be m obilised at very sh ort

notice.

All countries need to prove their relevance - rather than take

it for granted. For examp le, survey data show s that even

where people have positive feelings about Britain, the fact that

they see it as a country in d ecline means that th ey will turn to

others about w hom th ey feel less favourab le.

Public diplomacy should be focused on the countries which

are most relevant to ou r interests - not those which are easiest

to influence.

We argue for a new type of mu ltilateral public diplomacy retooling em bassies to become lobbying and policy-exchange

organisations; creating an infrastructure to link u p political

parties and NGOs across borders to create a common p olicy

space; and planning p roactive commu nication campaigns.

6 Public Diplomacy

the cost of failure. For exam ple, the 200,000 foreign stud ents th at

the British Cou ncil works to attr act every year ear n 5 billion for

British higher edu cation. Equally, the disastrous imag es that

came out of Foot and Mouth h ave already cost an estimated 2

billion in lost tourist revenu e.

But i t goes beyond the re la t ionship between sp ending on

reactive military p ower an d preventative diplomacy. Diplomatic

institutions need to move beyond the old mod el of bolting on a

few new u nits and r ecruiting a couple of extra staff from N GOs

changes which are essential ly cosmetic. Instead, what is

needed is a fundam ental re-balancing of the dip lomatic offer

and a larger investment in it. Foreign services must transform

themselves from being reporters an d lobbyists on reactive issues

to shapers of publ ic debates around the wor ld. There are a

num ber of key lessons that we draw :

Governments do not pay enough attention to the way that

stories will be received abroad . The main way to engage with

mass aud iences in other countries is not through embassies on

the ground , but by working through foreign correspondents

in your own capital.

Western governments are competing with each other in 200

countries wh en they ha ve bilateral interests in just a fraction

of that num ber . This unhelpful compet i t ion u ndermines

objectives in developing coun tries while preventing a prop er

focus of resources on those count r ies where th ey have a

bilateral interest.

Governments need to change the tone of public diplomacy -

so that i t is less about winning argu ments and more about

engagem ent. In an environm ent where citizens are sceptical

of governmen t and sensitive abou t post-colonial interference,


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2. The Three Dimensions ofPublic Diplomacy

The phrase public diplomacy is often used as a eup hemism for

propagan da. Journalists have portrayed it as a crude mechanism

for delivering messages that m ay or m ay not reflect the facts.

Naom i Kleins vi tuperat ive p iece for The Guardian i s n o t

un typical: Its no coincidence that the p olitical leaders most

preoccupied w ith branding w ere also allergic to democracy and

divers i ty . His tor ical ly , thi s has been th e ugly f l ips ide of

pol i t i c ians s t r iving for consis tency of brand : cent ra l i sed

informat ion, s ta te-cont rol led media , re-educat ion camp s,

purging of dissidents and much worse.

In fact pub l ic diplom acy i s about bu i lding re la t ionships :

unders tanding the needs of other count r ies , cul tures and

peop l e s ; commu ni ca t i ng our p o i n t s o f v i ew ; co r r ec t ing

misperceptions; looking for areas where we can find comm on

cause. The d ifference between p ublic and trad itional diplomacy

is that public diploma cy involves a much broad er group of

The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 9

peop le on both sides, and a broader set of interests that go

beyond those of the government of the day.

Public diplomacy is based on the p remise that the image and

reputation of a country are pu blic goods w hich can create either

a n e n a b l i n g o r a d i s a b l i n g e n v i r o n m e n t f o r i n d i v i d u a ltransactions. Work on p articular issues will feed off the general

image of the country and reflect back on to it in both p ositive

and negative d irections. For example, Britains repu tation for

tradition w ill help h eritage brand s such as Asp reys sell their

prod ucts, and th eir advertising campaigns w ill also reinforce

Britains repu tation as a heri tage nation. Equally N orways

reputat ion for work in internat ional mediat ion wi l l help

persuad e the d ifferent factions in Sri Lanka that they are an

honest broker, which will in turn add to their reputation for

peace.

There i s a hierarchy of impacts that pu bl ic diplomacy can

achieve:

Increasing peop les familiarity with ones country (making

them think about it, up dating their images, turning arou nd

unfavourable opinions)

Increasing peop les appr eciation of ones country (creating

positive percep tions, getting others to see issues of global

importance from the same p erspective)

Engaging people with ones country (strengthening t ies from education reform to scientific co-operation; encouraging

people to see us as an attractive destination for tourism, study,

distance learning; getting them to buy our p roducts; getting to

understand and subscribe to our values)

8 Public Diplomacy

Image 1: The Circle of Public Diplomacy

Image

Issue


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Proactively creating a n ews agenda through activities and

events which are designed to reinforce core messages and

influence perceptions

Building long-term relationships with pop ulations overseas to

win recognition of our values and assets and to learn fromtheirs

Each of these d imensions operates according to a different time-

scale. Reactive news takes place in hours an d d ays, proactive

commu nications and perception changing activity is planned in

weeks and months, while building relationships can take years

before it generates a re turn. The dimen sions a l so dem and

different skills and organisational cultures. News management

needs to be flexible, reactive and plugged into the government

machine. Proactive communications demand s highly developed

commu nications skil ls, strategic planning and the bud gets,

resources and the expertise to organize events that can capture

the imagination. Building relationships d epends on earning high

levels of trust, creating a neutral and safe environment, and can

often best be done at one remove from govern ment.

Each country ha s a different set of institutions to man age its

pu blic diplomacy strategy. Some are part of governmen t, others

are indep enden t. Each will have its own mission and p riorities,

but in ord er to p ract ice pu bl ic diplomacy ef fect ively, i t i s

important to examine the insti tutions as a spectrum and see

whether there are gap s between the institutions which are not

yet filled. In chapter seven, we examine the UK institutions inthis way and set out some lessons for how the spectrum can be

improved , but first let us examine the three dimensions.

10 Public Diplomacy

Influencing peop le (getting companies to invest, pu blics to

back our p ositions or p oliticians to tu rn to u s as a favoured

partner)

In order to achieve these goals, governm ents need to be clear

that pu blic diplomacy cannot be a one-dimensional process ofdelivering messages.

One w ay of conceptualising pu blic diplomacy is as a grid of

three rows and three columns.

O n on e ax i s a r e t he sphe r es on w h i ch i t i s p l ayed ou t :political/military, economic a n d societal/cultural. These will

car ry di f ferent weight a t d i f ferent t imes , and in di f ferent

contexts. For examp le in a develop ed coun try like Singapor e

economic messages will be importan t; in Pakistan poli t ical

messages will matter more; in Zimbabwe messages about British

diversi ty will act as a counterweight to al legations of racist

imperialism; while in Europ ean Union countries like France and

German y al l three spheres wi l l be impor tant . Events l ike

September 11th can obviously change the priority of different

issues and put the poli t ical/ military sphere at the top of the

agend a in all countries.

In each of those spheres, we can characterize three dimensions of

public diplomacy activities:

Reacting to news even ts as they occur in a way that tallies

with ou r strategic goals

Table 1: The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy

Purpose

Political/ Military

Economic

Societal/ Cultural

Reactive

(hours and days)

Proactive

(weeks and months)

Relationship building

(years)


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subject is. Fourth, you are talking to your enemy. It was a unique

situation to know that your en emy was gett ing the clearest

indication of your intentions by watching you on television at

the same t ime you were giving that m essage. And fifth, you

were talking to the troop s. Their lives were on the line.

Parad oxically, so called dom estic stories like the race riots in

Oldham and Burnley, or the outbreak of Foot and Mouth in

Britain, or the su ccess of Le Pen in the Fren ch elections are often

as impor tant as foreign policy stories in making an impa ct on

others. Alastair Campbell, the Director of Communications in 10

Down ing Street, described this vividly in an interview with th e

auth ors: in relation to Foot and Mou th there w as this collision

between d omestic and foreign audiences. Part of our message,

once wed focused on it as a crisis man agemen t issue being led

from the top, was th at the Prime Minister was involved, sleeves

rolled u p, talking to the farmers regu larly. I admit that th is

didnt cross my mind, you get these dramatic pictures of the

Prime Minister wearing yellow suits and walking aroun d a

farmyard, an d in America they think Christ! Hes got to wear a

yellow su it! And hes the Prime M inister. Because th ats all

theyre seeing. Our m edia will only ever give a narrow context,

go further abroad it gets even narrower. And so, that is the kind

of thing you ve got to really think carefully abou t.

As well as u nforeseen crises, there are pred ictable dom estic

events which come up every year an d can play ou t badly in

other coun tries. Examples include the release of the Brit ish

Crime Survey w hich frequently results in erroneous stories suchas, Crime in London is worse than N ew York, or the start of

the Norwegian whaling season which results in acres of negative

pr es s cove r age a r ound t he w or l d ( f o r N or w eg i an pub l i c

diplomacy strategy, on whaling and other issues, see App endix

12 Public Diplomacy

News Management

The first dimension is the m anagement of communications on

day - t o -day i s sues , r e fl ec t ing t he g r ow i ng n eed t o a l i gn

commun ications with trad itional diplomacy.

The need to ally comm un ications with trad itional diplomacy isdescr ibed by the US diplomat , Chr is topher Ross , who w as

brought back from retirement to mastermind public diplomacy

with the Muslim world: I conceive of public diplomacy as being

the pu blic face of traditional dip lomacy. Traditional diplomacy

seeks to advan ce the interests of the United States through

private exchanges with foreign governmen ts. Public diplom acy

seeks to suppor t t radi t ional diplomacy by add ressing non-

gove r nm ent a l a ud i ences , i n ad d i t i on t o g ove r n men t a l

aud iences, both mass and e l ite . It works very m uch in co-

ordination with an d in parallel to the tradit ional diplomatic

effort. This imp lies that em bassies must p lan pu blic diplomacy

strategies for all of the main issues they d eal with and explore

the comm unications angles of all their activities.

This job is comp licated by th at fact that it is increasingly d ifficult

to isolate different news stories for different au diences, foreign

and d omestic. Although most TV, radio and p rint media are still

created with a national or local audience in m ind, their networks

of foreign correspond ents will ensure that messages do get

transferred from one region to anoth er. As Secretary of State

Colin Pow ell put it: During Desert Storm w e really were seeing

this 24-7 phenomenon , at least in my jud gment, for the first time

I used to tell all of the mem bers of my staff, Remember, w henwe are out there on television, communicating instantaneously

around the w orld, were talking to five au diences. One, the

reporters wh o ask the question imp ortant aud ience. Second

audience, the American people wh o are w atching. The third

aud ience, 170 capitals who may have an interest in what the


12/101


deeper sen se of ident i ty can help compan ies di f ferent ia te

themselves from their competition. Opinion surveys show that

three quarters of Fortune 500 companies actually see national

identi ty, or place of origin, as one of the key factors that

influence their d ecisions about bu ying goods and services. Many

consumer comp anies have bu ilt on this insight. In the 1990s, theGerman AEG (Algemeine Elekt r i sche Gesel l schaf t ) ran a

pu b l i ci t y camp a i gn i n Br i t a i n w hi ch w as based a r ou nd

redef ining thei r ini t ia l s as Advanced Engineer ing f rom

Germany. The centrepiece of their ad vertising camp aign was

t h a t i t w a s a G e r m a n c om p a n y , a n a t i o n a l i m a g e t h a t

represented brand quality.

Strategic communication is different from relationship-building.

It is a set of activities more like a po litical camp aign: setting a

num ber of strategic messages, and planning a series of activities

over a year or so to reinforce them. This is what Cha rlotte Beers

descr ibes as magni f icat ion: An imp ress ive example was

del ivered by the team in ECA when they ar ranged to send

stunn ing photograp hs of Groun d Zero by Joel Meyerowitz to

open in 20 countries.What I app reciate so mu ch about this

program is that it gives us an aud ience beyond the government

officials and elites - the young and people in sm aller town s as

the exhibit travels to cities around these countries and reaches

others through very good p ress coverage. Thats what w e mean

by mag nifying the results from a single event.

It is important for all the pu blic diplomacy organisations to have

a stake in the totality of messages which are put ou t about thecountry, and a sense of how they can co-operate on prom oting

them.

Chris Powell, the chairman of advertising company BMP DDB

Needham argues that these messages must be simple: Have

very few, preferably one, message. People are exposed to

14 Public Diplomacy

II). The domestic departments involved in these issues need to

prov ide the foreign service with the no tice and the information

they need to contextualise the stories.

Strat egic Communications

Governments have trad itionally been good at commu nicatingtheir stances on particular issues, but less effective at ma naging

perceptions of the country as a whole. One of the reasons for this

is the fact that d ifferent institutions have been respon sible for

dealing with politics, trade, tourism, investment an d cultural

relations. But on man y issues, it is the totality of messages w hich

people get about the UK which will determine how they relate

to us. This is the second d imension of pu blic dip lomacy: the

strategic messages we p romote abou t the UK.

Sir Michael Butler, who was previously the British Permanent

Representative to the EU, argues that perceptions of the country

generally w ill shape the d iplomatic environment: We need to

have a broad ima ge which is favour ably perceived in the key

countries where w e are based. If your governm ent is perceived

as self-interested, reactionary and un helpful, it will seriously

hamp er your ability to get your way as the US is finding a t the

moment. And unless there is a lot of work done over a long

period of time to create a more positive context, all attempts at

communicat ions w i ll be viewed w i th add ed su spic ion. An

official in the White H ouse confessed to m e, We havent mad e

any attempts to commu nicate with ordinary Arabs u nless we are

bombing th em or imposing sanctions on them I wouldn t like

us if I were them.

In the economic realm, the power of national perceptions is even

clearer. As prod ucts, investm ent environm ents and tou rist

destination s become mor e al ike, it is becoming difficult to

differentiate oneself in terms of qu ality alone. Tapp ing into a


13/101


however important to remember that there are givens in how

we are seen abroad. If the dynamic tradition positioning is

adopted , the survey data shows that our promotional efforts will

need to be weighted toward s the dynam ic end of the spectrum

as that is the area w hich people are m ost sceptical about.

There is a dan ger in this idea of articulated p ositioning. When

Robin Cook established the P anel 2000 taskforce to advise him

on the projection of Britain overseas, it debated long and hard

which messages should be p romoted before deciding on a list of

f i ve messages ( r e l i ab i li t y and i n t eg r i t y , c r ea t i v i t y and

innovation, Britains heritage, free speech and fair play and

openness to the wor ld) wh ich rough ly corresponded to the

interests of the five main pu blic diplomacy insti tutions and

allowed the different partners to carry on performing as they

had don e before. I have written elsewhere abou t the fact that

perceptions of Britain are out of da te and have set ou t a strategy

to attempt to turn th em roun d in Britain the report wh ich

launched an international furore about Rebranding Britain. But

there are also pitfalls for any coun try surrou nding national

branding.

Many peop le have attacked the idea that something as complex

as a national id enti ty can be sold in the same way a s soap

powd er. This is obviously true, and clumsy attempts to market

countries even in specific sectors such as tourism run the risk

of reducing the excitement and diversity of a national culture to

a homogenous, antiseptic commodity. The clearest example of

this is the attemp t to sell beach holid ays: one image of a whitebeach and some blue sea is practically indistinguishable from

another. When th is happen s, the net effect of brand ing is not to

add value bu t to detract from it as the key differentiator in this

sort of commodified market w ill be price.

16 Public Diplomacy

thousand s of messages every day. They probably recall only a

t iny fraction of these. The task is to cut thro ugh this fog by

imagination and repetition. A contrast between diplomacy and

advertising is that in ad vertising an enormous amount of work

goes into the prepara tion boiling ideas dow n into very, very

simple concepts, and then repeating that m essage over and overagain until we are all thoroughly bored w ith it. When you are so

bored w ith it that you feel like giving up , the listener m ay just

have beg un to register the messa ge. So stick at it. The Drink

Drive campaign h as been going for years and is as relevant

today as it has ever been because th e message is simple, clear

and logical.

But to what extent is it possible to hav e a single message that

uni tes a l l the d i f ferent p layers f rom the Br i t ish Tour is t

Auth ority to the Foreign Office? And how relevant w ill it be to

different aud iences, from citizens in th e Midd le East to potential

investors in Au stralia?

Many countries have shown the power of having a clear national

narrative which can unite the different stakeholders. The m ost

famous examp le is probably Spain, wh ere Miros Espana image

signaled a determinat ion to shed th e ghost of Franco and

become a modern, European democracy. There are two key

dan gers in not creating a clear narrative. One is the idea of

discordant m essages. In th e case of Britain, i t wou ld ap pear

strange if the Brit ish Council heavily promoted the UK as a

mod ern, mu lti-ethnic and creative island, w hile the Brit ish

Tourist Authority simply re-iterated national stereotypes abouttradition, ceremony and history. One solution to this conundru m

that has been prop osed is to make a virtue of the parad ox and

develop an iden ti ty around th e idea of dyn amic tradit ion

playing on a binary identity which was famously d escribed by

l i fe-s tyle guru Peter York as pu nk and pagean t ry . I t is


14/101


Research by th e British Tourist Auth ority showed that p eople

who come to the UK invar iably repor t tha t they leave the

country with a more p ositive impression of it than wh en they

arrived . Joseph N ye makes this point eloqu ently: It is not that

the student goes back converted but they go back with a mu ch

more soph isticated idea of our strengths and weaknesses. Youcomplexify their thinking. So they will go back and be critical of

American policy on Israel or they w ill go back and be critical of

American policy on capital punishm ent. But they w ill have a

deeper u nderstand ing of why i t is that Americans treat gun

control differently than Europeans. This may grow out of the fact

that I spent tw o years as a student in Britain right out of college.

It took me about a m onth to realise, My God, these p eople are

strange! At the en d of tw o years I th ough t I can see Britains

faults and I can see Britains greatness and they are all mixed u p

together. I think it was in Britains interests that I would develop

a nu anced view of Britain rather than either an Angloph il ic

idealisation or an Anglophobic characterisation. And I think that

aspect of soft pow er is prob ably most effective.

C har l o t t e B ee r s , t he U nder sec r e t a r y o f S t a t e fo r Pu b l i c

Diplomacy in the United States, points to the staggering su ccess

of the Fulbright scheme w hich has been taken u p by ov er 200

current or former head s of state: Coming from the p rivate

sector , i t s hard to f ind anyth ing comparab le to the sheer

p r od uc t i v i t y o f ou r Fu l b r i gh t and I n t e r n a t i ona l V is i t o r

exchanges. The $237 million w e will spen d in 2002, for some

25,000 exchan ges, is magn ified by the 80,000 volun teers in th e

U.S. and matching supp ort from many countries like Germanyand Japan. Considering that some 50 percent of the leaders of the

International Coalition were once exchange visitors, this has got

to be the best buy in the government.

Relationship building h as traditionally been seen as a p rocess

that mu st be conducted face to face and on a personal level. The

18 Public Diplomacy

People have also pointed out that the only way to fully manage

a national bran d is to have a totalitarian state, as most of the

impr essions that people get of a coun try come from things

outside govern ment control such as m eeting British people,

buying British p rodu cts and services, watching films, reading

newsp apers e tc . Because the car r iers of the brand are sodiverse, any attemp t to sell a country that d oes not reflect the

reality of that country is doom ed to be und ermined by p eoples

actual experience. This reflects the fact that the m ost successful

perception-changing campaigns have been carried through by

countries that had undergone dramatic and genuine change

for examp le Spain after Fran co or Ireland in th e 1990s and

rooted in a commonly own ed national story.

Relationship Building

The third dimen sion of public diplomacy is the most long-term:

developing lasting relationships with key individuals throu gh

scholarships , exchanges , t ra ining, semina rs , conferences ,

building real and v irtual networks, and giving people access to

med ia channels. This differs from th e usu al diplomatic practice

of nurtu ring contacts as i t is about developing r elat ionships

between p eers politicians, special advisers, business people,

cultural entrep reneur s or academics. This can take place across

the three spheres of public diplomacy and is aimed at creating a

common an alysis of issues and giving people a clearer idea of

the motivations an d factors effecting their actions so that by the

time they come to d iscussing individ ual issues a lot of the

background work has been d one already. It is importan t not just

to develop relat ionships bu t to ensure that the experienceswhich peop le take away are positive and that th ere is follow-up

afterwards. Building relationships is very different from selling

messages because it involves a genuine exchange and means

that peop le are given a warts and all picture of the country.


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The Three Dimensions of Public Diplomacy 2120 Public Diplomacy

most effective instruments for building enduring relationships

are scholarships, visits and other exchange programmes that

require complex planning and administration and come with a

h i gh u n i t cos t . Bu t a s soc i e t i e s become mor e open an d

pluralistic, particularly in large transitional economies where the

target aud iences number several millions, this traditional modeof working is unlikely to reach the cri t ical mass of people

necessary to significantly affect the opinions an d choices of those

audiences.

To what extent will the new information and commu nication

technologies enable the relat ionship building p rocess to be

scaled u p to include m uch larger group s of people? In India, the

Brit ish Cou ncil has identified a su ccessor generation tar get

aud ience of 7 million p eople aged b etween 20 and 35, nearly 90%

of whom live in 25 cities, whose profile suggests that at different

stages of their education and early working lives they would be

receptive to the Cou ncils information an d edu cational services.

At present th e Council operates in 11 cities and at an y one time

provides services to about 120,000 members and visitors to their

libraries and information centres.

The Council is now planning to u se new app roaches to online

and distance learning and a specially developed on line library to

extend its services to a m uch larger clientele. The quality of the

engagem ent with this larger aud ience will not be of the same

order as that achieved through m ore traditional and expensive

face to face programm es which wi l l cont inue to play an

impor tant role in India. Howev er, by increasing to at least300,000 over a three year period, the number of people in regular

contact with th e Coun cil either face to face or online, the Cou ncil

believes that it w ill achieve the critical mass necessary to affect

at t i tudes and choices among the w ider target groups in key

cities.

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme invites young collegeand university graduates from overseas to participate in international

exchange and f oreign language education t hroughout Japan. The

programme has earned a high r eputat ion, bot h in Japan and overseas,for its effort s in human and cultural exchanges, and has become one of

the largest cultural exchange programmes in Japan. The program offerscol lege and un iversi ty gr aduates the opport uni ty t o serve in local

government organizations as well as public and private junior and seniorhigh schools. Begun in 1987 with the co-operation of the governments of

the part icipating countries, the programme h as grow n up year by year.

The number of JET participants who are currently w orking in Japan hasreached over 6,000 and t he numb er of ex-JET part ic ipant s fro m

approximat ely 40 countri es totals around 30,000. The JET Progr ammealso includes a great deal of fol low -up and netw ork bui ld ing. For

example, the JET Alumni Association i s int ended to streng then the bonds of f riendship developed by former part icipants. With o ver 44

local Chapters in 11 countries, it currently enjoys a membership of over10,000 individu als.


16/101

Competitive and Co-operative Public Diplomacy 23

French or the Americans to be its most influential ally. These are

countries where public diplomacy should be co-operative.

I n t h i s chap t e r , w e a r gu e t ha t i t i s i mpor t an t f o r pub l i c

diplomacy strategies to reflect this situation, and to mak e a clear

dist inction between competi t ive and co-operative pu blicdiplom acy. The natu ral interest of any institution is to compete

for power and influence wherever i t can, and to expand th e

scope of its activities as much as resou rces allow. But we arg ue

in this report that i t makes sense to choose the countries for

compet i t ion according to c lear cr i ter ia , and to pr ior i t i se

resources accordingly. Some p eople will argue that it is d ifficult

to have a black and white picture of where our interests lie, and

that attempts to p rioritise are often confounded by history (who

would have p ut Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, or Rwanda in their

priority list?). But we are explicitly not arguing for a withdrawal

f rom developing coun t r ies on the cont rary w e cal l for a

consolidation of resources into a co-ordinated mu lti lateral

programme and an end to damaging competition. It is true that

there will always be shad es of grey and a need for a regu lar

review of count r ies pr ior i t ies but that cannot act as an

argum ent against trying to create a framew ork for defining

priorities.

Co-operative public diplomacy

In most parts of the world there is no advan tage in making civil

society-bui lding act ivi ty , prom ot ing good g overnan ce or

prom otion of Western values, an activity explicitly originating

from Britain. I t is not just that i t could b e better and mor eeffic ient ly car r ied ou t mu l t i la tera l ly; there are impo r tant

disadvantages in conducting this activity und er an umbrella of

national self-promotion.

In the first place, by divorcing activity designed to prom ote

democracy, human rights and the ru le of law from a country-

22 Public Diplomacy

3. Competitive andCo-operative PublicDiplomacy

There are some parts of the world w here Western countries have

a clear and incontrovertible national interest in carrying out

bilateral public diplomacy work. In these countries the worlds

largest econom ies and m arkets, regional powers like Nigeria or

South Africa, coun tries of emerging strategic importan ce they

compete w ith others for access to markets, for investment, for

political influence, for tourism, for immigration talent, and for a

host of other things w hich will bring direct benefit to them

alone. This i s of ten a competitive zero-sum game. In these

countries, there will always be a n eed for m ultilateral activitieson par t icular issues ( for example EU work on prom ot ing

multi lateralism in the Un ited States, or work in Pakistan on

maintaining th e coalit ion against terror) but because of the

strong bilateral interests it will be important for m any p ublic

dip lomacy activities to be explicitly associated w ith Britain, or

whichever country is promoting itself.

But th ese are not the only p laces where countries like the UK

have an interest in d oing pu blic diplomacy work. In the rest of

the world, there is a clear interest in carrying out w ork that

prom otes stability, economic development, hum an rights andgood government. H owever, that interest differs from a bilateral

interest in one key resp ect: it is not a uniqu ely British interest but

is rather an indivisible interest of all Western countries. There is

l i tt le purp ose, for instance, in the UK competing for inward

investment from Malaw i, and little more in competing w ith the


17/101


Some exampl es o f t h i s dama gi ng compe t i t i on i n pub l i c

diplomacy come from Western involvement in Afghanistan. The

International Crisis Groups Asia Program Director Robert

Templer claims th at the rebuilding of Afghanistan has exhibited

a conspicuous failure of pu blic diplomacy. It is vital for thesuccess of the Loya Jirga process that it have the su pp ort of the

people, a vital prerequisite of which is effective dissemination of

information abo ut th e process itself. Yet, Temp ler argues, the UN

has no indep enden t radio sys tem in place in Afghanis tan

(placing it a step behind , for instance, the Iranians an d th e BBC

World Service) and has been slow to publish information on

how the Loya Jirga will be condu cted or wh at its aims will be.

Templer argues that man y Western nations have concentrated

on slapping country brand ing on their (much-needed) aid and

assistance in a competitive fashion that has the dangerous side

effect of robbing the fledgling central Afghan a dm inistration of

profile, legitimacy an d, u ltimately, stability. The French, forexample, have proud ly reopened the Lycee in Kabul and played

on old links to Ahmed Shah Massoud in an attempt to promote

their influence in the area. They also und ermined th e un ifying

symbolism of the return of the old King, Zahir Shah, by very

publicly receiving the Defence Minister who ha d chosen to snub

24 Public Diplomacy

specific context, you also d ivorce it to an extent from a n eo-

colonial context that is da mag ing to its effectiveness. Bilateral

British attemp ts to prom ote democratic reform in Zimbabw e, or

French attempts to do the same in its own former colonies like

A l ge r ia , unavo i dab l y r u n i n t o t he r he t o r i ca l l y pow er f u l

response that colonial control is being re-exerted throu gh theback door of hum an rights un iversalism. Removing the n ational

brand ing from this work retains all of its usefulness to the West,

and increases its effectiveness by sid e-stepping th e sensitivities

that understandably surround it.

A second, and equally damaging, aspect of attempting to carry

out this kind of vital Western public diplomacy bilaterally is that

it can lead to great game-style competition for influence which

detracts from the good su ch work could be d oing. The French or

the British essen tially attempt to create zones of influence in the

developing w orld zones that centre naturally on the former

colonia l emp ires , and w hich seem jus t i f ied becau se of an

emphasis on the importance of historical l inks for country

prioritisation in the calculations of, for instance, the British

Council. This agenda of competition is an institutional hangov er

from colonial days (or in the case of the United States a result

partly o f self-proclaimed exceptional status) an d is, objectively

speaking, absurd . Despite increased co-operation on substantive

issues (for examp le, the co-operation on Africa init iated by

Robin Cook and H ubert Vedr ine) there is still a good d eal of

competition on p ublic diplomacy. Part of this is simply to do

with institutional rivalry between the BBC World Service and

RFI or betw een d ifferent p osts some of it has also to do withthe fact that the BBCs impact has in the p ast been measu red by

its global aud ience figure rather than i ts reach am ong target

audiences.

Table 2: Competitive and Co-operative

Public Diplomacy

Competitive

(roughly 50 countries)

Co-operative

(roughly 140 countries)

Countries Targeted

G20

EU 15 + Accession

Top 20 Tourist, Trade andInvestment Partners

P5

NATO

Diaspora Links

All other developing

countries

Interest

Political influence

Military co-operation

Trade

Investment

Tourism

Coalitions in IGOs

Policy exchange

Promoting democracy,

good governance, human

rights, regional stability

Mode of operation

Bilateral (on issues

specific to us)

Multilateral (on issues

we share with others)

Multilateral


18/101


This would be easiest to organize at least initially w ithin the

European Un ion. Tony Blair could u se the Danish EU sum mit

this Autumn to suggest that the European Union develops a

plan for co-operatively funded and executed p ublic diplomacy

activity in the vital majority of the worlds countries wh ere the

members of the European Union h ave no differentiated interests,but instead a pressing communal need.

In the mean -time it would be sensible to create a more informal

system of burden-sharing within the Western governments,

where the Brit ish contribution wou ld be th e exist ing World

Service an d Brit ish Coun cil good governa nce activit ies in

developing countries, and where other countries would agree to

contribute complementary activity in kind or cash funding.

Britain shou ld take a lead by deliberately down -grading the

Britishness of its activities in those countries and consulting

allies at country level. This would bring the World Service, and

also much British Council activity, into a culture that emphasises

the importance of programm es for the host country, rather than

the donor. This would go some way, at least, toward divorcing

pu blic diplomacy activity in the d eveloping world from a great

game model of interests, which it is the accepted du ty of the

FCO to manage and p ursue.

Competitive Public Diplomacy

A v ery impor tant corollary of removing the British flag from

pu blic dip lomacy activity in the ma jority of countr ies is that it

af fords an oppor tu ni ty for t ru ly ef fect ive p r ior i ti sa t ion of resources in the remaining 50 or so bilaterally targeted countries.

Norway i s one count ry that has expl ici t ly recognised thi s .

Instead of attempting to gar ner influence with pu blics in every

country where it happ ens to have an embassy, the Norwegian

government has concentrated all its pu blic diplomacy activity

on w hat it regard s as its six key coun try au diences: the US, the

26 Public Diplomacy

the King by being in Paris at the time of his return . This kind of

political jockeying is highly damaging to the broad Western

interest in Afghanistan and in failed states generally.

The Voice of America, the BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle

and RFI compete for aud ience, for frequency, and for influencein the developing world when this brings miniscule additional

benef i t s to the na t ions concerned ( the US, UK, France or

German y). The VOA bolstered by a large v ote of fund s from

Congress in the wak e of September 11th has been bidd ing for

presence on FM frequencies in Somal ia agains t the World

Service, and is in dan ger of causing price inflation throu gh the

large amounts they are paying for FM frequencies in the Arab

World. Wh ile it is clear tha t that th e BBC World Service has ver y

different editorial values from VOA, and that it would d amage

its reputation for ed itorial ind epend ence if it were to join forces

with it on prod uction, it is imp ortant to ensure th at competition

between the two services is always worthw hile and that it does

not simply result in precious resources being squand ered in a

bidding war for frequencies. These concerns about ed itorial

values do n ot, however, apply to other European services. It

seems p erverse for the BBC to be in comp etition with RFI in

Francophone Africa, rather than joining forces and creating a

European service which could serve the local popu lat ions

equally well and p roduce m odest savings for France and Britain.

Consequently, instead of running competitive public diplomacy

progr amm es in the large majority of countries that do not h ave

significant bilateral relat ions with the individual Westerngovernments, the West should combine its resources and co-

ordinate efforts on th is kind of activity. If the activities of the

World Service, and of the Brit ish Council in many places,

amount to at the least a Western p ublic good, then they should

be harnessed as a m echanism that encourages contribution from

all the governments of the West.


19/101


diplomacy w ork based in part of the extent of its historical links

with th e UK is code, in m ost cases, for its colonial links an d can

lead to d ecisions being mad e on the basis of our interests in the

nineteenth century rather than tod ays pressing needs.

But the most d amaging criteria applied to p rioritising countries,and one that is a central part of, for instance, the British Cou ncil

and the World Services calculations regar ding future a ctivities,

is that of potential impact. Potential impact is judged on the

bas i s o f demand f o r s e r v ices among t a r ge t g r oups and

competing influences. But these seemingly inn ocuous criteria

are in danger of pu tting the cart before the horse and acting as a

justification for the statu s quo. There is a dan ger that d ecisions

are taken not to prioritise key mark ets because the traditional

pu blic d iplomacy tools (English-language tu ition, ed ucational

reform, radio) are unlikely to work, rather th an d efining the

priority countries according to objective criteria and devising

strategies for making an imp act in these conditions.

The division of the spectrum of public diplomacy activities into

d i f f er en t i n s t i t u t i ons can hav e nega t i ve r e su l t s i n t hese

situations, because each institution calculates its priorities in

terms of what it thinks it can achieve through its own bu nd le of

activities, rather than tailoring activities to the countries where it

is vital that public diplomacy impact be achieved. One clear

example of this concern with the ability to make an impact is the

telling lack of pub lic diplom acy work b y the British Coun cil in

the USA, the richest and the most p owerful country on Earth.

The British Coun cil carries ou t very little activity in the UnitedStates, on th e basis that there is little imp act that it could h ave on

a mature democracy with a thriving dom estic media and close

informal transatlantic links and becau se the Embassy has

historically had a major information p rogram me. But it is clear

28 Public Diplomacy

UK, Germany, Russia, Japan and France (see Append ix II). The

UK has more global aspirations than Norw ay, and so w ould seek

to spread its influence more wid ely than a Spartan six countries,

but th e central idea of clear prioritisation for bilateral public

diploma cy is a good one.

Priori tisat ion is a thorny issue, and one mad e harder by th e

Foreign Offices reluctance to admit to any country that it is not,

in fact, central to the UKs foreign policy in one w ay or another.

In some areas th e UKs pr ior i t ies are c learer than others .

Economic relations, under the remit of Trade Partners UK and

Invest UK, are reasonably easy to quan tify and hence prioritise.

It is uncontentiou s that the UK should actively promote i ts

prod ucts and businesses bilaterally amongst th e largest markets,

and the larges t economies , in the wor ld a t the same t ime

includ ing some of the most p romising emerging markets. The

members of the G20 and the EU, for instance, would m ake a

good centr al core of countr ies to concentra te up on. Equally, in

terms of European political influence, the UK has a clear interest

in developing political links and political influence with some of

the most importan t EU accession countries. The Britain Abroad

Task Force, for instance, has recently add ed th e Czech Republic

and Hu ngary to its original target list of 18 countries (wh ich

al ready includ ed Poland an d Turkey) . Imp or tant regional

pow ers like Nigeria, South Africa and Ind onesia wou ld also be

central candidates for targeted bilateral relations for any country

whose interests were p rojected on a global stage.

This kind of prioritisation is, of course, already carried out by

UK pu blic diplomacy institutions, but th e criteria u sed are often

not sufficiently clear-eyed for the pu rpose. One exam ple is the

British Cou ncils determ ination of country importance based on

historical, as well as political and econom ic, grounds. This idea

of rating a countr ys impor tance as a target for British pu blic


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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 31

4. Keeping Your Head in a CrisisEnsur ing crisis responses do not divert

governments from long-t erm goals

P u b l i c d i p l o m a c y o p e r a t e s i n c e n t u r i e s, o r i n s e co n d s :

combining the long-term background th rough w hich events are

perceived wi th the ins tant shock that can be pivota l to an

international relat ionship. This temporal du ali ty comes out

strongest in a m ajor crisis.

Relations with the Mu slim world were framed by differing

degrees of engagement from the time of the crusades, through

colonial times, the creation of Israel to the Gulf War, but in an

instant the attack on the World Trade Centre reframed th e power

dynam ic in the relationship. Britains image arou nd the worldhad been def ined for decades through images of the pomp,

circum stance and cool reserve of the British Monarchy, bu t the

pu blics reaction to Princess Dianas death in an instan t buried

man y associations of Britain with th e stiff upp er lip. Equally, a

single night of violence at the Heysel stadium supp lanted the

idea of the English gentlemen in the consciousness of many

European p opu lations with its polar opp osite: the hooligan.

Each shock or crisis represents an op portu nity to effect radical

paradigm shifts in p ublic diplomacy, opportun ities that can be

seized and turned to the advantage of a country. However, thevery natu re of the shock mak es i t difficult to deal with: i t is

unexpected, i t is out of control , i t may be h ighly posit ive or

highly negative in i ts ini t ial effect , it can su ck up enormou s

resources in its wake, and it is rarely repeated in th e same form.

Governments are not very good at planning their resources

aroun d the id ea of shocks which makes it even more difficult to

30 Public Diplomacy

that there is an imp ortant need for public diplomacy activity in

the Uni ted Sta tes, and as the case s tudy demonst ra tes ( see

pp endix I) i t is not d ifficult to imagine a series of activit ies

designed around long-term relationship building, and political

edu cation which could ha ve a considerable impact.

What is needed is a clear strategy for these different types of

countries with different goals for each of the institutions. We set

this out in Chap ters Seven and Eight.


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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 3332 Public Diplomacy

up in buildings and staff which m akes i t difficult to free up

program me m oney in a cr i s is . This makes i t imp oss ible to

develop new programm es on the scale of the American response

(which was able immed iately to draw on emergency funds), but

also hampers the rapid deployment of staff. For example, several

interviewees comp lained about th e fact that it took weeks to gettelephones and emails set up in the Coalition Information Centre

in London (in contrast with th e Washington office). The World

Service and the British Cou ncil have m ore flexibility as they are

more able to redeploy resources within the year or country

bud gets but both will have to w ait for the next financial cycle

to be able to carry out strategic plans for the future. Given the

f r equen cy o f unf o r eseen shocks , i t i s ce r t a i n l y w o r t h

investigating the strategic flexibility that w ould be p rovided by

a centrally-managed pot of crisis money.

Another issue is geograp hical/ physical f lexibili ty. Ideally,

inst itut ions need a presence that can be scaled up and d own

without gen erating the adverse med ia attention that the closing

a ph ysical presence generates. This is something that th e MOD

or DFID are naturally good at. There is a case for thinking about

creating a rap id-reaction pu blic diplom acy squad th at could set

up in any crisis situation within 24 hours. As the Perm anent

Und er Secretary to the Foreign Office Sir Michael Jay says: How

do you cope with su rges? Much of the FCOs life is coping with

surges. But MOD and DFID know how to set up in a crisis. We

need a rap id reaction diplomacy that will allow u s to set up a

mission in Kabul in hou rs.

One solution might be to d evelop a residual capacity that can be

deployed in the event of a crisis. The United States are currently

reconstituting the remains of the Washington CIC as a regional

team for Middle East media wh ose primary function wou ld be

to engage in regional dialogue. This would inv olve a readiness

respond in spite of the fact that there has barely been a year th is

decade w hich has not had a major public diplomacy shock. 2001

was p erhaps atyp ical, but for the UK it was a year d efined by its

pu bl ic diplom acy cr ises : the outbreak of Foot and Mo uth

disease, the collapse of the railway system, riots in Bradford ,

Burnley an d Old ham as well as September 11th. The response toeach crisis needs to be targeted, w ell resourced an d ru n like a

poli t ical campaign rather tha n a d iplomatic effort . The key

challenges are:

Rapid reaction: an integrated response that will span changes

in policies, the deploymen t of resources and comm unications

Internal co-ordination

International co-ordination

The ability to keep track of long-term goals

Rapid Reaction and surge capability

T he boxes on t he nex t f ew p ages summar i se some o f t he

responses in Br i ta in an d the Uni ted Sta tes to the cr i si s on

September 11th. I t was inevi table that the Un i ted Sta tes

response would be of far greater magn itude than the UKs both

because the attack took p lace in Amer ica, and because of the

relative size and power of the American nation. But although the

initial pu blic response of the British Governm ent was masterful

both on a symbolic and p ractical level there remain a nu mber

of bureaucratic and ad ministrative barriers that can hamp er arapid response.

The first constraint is th e lack of bud getary flexibility. Because

the Foreign Offices bud get has been pared dow n over the years

in the interests of cost-effectiveness, m ost of its resour ces are tied


22/101


The UK Public Diplomacy Reaction to September 11th

In the immediat e aftermat h of t he September events, No 10 took overdirect control of news management, working closely with the FCO to

create an incident room to manage the day to day control of the crisis. In

due course, the Coalition Inform ation Centres (CIC) and t he Islamic MediaUnit were created to coordinate messages and provide a direct

information response in Arabic. The Public Diplomacy Department of theFCO prod uced a publicatio n, Never Again, which echoed an American

web site wi th a similar pu rpose, and it s Broadcasting and Allied MediaUnit started producing regular news updates through its radio and

Br i t i sh Sate l l i t e News netw orks . In addi t ion, i t embarked on a

programme of targeted news articles and press briefings.

The timet able of responses was as follow s:

W ith in hou rs, BBC Worl d Service start ed a 45 hour news progr amme -their longest ever.

Within weeks No 10 and the FCO had established Coalition Information

Centres (CICs) in W ashingt on, London and Islamabad in cooperation wit hmajor coalit ion alli es. They had also set u p th e Islamic Media Unit .

In j ust over one mo nth, UKwit hNY, a previously planned major eventopened in New York having been re-branded to suit the r evised message.

W ithi n th ree month s, the British Council had ident ified 2m savings and

developed initial ideas for Connecting Futures (then Open M inds), a

progr amme of action specifically aimed at connectin g the M uslim andChristian w orlds.

With in t hree mont hs the BBC World Service increased it s hours of

out put in Urdu , Arabic, Pashto , Persian and Uzbek by b etw een 18 percent and 104 per cent.

Over the next three months, the British Council continued to operate inPakistan and processed 20,000 exam candidates and 5,000 Chevening

scholarship applications as usual. In contrast, the USIS in Islamabad closedand handed over its theatre to CIC.

W ithin four mont hs the British Tourist Auth ority launched UKOK as a

way of re-assuring people about tourism to t he UK.

The US Public Diplomacy Reaction to September 11th

From September 12th, every key government speech and policystatement was produced in six languages on t he day of p ublication and

in up to 30 languages by a few days later.

Large numbers of in terviews with US Officials took place on the Arab

media.

The Stat e Department co-ordinat ed wi t h the Whit e House andDepartment of Defense to create special media centres to cover a rolling

news cycle and gain a rapid-response capabilit y.

Leaflet b ombs dropped on Af ghanistan, each with 100,000 flyers

depict ing, e.g. Tal iban beating a group of women and bearing t hemessage, "Is this the fut ure you want f or your children and women" in

Pashtu n and Dari.

Sing le channel wind-up r ad ios dropped on Af ghanistan. VOAbroadcasts in Pashtu n and Dari. C-130E radio jamming planes flying over

Afghanistan.

Media t ours to th e U.S. for foreign journalists, particularly Muslim

journalists, were mounted swiftly.

Voi ce of Ameri cas Arab ic service rebranded to Radio Sawa (RadioTogether ) broadcasting 24 hours a day and aimed at a youth market wit h

popular music int erspersed w ith news bullet ins. Radio Sawa has a budg et

of c. $30m.

Produced a four-colour bo oklet, Network of Te r r o r i s m, released onNovember 6th by the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP),

to visually and emotively illustrate the impact of September 11th. Thisproduct became the most widely distributed public diplomacy document

ever produced. It is now in 36 different languages. Disseminated as an

insert i n publ ications like Italys P a n o r a m a and Kuwaits a l - Wa t a n and as afull insert in the Arabic edition of N e w s w e e k .

Photographic exhibition of Ground Zero by Joel Meyerowitz t o open in

20 countries. By the first-year anniversary date of 9/11, thi s exhibit willhave opened in 60 cities. To increase relevance and broaden interest it

was tailored t o local circumstance, e.g. th e exhibit in London, w hichshowed pictures of the Blitz in World War II alongside.


23/101


Future US September 11th related Public Diplomacy

Expenditure and Plans

Planned US public dip lomacy expendit ure f or FY 2003 is $595,711,000,whi ch represents a 5.4 per cent increase over t he FY 2002 fundi ng level.

Of this amount $247,063,000 is for Educational and Cultural Exchangesand $287,693,000 is for public diplomacy activities within the Diplomatic

and Consular Programs.

Some pl anned uses of thi s money include:

$15 million w ill be used to f und an agg ressive campaign o f m essage

placement. Short video programs will air profiling the lives of certainMuslim Americans - teachers, basketball players, fi remen - on t argeted

media outlet s in nine predominately M uslim countries. The intendedmessage is that the U.S. is an open society, to lerant and accept ing o f all

religions, and specifically a countr y where Muslims are free to practiceIslam.

$17.5 million w ill be empl oyed fo r init iatives such as American Corners,

where multi-media rooms would be installed in partnering instit utions intarget countries to bring an American environment and experience tokey audiences, especially you nger generatio ns.

Another plan is to reinvigorate English Teaching t o for eigners in their

own schools, whi ch is seen as an eff ective way of exposing t hem t oAmerican values and preparin g them f or pro ductive lives in a modern

world.

The US plans to acquire television, fi lm, and radio right s for use in

Muslim-majority states to broadcast t he output of existing programmesin t he p r i vat e sect or , i nc lud ing curren t event s prod uc t ion s ,

documentaries, docu-dramas and dr amatic feat ures.

An ECA exchange prog ram fo r Mu slim yout h, teachers and young

polit ical leaders, adapting pre-existing models and programmes to t heIslamic wor ld.

New projects designed to educate the foreign public on the war against

terr orism and t he U.S. commitm ent t o peace and prosperity across allnations

including $5.3 million for expansion of outreach programs to improve

communications and provide support for a global public diplom acycampaign.

Enhanced Int ernational Informat ion Program (IIP) activities, including

improved content and presentat ion on t he websi te v ia the latest

technology for delivery of mat erial to t arget users, who w ill includeperceived critical international leaders and opinion makers.

Increased t ranslation s of Inf oUSA, a combined Internet and CD-ROM

informat ion pr oduct wit h t ext materials detailing U.S. laws, governance,education, society, and cultu re. It is updated daily on the Int ernet, and

30,000 CD-ROMs are distribut ed every six mont hs to users worldw ide.

Recipients range from executive branches and government ministries toacademic institu tio ns, NGOs and medi a out lets.

Increased polli ng by t he Bureau of Intellig ence and Research in Muslim

countries.

Expanded Office of Broadcast Services coverage of special internationalevents, remote pr oductio ns, facilit ative assistance eff ort s, dialogu es and

Foreign Press Centr e jour nalist t ours. These activiti es include wor kingwith foreign broadcasters to produce documentary reports that highlightaspects of American life, cultur e or community. The documentaries are

then shown o n nation al foreign television. Foreign jour nalist tours focuson report ing to urs for journalists in strategically important regions - the

Mid dle East, t he Balkans, and South Asia - th at have f ew o r no US-basedcorrespondents

Some of t he supplement al public diplomacy fund ing fo r 2002 will beused to magnif y the benefit s of Fulbright and Internati onal Visitor (IV)

exchanges by, for instance, setting up an alumni data bank. 50 per centof International Coalition leaders had once been exchange visitors to the

US. The prog ramme f unds 25,000 exchanges and visits wit h 237 mill ion.

Plans for a VOA satellit e news broadcast t o th e Midd le East t o compete

with Al-Jazeera et al, to broadcast 24 hours a day, with funding ofapproximately $250 million.


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Keeping Your Head in a Crisis 39

the DCMS were consulted as the impact on tou rism became

clear, the fact that the Governm ent tends to involve d epartments

ra ther than non-depar tmental pu bl ic bodies meant that the

British Tourist authority w as not involved in COBRA. Foot and

Mout h t ook on such monu ment a l p r opor t i ons t ha t it w as

even t ua l l y t r ea t ed a s an i n t e r na t i ona l is sue un l i ke t heproblems with the railways and the race riots which have been

treated exclusively as dom estic stories. The stru ctural problems

around news man agement are discussed in greater detail in

chapter seven.

Alastair Campbell explains the importance of centralising

commu nications in a crisis: The thing abo ut crises is that you

never know where theyre going to come from. Foot & Mouth:

we didn t know that was going to happ en. When it does happ en

the r i sk i s you d efaul t to an assump t ion that your exis t ing

structures will be able to cope. Now the point about crises is that

they don t always cope. What may m ake it a crisis is that your

existing structures arent able to manage. You d o have to throw

things out, and get on with absolutely relentless focus. Whatever

the enquiries are going to say on foot and mou th, the truth is that

in many ways we did actually perform miracles by gett ing i t

und er control as quickly as we did. A lot of that was through,

adm ittedly in my view too slow, centralisation: things being

brough t to the centre. All the different bits of government likely

to be involved being locked in together. When you talk about a

huge international story, like September 11th, that gets ever

more d ifficult. Youve got to work ou t, where are the m ain points

o f ac t i v i t y an d i n f o r m a t i on ? O bv i ou s l y A m e r i ca an dAfghanistan were the main two. You had Pakistan, you had the

whole Midd le East situation as a factor. And then you had other

zones of opinion.

The importan ce of gett ing clear leadership from th e top of

governmen t is confirmed by Tucker Eskew, Bushs appointee to

38 Public Diplomacy

to relocate and reorgan ise on a regular basis, liasing with som e

of the 35 US agencies that cur ren t ly mainta in an overseas

presence. Alastair Campbell argues that we should ad opt a

similar ap proach in the UK: obviously you w ill never ever h ave

totally fool-proof crisis managem ent systems, because what

makes it a crisis is the fact that its d ifferent. But, wha t w eregoing to do is have a CIC operation ready to be activated at an y

point tha t we or the Foreign Office think that it shou ld be. With

ready to roll l inks into other governments d epartments, and

hopefully ready to roll links into other countri

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