Diplomacy, An Anthology by Diplomatic Courier

DIPLOMACY A Global Affairs Magazine

ANTHOLOGY

DIPLOMACY

INTRODUCTION

A

s the broad topicality of this collection of articles illustrates, it is evident that both the rules and natural disposition of diplomacy are changing. Although there is a broadening pool of aspiring diplomats and state agents–largely attributable to globalization and increased connectivity amongst the younger generations–the nature of diplomacy will continue to change in pace with all other human institutions.

According to author Joel Hainsfurther, the USC Center on Public Diplomacy wrote that, “Traditional definitions of public diplomacy include government-sponsored cultural, educational, and informational programs, citizen exchanges and broadcasts used to promote the national interest of a country through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign audiences.”

But inhabitants of the modern world rarely adhere to traditions without making aspects of them their own, and the practice of diplomacy is no different.

Civil Society and Citizen Diplomacy One of the more recent trends in describing the outcome of the rapid globalization since the end of the 20th century is the notion of “citizen diplomacy”. This forum, and its wide range of inclusive activities, provides a unique opportunity for individuals who may feel marginalized by their legal representatives and decision makes to have a voice. These expressions allow non-state groups, individuals, and civil society actors to build durable relationships with a diverse array of stakeholders, who can then collaborate to exert pressure on their governments or call for meaningful change in myriad ways.

Beyond issues of self-interest are the seemingly altruistic methods of diplomacy, including those discussed in Human Rights Diplomacy and Medical Diplomacy. Yet while humanitarian and medical interventions may well be the quickest way to win hearts and minds, it must be asked if they are truly the most durable. Beyond one-time interventions that build goodwill amongst individuals, how are their scopes of influence useful or impactful? These are questions that are thoughtfully considered in the articles herein.

More than one author in this book referenced the olive branch of engagement between America and North Korea via the musical performances of the New York Philharmonic. Beyond fine arts exchanges of music and art is also the issue of sporting exchanges. Samantha Brletich’s article examines Kyrgyz-Russian tensions through the lens of a soccer match up, and John Bavoso discusses the role of athletes as diplomatic figures, whether they want to be representatives of their governments or not.

While many of these pieces examine interstate relationships, Michael Huang instead looked introspectively and approached the question of gender and diplomacy. His piece The Diplomatic Woman thoughtfully muses about whether women are better suited to the profession than men, as they resolve rather than react.

The overarching theme that unites many of these commentaries is that, globally, younger generations (and, inevitably, future diplomats) tend to be more attuned to a global worldview and broader sociocultural landscape given their consistent connectivity with the world through a variety of technologies. These bridges, from the individual “me”, to a group “us”, to an (often abstract) “them”, are critical infrastructure in the geography of diplomacy.

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Messaging and Communication In our modern world where more people have access to cell phones than flushing toilets the importance placed on connectivity and the ability to communicate across great distances and divides is of utmost importance. Individuals are now, more than ever, empowered by the internet, motivated by concrete successes, driven by ideological commitment to human rights and state sovereignty, and committed to self-expression and the complementary entitlement of voicing their opinions. Private citizens, often organized in groups around a specific cause in civil society, are affecting international events on an unprecedented scale.

America must break free from its accidental ethnocentrism and xenophobia, for its culture has become so isolated in a sub-world of its own making that Americans – even young ones with boundless information at their fingertips – drown in a sea of ‘unknown unknowns’. The youth of America, especially, does not realize what it does not know about the world beyond American borders because the media inundates programming with American-centric ideals.

This issue of xenocentrism touches on the question of the line differentiating strategic government messaging and public relations efforts, versus pure propaganda. In Public Diplomacy or Propaganda, Michele Acuto insightfully pondered, “The overall American ethos might be slowly changing, but some of the practices “on the ground” are still perilously hedging their bets between public diplomacy and propaganda.” Particularly given this tenuous territory of diplomatic space, it is vital to remember that even with smart phones, teleconferencing, and social media of all sorts that nothing will ever be as effective in diplomacy as a face-to-face meeting.

Diplomacy Ahead In the future we will see increased resolution of issues through the channels of individual relationships, a practice already realized by the military, government, civil society, and academia, all of whom are increasingly funding and facilitating opportunities for international exchange with peers from foreign states. This importance of having established working relationships is examined in both the Crisis Diplomacy article, as well as Donna Roberson’s exemplary Disaster Diplomacy, which articulates the importance of timely responses in such dire circumstances.

Spanning beyond the reach of individual relationships and issues of state perception and national identity are the few collective global matters that overshadow all global citizens. The impact of topics like nuclear proliferation, international trade and commerce, and the world economy are inescapable, regardless of whether individual citizens or state governments want to opt in or out of such weighty considerations. In an astute observation on the role of trade as a global unifier or divider, Ken Weisbrode wrote, “Trade is said to follow the flag, but it also happens the other way around. So too with peace.”

Just as Jon Haron-Feiertag exploration of the marked differences in Presidents’ Bush and Obama’s Administration’s approaches to diplomacy demonstrates, there will also be a change in the timbre of American foreign policy as a new president takes office in a few short years. This change will not only be visible through refined governmental approaches, but will also be evident through the choices that private citizens and other non-state actors make in the intervening years.

In a world that gets flatter, with a map that is shrinking, and with time that is condensed by technology it is vital for diplomats of all times to develop a holistic understanding of all facets of the modern world’s terrain, including political, social, economic, religious, social, and cultural, amongst others. This is a tall order for any global citizen, but, after all, what is diplomacy but finding common ground? ■

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CONTENTS

33

09

06 / New Year, New Diplomacy A Question of Generational Change

By Michele Acuto

28

44

28 / City Diplomacy

By Michele Acuto 31 / Understanding Crisis Diplomacy

09 / Diplomacy and Its Discontents

By Jon Haron-Feiertag 11 / Praise for the Middle Ground

By Michele Acuto 14 / Will Globalization End

Traditional Diplomacy?

By Joel Hainsfurther

By Michele Acuto

33 / Disaster Diplomacy

By Donna Roberson 36 / Medical Diplomacy

By Rebecca Wexler 38 / Dollar Diplomacy

By Ken Weisbrode

17 / Diplomacy in a Digitally

Infused World

By Evan Kraus

40 / Diplomacy of the Financial Crisis

By Mark C. Partridge

19 / Defining Obama’s Diplomacy

By Jon Haron-Feiertag

42 / Unordained Diplomats

By John Bavoso

22 / The Fine Line between

Public Diplomacy

and Propaganda

By Michele Acuto

44 / The ‘Fine Art’ of Diplomacy

By John Bavoso

25 / How the EU is Changing

the Institution of Diplomacy

By Michele Acuto 04

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46 / The Diplomatic Woman

By Michael B. Huang 49 / Eulogy to Papal Diplomacy

By Jon Haron-Feiertag

DIPLOMACY

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Contributors Kerri Anderson Mary David Stuart W. Holliday Christine Horansky Vicki Treadell Michele Acuto C. Naseer Ahmad Alexander Benard Anne-Yolande Bilala Matt Bostrom Charles Crawford Vineet Daga Pauline Gebczak Guy J. Golan Orji Uzor Kalu Oscar Montealegre Paul Nadeau Paul Nash Kimberly MehlmanOrozco Richard Rousseau Kenneth Weisbrode

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NEW YEAR, NEW DIPLOMACY A Question of Generational Change

By Michele Acuto

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hile “the year of diplomacy” winds up–as the Courier highlights in our Winter edition–so does the first decade of the new century. Today, it might be a worthy exercise to look forward not to the coming 12 months and their promises, but instead to the years ahead and their challenges. What will come of diplomacy in the decades in front of us?

Many in policymaking circles and academia alike would raise more than a few eyebrows here, throwing a grim look at what “diplomacy” means in an age of globalization, supposedly impending civilizational clashes, and demising state power.

By provoking drastic realignments throughout the realm of international affairs, the power shift towards non-state actors that took place in recent decades certainly did not spare the realm of diplomacy. Globalizing processes have brought about an erosion of the domestic vs. foreign “great divide” that defined the practice and theorization of politics in the 20th century.

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Lost its privileged regulatory function as code of practice for the conduct of external relations, lost the profession of the ‘professional diplomatist’ as the ranks of nongovernmental representatives grow in quantity and expertise, lost its tactful and subtle character as new entities such as terrorist organizations, separatist movements or lobby coalitions bullied state diplomats out of their standards, the millennial establishment of the ‘embassy’ appears to many to be obsolete at best for the 21st century.

Yet, this might not be a problem of diplomacy per se, but rather of the wider diplomatic corps and, more specifically, present diplomatic practices.

In the 20th century diplomacy has been an overly realist practice, focused on the prominence of the state and its hierarchical alignments as the defining institution capable of monopolizing what “diplomatic practice” means, and how it is to be conducted. This realpolitik model can very much be associated with what Jorge Heine labeled as “club diplomacy”, a political practice based on a common membership sense shared within elites and professional diplomats, wherein diplomacy is the craft of duly appointed foreign officers, and in which external relations are conducted by ranking ambassadors with the support of a plethora of hierarchically-organized attendants. In an era where a power shift towards non-Westphalian alignments is more and more evident, such practices are destined to be labeled as outdated or antiquated, while fostering a system characterized by an old-fashioned and aging diplomatic aristocracy unable to keep up with the pace of rapidly evolving current events. Yet, there are some signs of improvement.

China may be a good case in point. Not that long ago, with an influential article published on Foreign Affairs in 2006, former Goldman Sachs President and Tsinghua management professor John Thornton underlined how the greatest threat to the Central Party’s survival was not solely that of modernization and controlled liberalization, but rather one of generational continuity. The pool of government leaders and managers in China was, in 2006, dramatically ageing while young talented graduates were bleeding off of the Party ranks to enter the private sector, thus creating a “leadership gap” threatening the halting of both reform and growth. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, China has been quick to recognized–and address–the need for generational change.

With increased university applications and admissions, the Party is now seeking greater linkages between its educational system and both its internal as well as external service.

For instance, the Communist Youth League of the Central Party, with a membership age range spanning 14-28 years, has recently invested 100 million Chinese Yuan ($15 million) to expand its ranks through promotional and training activities that have already attracted more than two million Party hopefuls.

Indeed, the current Central Party General Secretary and Chinese President Hu Jintao was himself once Secretary of the Youth League. At the same time, the educational sector is undergoing a core restructuring aimed at developing top ranking Chinese universities to rival the Ivy League, while young Chinese diplomats are now regularly shuttled abroad for training and educational exchanges.

India, the other Eastern giant, could offer a much similar example, and further case studies could be drawn from other Asia-Pacific countries such as Indonesia and Singapore.

Ever since Colin Powell’s post-9/11 “diplomatic readiness initiative”, the United States has also sought to recruit and train increased numbers of new foreign officers per year, while governments such as Canada and Australia have instead opted to encourage graduate studies instead. Although some European countries have also embarked on a path to develop and embrace generational change, other major international actorssuch as the Russian Federation, Italy, Germany, and several Latin American states seem more reticent to accept change.

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New Year, New Diplomacy?

A Question of Generational Change (continued) Overall, developing countries seem more prone to forging a young and pro-active generation of diplomats, but many of the well-established international players are also catching up. The problem is that injecting new forces in one country’s foreign ranks is not enough.

In contradiction to the strict realist interpretation of foreign affairs, the contemporary response to our global challenges should be found in the practice of “network diplomacy” as a broader engagement with various actors across the globe and as a catalytic engagement open to relationships that cut across the traditional pecking order of world politics.

This is not a simple task, nor one that can be taught with ease through much of the Western International Relations scholarship. Diplomats that choose this second path have to embrace alternative views of the world and understand that they are setting out to become diplomatic entrepreneurs.

Building multiple connections, upholding moral norms such as human rights regimes, and seeking transnational relationships, many diplomats are already becoming more than just realists. In particular, the powerful instrument that realist diplomats may lack, and that the new generations need, is the critical prompt for networking. Diplomacy, from this point of view, applies beyond mere ambassadorial and consular activities, as it mostly pertains to mediated economic and cultural practices in the context of goods provision and facilitation, as well as to the development and daily relations within the global networks of flows that run across the globe. It is quintessentially a ‘networking’ activity that, in an increasingly flattening world, has to rest on soft forms of power of which networking constitutes the tip of the sword.

Government officials need to learn how to partake in the global policy networks that require diplomats to engage in what Geoffrey Wiseman called the “polylateral level” of negotiation, where states, international organizations, NGOs, and even private citizens dialogue on almost equal grounds. In this respect, relations within present-day context must be envisaged as going beyond the classic bilateral or multilateral formats. Twenty first century mediators need to be adaptable to a context where the diplomatic practice is changing substantially, whilst the quest for discovering new methods has also been taken on by non-state actors.

Despite several gloomy predictions and forecasts in various academic publications, the practice of mediated relations among political entities will survive the earthquake caused by the re-alignment of global hierarchies. This is chiefly because it allows for multiplicity and adaptation. World politics is not, as Stephen Krasner once put, a game of chess.

Rules, as well as players, change, and practices need to change accordingly. The problem, however, is to train new diplomats to play with ever-changing rules. ■

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DIPLOMACY AND ITS DISCONTENTS

By Jon Haron-Feiertag

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iplomacy is back. Or so appears the message emerging from the Obama administration.

“Obama and Biden will rebuild our alliances” says the White House Web site, “They will talk to our Friends and Foes.” Secretary Clinton herself has become a strong believer in “smart power” and insists that “With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.” Even the President has made his libations to diplomacy, and is not reluctant to share his, “Commitment to the importance of diplomacy and renewing American leadership.”

Most of this can properly be labeled verbiage, and is best understood as part of deliberate effort of the new administration to distinguish itself from the rhetoric and policies of the Bush administration. Who could forget Bush’s truculent warning that “You’re either with us or against.” Or that “We will not distinguish between the terrorists and those who harbor them.” A willingness to launch attacks and ask questions later; take preemptive action; organize “coalitions of the willing”; chide the UN; and repudiate large international treaties—these were some of the hallmarks of the Bush Doctrine. And it is no surprise that President Obama and his cabinet would want to distance themselves from that legacy.

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Diplomacy and Its Discontents (continued) But, despite the cowboy caricature of President Bush and his policies, much of his administration was occupied with the conduct of diplomacy. The question, then, for the new Obama administration is how it will be different. President Bush’s second term was alive with negotiations, much of which, however, were unsuccessful. If President Obama is a true adherent to the school of diplomacy, it bears asking what he will do to avoid the pitfalls and failures that President Bush encountered. Will it be a difference in tone only?

Or, will he concede major changes in policy to gain agreement with foreign interlocutors?

Think back to President Bush’s second term. To be sure, several successes could be cited. There was the rapprochement with Libya; a treaty with India that exchanged civil nuclear cooperation for non-proliferation promises; and, an agreement with Iraq over the disposition of U.S. military personnel. These were important transactions, and their achievement should not be underrated. But, the Bush administration also bears blame for several failures.

First among them is the Six-Party Talks to disarm North Korea. Started in 2003, the talks proceeded through several rounds and witnessed numerous developments including an underground weapon test by North Korea in October 2006, followed by a breakthrough agreement in February 2007 to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear facility.

From there the negotiations never made progress on dismantlement or verification issues.

Afterward, they stumbled badly with the transfer of North Korean funds in a Macao bank account and the removal of North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terror.

Fierce critics of the North Korean talks, such as Ambassador Bolton, claimed vindication.

Furthermore, the diplomatic progress that had been accomplished was undone by the restart of the Yongbyon reactor paired with declarations by the North Koreans never to relinquish their stock of weaponized plutonium.

The second notable failure has been the episodic engagements by the Bush administration with Iran. The Bush administration first approached their confrontation with Iran with a tough policy of isolation. A combination of implicit threats, fleet deployments, and UN Security Council resolutions were a part of an initial effort to influence Iran by coercion. But, the Bush administration softened its attitude and began to experiment with offering carrots in addition to brandishing sticks. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, was authorized to meet with his Iranian colleague in Baghdad. In July 2008 Undersecretary William Burns traveled to Geneva to participate in the G5+1 talks with Iran over a deal to suspend their enrichment program. These talks, however, came to naught and seemed to leave the U.S. directionless regarding their options of addressing Iran’s nuclear program. So frustrated was the administration that the Israelis even threatened to attack Iran, David Sanger reported here, and held a defiant military maneuver over the eastern Mediterranean.

These examples don’t exhaust the recent failures of American diplomacy, which also include the collapse of the Doha round of trade negotiations; the stillborn efforts to renew the Middle East peace process inaugurated by the Annapolis conference; or, the continued tension in U.S.-Russian relations.

The point: it’s not so much the absence of diplomacy as its conduct that has been the bane of U.S. foreign policy. Platitudes about the “importance of diplomacy” and the attendant slogans of “smart power” are fine as far as rhetoric goes. But, what do the principals in the Obama administration think they can do with diplomacy that the Bush administration didn’t? ■

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PRAISE FOR THE MIDDLE GROUND

By Michele Acuto

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he present context of mediation is moving towards an increased dependence of the official style of foreign affairs on transnational means undertaken on a variety of tiers. In this view, the role of the so-called “Track-II” should be revised in those situations where the tensions are escalating, or the perils for the global system are too high to be settled through this type of diplomacy. In these cases, perhaps, the best method is that hybrid type of mediation that has been defined as Track One and a Half.

In order to understand this reasoning, it is necessary to begin with a clear conception of the changing structure of the international order. At present, state-to-state interactions are not always the most appropriate responses to the emergence of transnational dangers and cross-border civil disputes. When faced with time-sensitive challenges of this sort, first-track instruments may fail due to their reliance on bureaucratized politics and their dependence on domestic support. Consequently, Track-I mediations can collapse because of electoral cycles, internal pressure groups, and foreign policy stalemates, remaining imprisoned on Robert Putnam’s famous logic of the “two-level game.”

As a response to some of these hindrances, a set of informal fora have been put in place in recent decades to look for alternative solutions to international conflicts. This variety of APRIL 2014

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Praise for the Middle Ground (continued) negotiation–commonly known as “Track Two diplomacy”–presents numerous advantages in respect to the limits of the official communication channels.

Firstly, Track-II dialogues can take place regardless of stringent bureaucratic conditions that often impede formal negotiations, such as accreditation schemes. Further, and often as a spin-off effect of this possibility, second-track meetings can provide a milieu in which to act when foreign relations are paralyzed, as in the case of the NEACD’s dialogue on the Korean nuclear crisis during the Six Party Talks deadlock. Moreover, they can also function as “agents” of socialization and promote identity-building exercises, fostering cooperation between the international actors involved in the process.

This has, for example, been the case of the ASEAN Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS) role in South-East Asia. Additionally, Track-II fora grant numerous possibilities to develop personal relations between civil society members, officials, and scholars, which creates an even greater number of cross-border ties of an inherently informal nature. In this environment it is also possible to test new policy orientations and consider their acceptability at various levels of the international system, since the conversations and proposals of such meetings are usually far from being binding.

According to Joseph Montville’s original interpretation, the goals of Track-II diplomacy are essentially three: developing strategies, influencing public opinion, and organizing resources to resolve conflict. The most efficient institution of this type of “unofficial” international relations is the role played by third party mediation. Those who manage second-track cooperation efforts have the possibility of building meaningful levels of confidence, while trying to produce practical strategies to solve the disagreement amongst the parties. Consequently, as John McDonald put it. “This track is not for amateurs.”

The mediators must have a sufficient preparation to prevent the weaknesses of Track-II diplomacy from overcoming its strengths. In fact, assuring communication alone is not necessarily a sufficient means of conflict resolution and identities can be highlighted rather than tuned down. Second track suggestions can lose effect if perceived as disconnected to the first track. Also, participants can be misled by their incomplete knowledge, risking duplication and contradictory outcomes, as well as being easily targeted as messengers of their home countries. Resolutions from these fora may take too long to yield results, and indeed create no results at all, in some cases. Finally, secondtrack actions are not enough to reduce the tensions or stop the direct (even armed) confrontations between international actors: Track-II diplomacy, albeit increasingly relevant at a global level, is still lacking the political and material leverage to stop largescale clashes, and is often useless when it comes to influencing dictatorial polities that reject any level below the first track.

In view of these considerations, if it is fair to assert that Track-II diplomacy can address serious international issues that Track-I diplomacy simply cannot, the opposite is also true. In the contemporary context the answer to this dilemma is found in the middle ground.

To respond to the growing number of unconventional “international problems” the diplomatic tracks are to be used together, until the anarchical system of states will be replaced by some alternative order. Track-II cannot be a universal substitute for Track-I interchange, as much as the latter cannot do without the former in a progressively higher number of settings. This is reflected in the major second-track dialogues that are currently taking place: security is still the main concern for governmental and non-governmental actors, but environmental and developmental talks are taking a substantial role on the 12

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global scene, alongside the evergreen economic round-tables.

One of the most effective middle-ground solutions can be pinpointed in what Susan Allen Nan called “Track One and a Half Diplomacy.” This kind of mediation is still considered at the unofficial level, as it is meant to be managed by non-governmental entities, but involving in the dialogue officials from the conflict in question as well.

Brokering agreements at this level may enjoy the advantages offered by Track-II, avoiding political stalemates and bureaucratic requirements, while retaining much of the ability to influence directly the top level that the second track loses in its bottom-up processes.

“Track-1½” actions can draw on a particular diplomatic agility that is frequently missing in the other tracks’ proceedings. Mediators at this rank are usually less engaged in open meetings and conference diplomacy, and tend to instead reach at the sources of the grievances more effectively than others.

Examples of Track One and a Half can be found, for instance, in the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) mission in Aceh, led by the former Finnish president and Nobel laureate Martti Ahtisaari, or in the Carter Center negotiation for the “Guinea Worm Ceasefire” in 1995 within the Sudanese civil war. Often, “Track-1½”efforts are taken up by independent institutions with strong links to the governmental level, with widely recognized personalities acting as key intermediaries. Other examples of this type, alongside the CMI and the Carter Center, is the recently established initiative of The Elders, which groups 13 renowned political pundits and is currently involved in Darfur, or the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, which has been created by a number of NGOs such as Oxfam and Human Rights Watch. These represent modern and relatively lithe brokers on the global scene that may have a relevant role in the years to come.

In the current evolving landscape of world politics that sees the steady increase of human security challenges, we are leading towards an ever more relevant role for Track-II and “Track-1½” diplomacy, with official state-to-state relations increasingly dependent on personal relationships outside of official channels. While this does not mean that the time for Track-I to leave the scene to alternative means has come, the first level is now obliged to adapt to a context where the tracks “below” it are setting the pace. In these circumstances, the middle way solution is likely the right one. ■

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WILL GLOBALIZATION END TRADITIONAL DIPLOMACY?

By Joel Hainsfurther

D

iplomacy is no longer limited to high-level government officials sitting opposite each other in negotiations. While it still exists in this format, globalization has led to its evolution, and the craft now includes the private and public sector actors.

In the past several years public diplomacy has dominated official diplomacy and has been often dubbed as a public relations effort that seeks to curb anti-American sentiment around the world. According to the USC Center on Public Diplomacy: “Traditional definitions of public diplomacy include government-sponsored cultural, educational, and informational programs, citizen exchanges and broadcasts used to promote the national interest of a country through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign audiences.” However, the Center expands the traditional definition by studying “the impact of private activities—from popular culture to fashion to sports to news to the Internet—that inevitably, if not purposefully, have an impact on foreign policy and national security as well as on trade, tourism, and other national interests.”

These types of efforts often take a bottom-up approach by bringing a grassroots style attitude to international relations, which, unfortunately, means it may take years

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for a public diplomacy initiative to achieve its goal. Yet, even though public diplomacy brings about many positive initiatives and programs, it remains stuck in a competition that it cannot win. The implementation of an actual governmental policy can set back years of work that a public diplomacy initiative achieved. The bottom line is that antiAmericanism often results from an objection to U.S. policies, which public diplomacy initiatives simply do not have the ability to prevent from being implemented.

The story of Greg Mortenson, an American born in Minnesota and the co-founder of the Central Asia Institute, provides an inspiring example of how public diplomacy can succeed at the individual and grassroots level. In 1993, Mortenson attempted to climb the K2 (the world’s second highest mountain) in Pakistan. Mortenson failed to reach the top and became separated from his climbing group; he was lost and became very sick without food, water, or shelter. Mortenson finally wandered into an impoverished village in the Karakoram mountain range called Korphe. The people of Korphe, who had never encountered a foreigner, took Mortenson in and provided him with food and water until he became healthy. He befriended the people of Korphe and promised to return to build them a school. Mortenson went home to raise money and eventually delivered on his promise. As of August 2008, Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute have built over 78 schools in impoverished and disenfranchised regions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and the steppes of Mongolia.

This example of public diplomacy at the individual level must be viewed as a success (to read the full story of Greg Mortenson read the book Three Cups of Tea, which Mortenson authored with David Oliver Relin). The initiative certainly represents a good cause and the number of schools that have been built as a result of one man’s work must be applauded. Unfortunately, while Greg Mortenson’s story is inspiring it also illustrates how actual policy decisions can easily nullify the successes of public diplomacy initiatives at this grassroots level.

The people that Mortenson has encountered while building schools across South Asia undoubtedly respect him; his efforts have probably mitigated or eliminated any antiAmerican sentiments that some of these people might have maintained prior to meeting Mortenson. However, the implementation of U.S. foreign policy, such as the decision to conduct bomb raids on Pakistani soil that often result in the deaths of civilians, easily nullify the efforts of Mortenson and reinforces anti-American sentiment in the region.

One policy decision made very quickly can offset the success that a public diplomacy program has achieved over many years.

Many American businesses pursue their own public diplomacy programs. The fact that many of these corporations create jobs for people around the world sometimes helps to shape how people view the United States. Often in public diplomacy, the levels at which the initiative takes place will overlap. For example, Renae Merle of the Washington Post reported in June of 2005 that, “The Pentagon awarded three contracts this week, potentially worth up to $300 million over five years, to companies it hopes will inject more creativity into its psychological operations efforts to improve foreign public opinion about the United States, particularly the military.” The Defense Department can examine these programs all it wants but ultimately the president makes the final call on the most important policy decisions.

The problem with many public diplomacy initiatives is that they seek exclusively to eliminate anti-Americanism. They should also aim to make people around the world differentiate between the United States government’s policies and the American people.

Foreign policy decisions made by a president will almost inevitably anger somebody around the world. Public diplomacy efforts should educate people around the world and teach them to differentiate between the United States and the American people; foreign APRIL 2014

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Will Globalization End Traditional Diplomacy? (continued) policy decisions usually divide the American people, much as they will continue to be perceived differently in varying parts of the world.

Another inherent issue with public diplomacy is that these grassroots initiatives don’t always go both ways–t least not in sufficient terms. While it is important for people around the world to embrace and learn about American popular culture, the lack of public diplomacy programs that seek to bring the popular culture of another nation to the United States illustrates the disparity in cultural diplomacy exchange. Some exchange does happen at the academic level, but it is not enough.

People all over the world watch American movies, listen to American music, and embrace American popular culture, but most American teenagers have not been introduced to the cultures of other countries. For instance, how often do Americans watch Iranian movies? Whether it starts on the individual, state, or commercial level, more diplomatic initiatives must bring other cultures to the United States.

Diplomacy has evolved. No longer does it occur between high-level government officials. Public diplomacy in general does good things. However, actual policy decisions made by top government officials can easily trump the success that public diplomacy initiatives have achieved. In the age of globalization for diplomacy and international relations to succeed they must occur simultaneously on all levels, from official to civil society, and high level to grassroots. And, we must reciprocate: our youth need to know as much about the world as we want the world to know about America. ■

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DIPLOMACY IN A DIGITALLY INFUSED WORLD By Evan Kraus

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alk the streets of any big city today, anywhere in the world, and it is impossible to miss the impact of digital communication technology on nearly every aspect of our daily lives. It impacts the way we communicate, socialize, travel, are entertained, buy products and services, and even find our life partners. But, what about diplomacy, that famously nuanced, human talent that is so deeply rooted in a face-to-face, personal connection? How has digital changed the diplomacy game?

To understand the imprint digital has made on diplomacy, we first need to understand the psychology of digital natives. It is a human nature to try and make a difference in the world around us; to seek something more. Media, particularly digital media, offers a level of transparency and direct access that gives political activists, thought leaders and influencers the ability to force political change. Just as social media has removed the power of traditional reporters to serve as the primary connectors between news-making principals and the public, it has also diminished the power of traditional political gatekeepers.

NGOs and activist groups were the first movers in harnessing this power to impact political change. Underfunded and outmanned by corporations and their agents, these groups took to the digital streets to create political movements and, in many cases, were able to enact real change.

Inspired by these examples and their own experiences, individual citizens realized they could create their own movements. Whether it be a customer like Molly Katchpole, who used Change.org and a passionate letter to convince a major U.S. bank to withdraw a APRIL 2014

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Diplomacy in a digitally infused world (continued) debit card fee; a citizen like Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor whose shocking act of self-immolation captured on YouTube sparked the Arab Spring; or the director Jason Russell whose short film Kony 2012 began a campaign to raise the visibility about forced recruitment of child soldiers in Africa and motivated millions (including celebrities and political figures) to call for the arrest of Joseph Kony and push to enact new policies and change. These empowered activists have inspired uprisings that change the world.

Although slower to the party, the traditional power brokers in society–corporations and policymakers themselves–have learned how to harness the power of digital and social media to their own political benefit. It is now fairly routine for political figures around the world to directly engage with the public on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. During President Obama’s reelection campaign, his “Ask Me Anything” feature on Reddit quickly broke traffic and engagement records for the platform and connected him directly with his audience without any gatekeepers. Communicating via social media can also have a real impact on society. As an example, my company APCO Worldwide helped a government transform how it communicated with the public. We educated its agencies on effectively engaging and connecting with citizens through activities and initiatives hosted through these channels. We also routinely help our corporate clients pursue and enact policy change in all corners of the world using the strategic application of digital diplomacy.

Underlying all of this are some basic principles that are hallmarks of almost every successful digital diplomacy initiative: › Digital diplomacy is emotive: People in digital and social channels discuss and debate issues with their emotions at the surface. The best campaigns are like great marketing campaigns that stir emotions, tell compelling stories and use pictures, videos, animation and graphic content to make arguments instead of studies and papers. › Digital diplomacy is about pursuing a shared vision: The best digital diplomacy initiatives tap deep into an underlying tension or desire felt by a segment of society. It is not sufficient to just express your position well; your position must reinforce this more broadly felt societal goal. › Digital diplomacy is transparent: In digital and social channels there is nowhere to hide.

Attempts to communicate in ways that are perceived as inauthentic or contrived are doomed to fail. › Digital diplomacy speaks directly to individuals: Although the web audience is enormous, digital and social media is actually comprised of millions of interconnected communities that form around shared ideas. The best campaigns carefully target those communities and recruit support by tailoring the appeal to the specific interests of their members. This process has been aided tremendously in recent years by the prevalence of “big data” and sophisticated tools to micro-target our messages.

Digital diplomacy must be remarkably agile: Things change fast online. Ideas morph, change agents emerge and new information appears on a moment’s notice. Digital diplomacy campaigns must be carefully managed to respond quickly to those changes so they stay relevant, responsive and impactful.

The pace at which communication tools, techniques, platforms and strategies are changing can be dizzyingly fast. But, if you can stay grounded in these core principles, and remember that digital communication is simply a reflection of basic human emotions and impulses, you can have a tremendous impact on the world around your business, your organization and yourself. ■ 18

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DEFINING OBAMA’S DIPLOMACY

By Jon Haron-Feiertag

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huttle. Gun Boat. Ping Pong. Cowboy. There are many names for the fashions of diplomacy. The Obama administration has one, too. They call theirs the ‘Diplomacy of Renewal’. Its meaning is twofold. On the one side it connotes an effort to restore alliances with friends and talk to those who have been foes of the U.S. On the other side it jives well with President Barack Obama’s political message of hope and change.

All that admitted, however, the name won’t quite do. That’s because it describes what the Obama administration wishes their diplomacy would be, rather than what it has in fact been. With time, a body of examples, and the benefit of hindsight, a single catchword will appear that captures in a breath Obama’s style for diplomacy. But it’s early, and the contest is wide open to all would be contenders. I submit for consideration, then, the following two.

In his first four weeks as President, Obama aspired to make his foreign policy appear as the antithesis of President George W. Bush. He and his administration have attempted to discard the unpopular appurtenances most closely associated with Bush’s tenure.

But Obama has gone only so far, and never in full, by preserving some of Bush’s core policies. There is a gulf then between what he says and what he does. Call it Attitudinal Diplomacy.

The day after his inauguration, Obama signed an executive order to end harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA. The same day he signed another order that set a one year deadline for the closure of the Guantanamo detention center. The orders both countermanded important principles of Bush’s counter-terrorism policy. The immediacy and the publicity of Obama’s executive decisions spoke loudly, and the silences still APRIL 2014

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Defining Obama’s Diplomacy (continued) louder. Observe that Obama has not once uttered the phrase “War on Terror” since he assumed office.

But these orders obscure other policies that suggest a contrary trend. The President has refused to end the extraordinary rendition program, a program of dubious legality. He has also refused to end the policy of cross-border missile strikes in Pakistan; a policy that may transgress the prohibition on use of force and sovereign integrity. And Obama not only continued the Bush plan of a troop surge into Afghanistan, he dramatically increased it by ordering an additional 17,000 troops to deploy above the scheduled increase to allow for a surge. The war in Afghanistan was always the single largest component of Bush’s War on Terror. Obama then, despite his rhetoric, may be expanding Bush’s legacy rather than changing it.

There is also the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy. Two days after his inauguration, Obama appointed George Mitchell to lead his diplomacy in the region.

Mitchell, Obama insisted, was on a mission to listen, not lecture. For too long, the President explained in a veiled criticism of Bush, the U.S. has dictated to rather than communicated with other countries. His first interview as President was given to Al Arabiya, an Arab TV network. And before that, in his inaugural speech, he addressed Muslims the world around directly, “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” His implicit meaning: that he would depart from the manners of Bush in his conduct of Middle East diplomacy.

But this is a lot of sound. What policy changes will he make? Or will he make any at all? George Mitchell was instructed not to meet with Hamas officials during his visit to the Middle East. And in Munich Vice President Joe Biden outlined U.S. objectives in the region when he stated, “In the near term, we must consolidate the cease-fire in Gaza by working with Egypt and others to stop smuggling and developing an international relief and reconstruction effort that strengthens the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas.” Hamas has long been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S.. But it became an essential feature of Bush’s Middle East policy not to consort with Hamas after their election victory in January 2006, or after they forced Fatah from Gaza. Obama then appears set to continue the policy of Hamas’s isolation.

It would be unfair, however, to label Obama’s diplomacy as one of posture only. There have been also several initiatives that suggest real effort to steer U.S. foreign policy to a different course. These efforts are relatively new, but nevertheless the initiatives do highlight a second leitmotif in Obama’s agenda. Call it Convalescent Diplomacy.

First Russia. It was a little-noted but very important failure of the Bush administration to preside over the dramatic souring of U.S.-Russian relations. What began at the beginning of Bush’s tenure in office as a relationship where war was unthinkable, as Secretary Powell described it, instead degenerated into one where Bush and Putin traded insults, including Putin’s quip that Russia would not be interested in receiving democracy like the kind the U.S. brought to Iraq.

The Obama administration has made clear their intent to change the tenor of U.S.Russian relations, so much so in fact that the signaling by the Obama administration has been, at times, near flamboyant. Officials have gone out of their way to omit mention of Georgia or Ukraine in their public pronouncements, even when Russia and Ukraine were trading charges over gas disputes in recent years. Instead, the Obama Administration has emphasized points of cooperation.

In testimony for her confirmation former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained, “We will work with Russia to secure their agreement to extend essential monitoring and 20

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verification provisions of the START Treaty... and we will work toward agreements for further reductions in nuclear weapons.” Vice President Biden made similar comments in Munich, saying, “It is time to press the reset button and to revisit the many areas where we can and should work together. Our Russian colleagues long ago warned about the rising threat from the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Today, NATO and Russia can and should cooperate to defeat this common enemy.”

But this cautious start has been complicated by myriad other issues that have troubled the U.S.-Russian relationship in recent years, with three issues standing above the rest.

The rescission of access rights to the Kyrgyz airbase; the announcement the U.S. will continue the deployment of a ballistic missile defense system into Poland and the Czech Republic; and the lingering question of status of the Abkhaz and South Ossetian regions.

The issues then can’t be ignored. The question for Obama’s diplomacy is whether the hard issues can be distinguished and compartmentalized from the easy ones, or whether any true diplomacy will necessarily have to link issues in order to make progress in U.S.-Russian relations. These questions have yet been answered, and the forecast for the future of the relationship remains clouded.

Second is the question of Iran. Though U.S.-Iran relations have been strained since the Revolution, it was under President Bush that relations fell to their lowest since the Hostage Crisis of 1979. Bush notoriously included Iran in the Axis of Evil. In his second term of office Bush initially considered air strikes against Iranian nuclear sites, and then tried a strategy of containment by imposing UN sanctions and seeking the support of European states.

Obama’s approach to Iranian engagement has been very different. The position he hoped to pursue was for direct talks, and he himself has led the effort to organize it. During his campaign, Obama famously proclaimed that he would be willing negotiate with countries like Iran without pre-conditions. In his interview with Al Arabiya he said, “I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress... And as I said during my inaugural speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their first, they will find an extended hand from us.” He repeated the same again at his first press conference.

Such overtures by the President have been received with mixed results. Ahmadinejad first replied to Obama’s interview by demanding an apology for U.S. “crimes”. He has since backed away from that demand, and welcomed talks that are “not a mere tactical move” but “fundamental”. At the same time, however, Iran continues to enrich uranium at an ever increasing rate. Obama’s repeated qualification that his administration is still deliberating over policy, that they want more signals from Iran, and that it will take time to overcome historic distrust cumulatively suggest low expectations of what direct dialogue with Iran could achieve.

But whatever the catchword for his diplomacy should be, the truth is that Obama would be better advised not to use the slogan of renewal. For whose diplomacy would he be renewing? The Manichean diplomacy of Reagan and Bush 43? Or the tepid, halting humanitarianism of Clinton? President Obama certainly wants to create something better for his legacy. Even more, he probably wants something original and historic. Whether that means a change in tone only, confining his foreign policy ambitions to the work of repair, or something else still, the answer will be central to defining Obama’s diplomatic legacy. ■

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THE FINE LINE BETWEEN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND PROPAGANDA

By Michele Acuto

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few days ago American ‘soft power’ pundit Joseph S. Nye reminded the public at large from the columns of his Thought Leaders Series on Project Syndicate of the importance of public diplomacy in an age where the right “story”, rather than the right weapon, is often the means to success.

Decades ago with a notable level of intuition, English writer Aldous Huxley stated in his 1936 manuscript The Olive Tree that, “the propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” Indeed, this reasoning becomes even more accurate in times of conflict, where the “other” has to be constructed as a peril.

To this extent, the greatest divergence between propaganda and public diplomacy is in their goals: while the propaganda aims at deceiving and selling ideas, public diplomacy is meant to complement conventional diplomatic activities, promote norms, and shape identities, thus “enrolling” people in common understandings and shared identities. Nye is right in underlying how the “smart power” inherent in these cross-cultural mediated relationships is a function of its capacity to promote and participate in, rather than control, such cross-border networks.

Yet, the practice might still linger far behind theoretical evolution. The widespread realist approach to this type of international relations has blurred the distinction between the two, generating disastrous effects as in the case of the U.S. post-9/11 public diplomacy in Arab countries. “Great powers,” underscored Nye, “Try to use culture and narrative to

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create soft power that promotes their advantage, but they do not always understand how to do it.” The overall American ethos might be slowly changing, but some of the practices “on the ground” are still perilously hedging their bets between public diplomacy and propaganda.

Public diplomacy differs fundamentally from traditional interstate diplomatic activity because its targets are not representatives of other international entities but, rather, are foreign populations and, more generally, the wider public. In a broader theoretical understanding, public diplomacy is an instrument of soft power that utilizes means of communication to spread a message amongst individuals instead of materially coercing them. The realm in which it takes place is less regulated by protocols and leaves much space to manoeuvre for a number of different applications. Although this description might suggest that this set of interactions can do no harm, in reality the misuse of public diplomacy has created hazardous effects at a global level.

The most dangerous interpretation of ‘public diplomacy’ is the one that derives from a realist viewpoint: through this understanding, diplomatic activity becomes a form of propaganda, as it is exclusively used to protect and promote national interests.

In this sense, the dissemination of information is employed to build images, increase foreign support, and make use of reputation as a force-multiplier. Thus, propaganda becomes nothing more than another capability to leverage on the global balance of power chessboard. Consequently, “propaganda” and “public diplomacy” are treated as synonyms, as they were understood in the 1950s during the aftermath of World War II and the eve of the Cold War. However, this equation is not limited to these historical cases, since the realist paradigm still plays a dominant role in the decision-making units of many international actors, leading many scholars as Geoff Berridge to define public diplomacy as a “modern euphemism for propaganda.”

The United States’ policy after September 11, 2001 is a concrete recent example of realist public diplomacy. This held especially true towards Arab countries, where the Bush Administration tried to “win the hearts and minds of the Muslim populations not involved in the jihadist struggle.

The spread of messages with carefully cultivated content has been based on the understanding that, as Republican congressman Henry Hyde put it, “[The] perceptions of foreign publics have domestic consequences.” By paying more attention to the images projected abroad and hiring expert marketers as Charlotte Beers in the ranks of the State Department, the White House has tried to fight twaves of anti-Americanism with censorship and counterpropaganda.

However, after a decade of work, the U.S. is probably losing, the propaganda war. The reasons for this debacle can be found in two main factors that the realist perspective has overlooked while conducting its public diplomacy: culture and credibility.

As R.S. Zaharna recently pointed out, the U.S. policy has backfired due to the lack of cultural neutrality in its messages. Further, several preconceptions about the necessary format through which these were meant to be delivered have marked the “American way” to communicate to Islamic audiences. Therefore, the interest-oriented calculations, and the propagandistic assumptions of the State Department, created more divergence than consensus. Furthermore, the media used to spread the message have been labelled across the Arab world as pro-American and biased, undermining their credibility and the supposed independence of sources such as Voice of America, which have in turn provoked uprises in nationalist sentiments.

In view of this lesson, it is imperative to shift the analysis of public diplomacy from the realist paradigm to the constructivist one, as the latter can offer more useful perspectives to engage with foreign publics from. The tendency to formulate explanations of the APRIL 2014

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The Fine Line between Public Diplomacy and Propaganda (continued) global scenario, which, is seen as a realm of perpetual change in constructivist terms, is a necessary onset for a wise and prudent public diplomacy. This paradigm can highlight how ideas and norms are constructed realities, which can be changed and even “constructed” through socialization. For instance, seen from such a viewpoint, the U.S. activity in Arab countries can be pointed at for the aforementioned failures which are mostly grounded in social, rather than material, reasons.

In this view, what public diplomacy can achieve is even greater than the mere persuasion of foreign populations. A constructivist would, in fact, conclude that public diplomacy can foster the acceptance of widely shared norms in the international systems, as for example in the case of the recent promotional activity for a moratorium on death penalties, or in the cases of the landmines ban treaty signed in Ottawa in 1992.

Additionally, the constructivist view can also offer a better comprehension of how public diplomacy can influence the identity of those to which it is addressed, changing or enhancing their self-understanding. In this latter instance, as for the contemporary promotional activity of the EU Commission, sentiments of commonality and shared qualities can cement the bases for the emergence of regional security communities.

Thus, instead of deceiving the “others” to protect “ourselves”, the goal can be shifted to convincing the “others” of the value of shared norms and ideas, in order to create a common “us”’ as a synthesis of the two previously opposing entities.

It is always useful to remember that the results of diplomacy can be disruptive, if this realist-constructivist distinction is not taken into serious account. As Robert Cooper wrote in his The Breaking of Nations, “Soldiers and diplomats are, in the end, trying to do the same thing: to change other people’s minds; mistakes in foreign policy can be as disastrous as mistakes in war.” ■

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HOW THE EU IS CHANGING THE INSTITUTION OF DIPLOMACY

By Michele Acuto

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n 1982, political writer Hedley Bull stated, “Europe is not an actor in international affairs and does not seem likely to become one.” Even though this assumption was conditional of that historical context, many scholars and practitioners alike still hold this position at the beginning of the 21st century. Yet the European Union, thanks to its hybrid form of polity and its consumer-oriented external service, does shape the transformation of its members’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) and does lead to a new “European” practice of external relations, less grounded in power politics and more oriented towards networking. Indeed, the ongoing integration process and subsequent rearrangements of the member states’ foreign agencies now represent, as diplomacy scholars Brian Hocking and David Spence described it in 2005, “[A] laboratory for students of modern diplomacy.”

External affairs ministries address myriad interconnected processes that take place on a global scale: IT and communications revolution, globalization, the emergence of new threats, and, in turn, new security agendas and the broadening of opportunities for individuals. All these processes have a prominent role in shaping organization and activities of foreign services. However, European MFAs are influenced not just by these worldwide forces, but also by regional trends that enhance such pressures. European Union (EU) member states now have to deal with progressive interdependence, crossborder integration, and multilateral frameworks. These phenomena are not prerogatives of the Old Continent, but instead are worth analyzing within the European framework APRIL 2014

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How the EU is Changing the Institution of Diplomacy (continued) as this latter might be on the edge of historical changes for the interpretation of the concept of diplomacy. To this extent, we tackle here the first of two major procedural changes that the EU is promoting in the institution of diplomacy: that process known as “Europeanization.”

European foreign ministries have undergone two types of changes throughout the last twenty years, as the world was rapidly adapting to the post-Cold War assets and the European integration process was progressively increasing its pace. While the ministries strove to adjust their structures to the current global situation, the EU has imposed on them additional challenges for evolution.

Voluntary modifications in the Ministries have been characterized by the expansion in content and increasingly technical nature of foreign policy. This has, in turn, created the necessity of widening staff expertise, incorporating non-diplomatic personnel, and in some instances integrating withother ministries, such as in the growingly common case of those hybrid Ministries that incorporate Trade and Foreign Relations.

Furthermore, ministries have lost much of their central control as international relations have increasingly become part of everyone’s daily routine, rather than remaining as the diplomats’ exclusive domain. Thanks to the communications revolution, direct interactions between national actors are possible without necessarily channeling the messages through the MFAs. The latter have therefore had to deal with a diplomatic environment whose established rules, participants, and boundaries have been undermined by private or non-state actors.

While many of these developments take place on a large scale, foreign agencies in Europe must confront supplementary changes encouraged by the integration process.

In this framework, the EU has shaped the transformation of MFAs at the intertwined core and peripheral levels, affecting both organization of the ministries and patterns of representation.

The purpose of European foreign ministries in an increasingly integrated environment has been questioned as the relationship between MFAs (as well as between these and other national agencies) has been altered by a strong emphasis on coordination with the European Union. Since the 1986 Single European Act, MFAs have had to deal with the increasingly invasive presence of communitarian institutions, which has prompted significant modifications at all the levels of the members’ societies. Hence, national agencies have been obliged to cope with a growing number of European regulations and integration procedures, which have been reflected in the diplomatic structures from the mere establishment of desks in charge of EU affairs to a “cross-national collegial solidarity” between national delegates within the Comité des Representants Permanents (COREPER).

Although the majority of commentaries on EU external affairs have cast serious doubts on the possibility of an effective Common Foreign and Security Policy, the presence of supranational entities as the EU Commission has nonetheless been effective in shaping MFAs in this region. Foreign policy by (and within) the Union has undergone a legalization process, in which members have aligned much of their practices. To this extent, as many authors have thus far emphasized, the growth in explicit standards that regulate states’ behaviors – rules, regulations, directives and laws – is possibly the most visible manifestation of the institutionalization of co-operation across member states.

The legalization, far from being complete, is currently a “work in progress” that de facto shapes substantial parts of the members’ policies.

Furthermore, it can also be argued that the EU has transformed the practice of state26

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to-state mediation within the Union’s borders, fostering what Jozef Bàtora called a, “Change in diplomacy.” To this extent, the gradual development of new structures, procedures, and agendas did not affect the notion of diplomacy itself, but rather the exercise of it, stimulating, as one author reminds us, “[A] path-dependant adaptation congruent with the institutional identity,” of the states involved. Foreign ministries responded with different degrees of flexibility, influenced by their more or less manifest euro-scepticism.

Overall, the major effect of the Union’sregional activity has been a conspicuous increase in multilateral interactions coupled with a sensitive decrease in the exclusivity of their portfolios. While much of the diplomats’ activity now falls within the dominion of the EU Commission, they have also been bypassed by other ministries that deal directly with one another across borders. For instance, that an agreement on fisheries may be signed by the respective ministers of two members, in accordance with a European Court of Justice sentence, following EU standards.

Finally, the internal cooperation on some crucial matters as security, terrorism prevention, or migration has also shifted the decision-making process to the multilateral fora offered by the Union, where political collaboration has inspired several changes in the national legislations, the core of that process often described as Europeanization.

This trend has promoted a progressive subordination of intra-European foreign services to integrated and joint ones, converting “diplomatic” relations to technical ones.

Traditional bilateral diplomacy is subordinated and subject to a growing isomorphism, but is nonetheless not predestined to disappear, due to acquiring a more practical and less representative role. To this extent, although the EU has not managed to delineate a common foreign policy yet, it would be misleading to assert that its members (and their MFAs) have been impermeable to the pressures that result from the Union’s existence.

Rather, the EU has been progressively eroding traditional notions of foreign relations and forging a new internal diplomacy from within. ■

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CITY DIPLOMACY: GOVERNANCE BEYOND THE STATE

By Michele Acuto

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rbanization, like globalization, is a fundamental process that affects the present landscape of world affairs. Although it does not represent a novel force in history, it defines the human experience in the 21st century as never before.

For instance, if at the outset of the 20th century only one in ten used to live in cities, with London and Beijing representing the only two metropolises with more than one million inhabitants, nowadays half of the human population is settled within metropolitan areas. This momentous migration, boosted by a ten-fold multiplication of urban populations during the last ninety years, has resulted in a radical redesigning of most of the world’s geography.

Contemporary political relations are influenced not just by these processes of globalization and urbanization, but are defined and organized by the emergence of an “urban society” and the availability of global reach offered by artificial compression of time and space. No political, social, economic or cultural analysis is nowadays free from their effects, yet the vast majority of contemporary political analysts are reticent about the presence of ‘urban’ narratives in their publications. At best, the city is considered a target of top-down policies, or an implementer of governmental frameworks.

Biased by a still too state-centric approach to global issues, policymakers often forget the possibilities and the potential for effective governance that local governments have in the urban age. Globalization has reduced the state’s policy capacity, leaving space for the city’s strategic governance role. Cities, incapable of military action, are thus diplomatic 28

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actors that rely heavily on the power of association nested in coalition making and crossnational networking, which they themselves inspire through catalytic diplomacy.

The so-called “Climate Leadership Group” (C40) is illustrative of this. Launched in October 2005 through an initiative of London’s then-Mayor Ken Livingstone, the summit gathered 18 “large cities” led by the British capital with the intent of tackling climate change from below. Yet despite the almost systematic usage of the “from below” approach when dealing with the urban sphere, the case of global cities’ environmental governance certainly demonstrates that cities are far from being “below” any other institutional layer.

On the contrary, as the C40 example shows, local (urban) actors might be the agendasetters as much as, if not more than, states and international organizations.

With London acting as a catalyst, the group sought to exercise leadership in reducing emissions and stimulating both private and governmental action in this context. Likewise, building on the momentum developed at the summit and furthered in a four-mayor meeting a year later (known as M4), the coalition successfully started a long-term international collaboration on environmental governance, which expanded to a much wider membership now known as the Climate Leadership Group.

The framework illustrates the ability of cities to cut across the multiple layers of global governance by developing transnational linkages between local governments. Cities in this case have been able to constitute “groups of friends” such as in the case of the M4 cities (London, Berlin, Moscow, and Beijing), similar to those within the UN, as well as to interact with international bodies while bypassing their national hierarchies by reporting, for instance, to the UN Framework on Climate Change’s COP11 and MOP1 rounds in December of2005. As the then-Deputy Mayor of London highlighted in the first summit: “Leadership from national governments is crucial in tackling climate change, but when it comes to practical action on the ground cities are centre stage.”

The agency of the C40 has gone a long way from this initial rhetoric, demonstrating the ability of global cities such as London to catalyze international action. The Climate Leadership Group has, for instance, gathered the support of the Clinton Foundation’s by signing a partnership between the C40 and the Foundation’s Climate Initiative in August 2006. The C40 has also undertaken a series of issue-centred programmes including both a Ports Climate Conference and a Sustainable Airports initiative, as well as a three-year capacity building programme for mega-cities of the global south that was kick-started in February 2009 together with the World Bank.Indeed, as this case shows, global cities are not solely the targets of governance initiatives, but catalysts of political will and “norm entrepreneurs” of environmental regulation capable of connecting the local (domestic) sphere to the international.

Through their ability to develop and coordinate worldwide linkages, these global cities have considerable normative power and are capable of promoting it through advocacy networks and coalitions such as the C40. Indeed, as Yishai Blank pointed out, local governments are taking up roles within the global legal order as bearers of international rights, duties and powers, objects of international regulation, norms enforcers and, most importantly, “legal creatures” capable of meaningful participation in “international norm generation.” They are, to put it simply, sources of global governance beyond the state.

The “urban sphere” is capable of taking up political solutions that are, at least at an institutional level, similar to that of the governmental sphere. Yet, “the city” shows greater institutional flexibility and adaptability to issue-specific coalitions, possibly resulting from the highly functional basis of the urban as a mode of human aggregation, and the lower degree of formal institutionalization of political processes within city limits. Cities are already acting in a political and diplomatic sense much as states do, moving beyond the pecking order of international relations. If, as the debate on new forms of diplomacy APRIL 2014

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City Diplomacy: Governance Beyond the State (continued) tells us, the political actors most likely to become proficient in the management of globalization are those that show entrepreneurial, cosmopolitan and flexible qualities, cities might be a case in point in this venture.

Strongly linked with the facilitating functions and the influence of transnational networks between major urban settlements worldwide, the urban ability to formulate political will and gather resources has thus far been overlooked. As shown by the proliferation of organizations such as the Cities Alliance, the C40, or the United Cities and Local Governments (UCGL) Initiative, cities are also particularly prone to cooperation and pluralistic approaches. They are capable of facilitating exchanges of information and expertise across transnational networks, and of carrying out diplomacy vis-à-vis numerous political actors. This “City diplomacy” can be conceptualized as a process by which cities engage in political relations not just with their peers (other cities) but also other political institutions such as states or international organizations. Even if the political nature of cities were reduced to their municipal governments, the relations between these spheres of governance would most likely represent negotiated forms of social interaction that could be subsumed under such a definition.

Moreover, if we admit that globalization and urbanization are twin challenges for the contemporary urban age, global cities stand in the midst of such processes as key political spaces in which a solution has to be found. Global cities can – and do – reclaim such spaces with an active presence in the realms of global governance and international affairs.

The city can no longer be considered as the sole domain of technical sciences such as architecture; rather, it has to be appreciated for its rightful place in the structure of world politics. In response to this appeal, architectural pundit Rem Koolhaas has pointed out that we can now count on, “The first generation of architects that has had a direct experience of working in so many different urban systems at any one time.” It is time for the “architects” of international relations to forge a similar generation through a clear understanding of the urban as a source of political agency, and a dynamic participant in global affairs. ■

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UNDERSTANDING CRISIS DIPLOMACY

By Michele Acuto

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n a routine edition of CNN World News the phrase “international crisis” was used 18 times in 30 minutes. It was not September 12th, 2001, but a rather benign March 25th, 2010.

It has been used as a clearly defined term, as if it represents a universally accepted concept.

Yet although many scholars have endeavoured to construct a uniform conceptualization of “international crises” and the related “crisis diplomacy” throughout the post-Cold War period, a common definition is yet to be formed.

In the aftermath of the Cuban Missile crisis, René Albrecht-Carrié wrote after reviewing a survey of the current state of international affairs that normality in these latter is nothing, “But a relative condition that in our time means little more than the absence of, or the interval between, occasions of unusually sharp tension.” This assessment is perhaps even more accurate today than 45 years ago. So understood, normality is not just the interval amongst tensions, but also the regular flow of an international order pinpointed on the perpetration of shared practices and conventions.

Crisis diplomacy is, at the end of the day, about returning to this normality. Its task is to respond to credible threats with the aim of reinstating the habitual inertia of international processes. In this view, mediation may be conducted by international actors either as a response to a direct menace that presents a certain degree of surprise, or in the function of third-party. In the latter case, as shown in many studies by conflict management specialist Jonathan Wilkenfeld, negotiators can act in three different capacities: a communicator who facilitates the dialogue between the entities in crisis through non-coercive means, a manipulator of the parties towards a desired outcome, or a formulator of possible settlements. In any of these instances the players involved in crisis diplomacy seek to achieve cooperation that can only occur when they adjust their behaviours are APRIL 2014

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Understanding Crisis Diplomacy (continued) adjusted or compromised to some of the preferences of others.

In comparison with other types of diplomacy, the decision-making processes of this approach are more centralized, as foreign policy choices and final judgements are usually formulated at the highest level. Consequently, routine relations are often bypassed, whereas political authorities in charge communicate directly, as demonstrated by the increasing institutionalization of ‘hotlines’ between the heads-of-state during the Cold War or by the intensification of summitry in the current global financial crisis.

In a crisis environment, there are two predominant results of this centralization: a high degree of stress is put on a small number of players; while the ‘normal’ conduct of affairs becomes increasingly more politicized. For what concerns the former, it is fair to assert that mounting pressure on the decision makers is a spin-off result of the escalation of diplomatic tensions, as the actors have to deal with a higher-than-normal load, while having to manage limited options and time pressure. Crisis diplomacy does not take place as an alternative to the other types of political negotiation, but contemporaneously as a manner of reacting to impending harms. This burden is typically perceived as being borne by the highest ranks involved in the standoff, while in reality it is shared by the entire structure of the international actors that are drawn into the crisis. Although some routine activities are interrupted, most of the fundamental services and connections are maintained despite the circumstances.

A further characteristic of this type of diplomacy is the enhanced role that personal relations and individual judgment have in such atypical situations. Because of the centralization process, the number of decision-makers shrinks considerably, boosting the possibilities of misperceptions and controversial resolutions. As leading groups are minimized, they become highly criticisable both by their ‘constituencies’ and by external actors, because of the elevated recognisability of its members.

When this happens, the decision-makers’ effectiveness in handling the mediations is also dependant on their credibility. Regardless of the degree of direct involvement in the crisis, the leaders’ bargaining power will be contingent on the perceived support that they enjoy from their citizens. Hence, domestic politics will inevitably assume a crucial role in shaping the authority balance at the negotiating table, particularly when the stakes are high and methods of coercive diplomacy are employed. In this respect, strong domestic dissent casts serious doubts on the actors’ ability to carry out their threats, while undermining its representatives’ standing in relation to other negotiating parties. Diplomats may, as a result, be incapable of solving international tensions due to their perceived weakness, and their proposals may be ignored as their interlocutors face contradictory messages from a sound opposition. Moreover, crises might also freeze as some of the players involved expect executive changes in one (or more) among them, as it happens, or when a government loses its majority.

Overall, crisis diplomacy is a sporadic activity, and an ad hoc instrument to manage unexpected disruptive circumstances with the goal of diminishing international tensions and restoring the conditions in which routine relations can be carried out. Consequently, the goals of this type of mediation must be kept realistic and limited in order to be achieved, rather than aiming at systemic changes as ground breaking diplomacy does. Following a doctrine of restraint, those involved in these emergency negotiations should focus on the normalization of relations, so that the threats are lessened, and parts of the peace process can be devolved to the other types of diplomacy.

In sum, the fact that “crisis” appeared on air in the CNN’s World News report once every two minutes tells us that more and more events have global effects that can result in transnational tensions. In this sense, the task of crisis diplomacy is to tame disruptions to the normality of global relations amongst state actors, whichever they may be. ■ 32

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DISASTER DIPLOMACY

By Donna Roberson

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tsunami in Asia. An earthquake in Iran. A hurricane in the United States. It’s the ultimate reality television;thousands glued to their television sets or computers watching the latest disaster unfold.

In the last decade, 231 million people have been affected by natural disasters, according to Michael Renner and Zoe Chafe’s work “Beyond Disasters: Creating Opportunities for Peace” through the Worldwatch Institute of Washington, D.C. To be labeled a disaster an event must kill 10 people, affect 100, or require an emergency declaration or a call for international assistance. By that definition, 348 disasters on average have struck each year in the past decade.

Yet, only a few catch the international community’s attention and result in declarations of sympathy and offers of aid, sometimes even from countries in conflict, leading many to wonder: With the barriers down, are diplomats presented with a unique opportunity to create peace?

It seems possible, Chafe and Renner’s report arguest, that hardship can create goodwill and aid can create trust. “In some cases,” they wrote, “The destruction wrought by a disaster may be so great that reconstruction in conflict afflicted regions is able to proceed only with a ceasefire or peace agreement.”

It is certainly an idea that Ilan Kelman, post-doctoral researcher of disaster diplomacy and founder of disasterdiplomacy.org, finds plausible. He admits that when he began his research he did so with the idea that when disaster strikes enemies can make peace, but he instead found, “That hypothesis was quite naïve.”

“Politicians or diplomats often have higher priorities than humanitarian aid,” Kelman APRIL 2014

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Disaster Diplomacy (continued) said. In fact, it’s often what’s happening between countries when disaster strikes that creates peace. Disasters, in effect, offer a short-term influence. Non-disaster activities, he said, are the true instruments of peace. To prove this assertion, he cites the earthquakes that struck Turkey and Greece in 1999, killing 17,000 Turks and 7,000 Greeks. Although tensions were high, Greece immediately offered aid to Turkey, who was hit first. Later, Turkey returned the favor.

Yet, a closer examination of events reveals that Turkey and Greece had already begun secret negotiations two days before the first of the earthquakes struck, and Greece had already begun to support Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union. In fact, Kelman believes, the earthquake had a detrimental effect on Greece and Turkey’s tentative steps toward peace. “The earthquakes thrust that into the spotlight,” he said, putting pressure on diplomats to come up with visible results.

He cites a similar instance when Kashmir suffered and earthquake in 2006. India’s territory in Kashmir began cooperating with Pakistan’s territory to bring relief to the suffering region. Again, Kelman points out, there was already a bus service that had begun to cross the borders; a small, but important, collaboration between the two organizations.

Often, said Kelman, even the offer of aid can create tension. While the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations have repeatedly said that aid offered during a disaster should have no strings attached, Kelman pointed out, “Any disaster relief has strings attached.” This is particularly true when it is state-offered aid, rather than non-partisan civil society interventions.

He cited the U.S.’s wariness during the Hurricane Katrina disaster as an example.

While Iran, Cuba and Venezuela – whose governments that are historically at odds with the United States - offered aid, the U.S. was hesitant to acknowledge the offer. The government’s official policy had been that no offers of aid would be turned away, yet when these governments offered aid, the U.S. reacted with suspicion. “Often the enemy country reacts like a human being,” said Kelman, adding that once the offer of aid has been made, diplomats can’t help but wonder where the politics come in.

Dr. Jelle Zeilinga de Boer, professor of earth sciences at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and co-author of “Earthquakes and Human History”, agreed. He said a country’s history of offering aid could come into play, even in the middle of a disaster.

Part of the issue, he said, is that Cuba has often offered aid to African countries and, once there, subverted the government. So when it offered aid to the U.S. the “knee-jerk response” was simply “No, we don’t want them here.”

That same response often greets the United States’ offers of aid to other countries, observed Kelman, such as during the Iranian earthquake in 2003, when a high-level U.S. delegation was turned away at the Iranian border.

However, Kelman said, he does believe that disaster situations create windows of opportunities to generate peace, but they’re often badly handled. “Care is very much needed in disaster diplomacy,” Kelman said. Specifically, a simple, often violated rule is that those offering aid must also attempt to understand the culture of the disaster-stricken area. For example, some cultures see offers of aid from an enemy as a humiliation. “Power and might are not always appreciated by smaller players,” Kelman said. “A little prevention goes a long way.”

Zeilinga de Boer agreed that often cultural boundaries are overstepped, such as when western Europeans attempted to offer aid in Iran after the earthquake. While trying to help, male doctors often caused tensions by attempting to examine women in a culture that does not allow a woman to be viewed by a man other than her husband. However, if done with sensitivity, personal contact after disasters is important. “A lot of goodwill could come out of that type of connection,” he said.

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Kelman suggested that larger countries should show humility when offering aid as well as possess a sense of culture and the history of a conflict or disaster, rather than expect a rapid response to always provide the best solution towards a durable peace “It’s almost inevitable that it will fail.” He recommended using a disaster to begin a long-term peace process.

“Otherwise we end up with Band-Aid solutions.”

As with most diplomatic negotiations, timing is of the essence, said researcher Michael Renner. The 2004 tsunami that struck Asia resulted in vastly different outcomes for Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

With the Sumatra Aceh province fighting for liberation from Indonesia, said Renner, both sides had a sense that the conflict was a no-win situation. Renner said, when the tsunami struck, Aceh was under martial law, but the new Indonesian president recognizing a sense of exhaustion in the country, campaigned on the promise of creating peace. Similarly, those fighting for Aceh liberation were realizing they didn’t have enough international support to win the conflict, leaving them open to a peace deal. “Both sides realized that things definitely needed to change,” Renner said.

Sri Lanka, which had already come to a ceasefire, began wrangling over aid and tensions and conflict brought on by the tsunami actually broke the peace. “(Aid) became a real political football,” said Renner. Renner said that while it is tempting to try to find a pattern in disaster diplomacy, the success or failure of such attempts depend on the circumstances of the conflict and the type of disaster and can’t be looked at in “blueprint terms.”

“Earthquakes,” he said, often produce a sense of shock and a need to respond…

The opposing side is seen as victims who deserve sympathy.”

Meanwhile, floods are often seen as a seasonal event, rather than a sudden disaster.

Droughts, also, often receive little attention because they are a slow-onset disaster without a clear beginning or end. Furthermore, in situations of internal conflict, droughts may increase tensions as the people on opposing sides may be competing for scarce resources.

Renner said he believes drought played a hand in the increased tensions in the Darfur region of the Sudan.

Still, the “right” disaster at the right time can create an opportunity to make overtures and improve relationships, he said. “I think a disaster has to be of a certain size to produce any of these kinds of responses.”

Among other strategies, Renner and Chafe’s report recommends: › Integrating “conflict-sensitive” strategies into disaster relief plans. › Minimizing relief inequities between sides. › Analyzing and learning from past cases. › Raising awareness of the stresses in a disaster situation that can worsen conflicts. › Create plans for aid-sharing in disaster situations.

Dr. Zeilinga de Boer said he’d like to see the U.S. create an “Aid Army,” in which volunteers join and train as carpenters, electricians, and other personnel needed to rebuild a disaster-stricken region. This “army” could be deployed to help in disasters around the world and at the same time learn about different cultures and create personal relationships.

Kelman is hopeful for disaster diplomacy’s ability to continue to make strides. In fact, he’s currently investigating an 1880 cyclone in Samura. With three fleets ready to go to war with each other, the cyclone hit and a peace deal soon followed. Kelman is currently exploring whether there were secret peace negotiations at work, or if the disaster truly created the peace that followed.

Until he discovers a peace created solely by a disaster, Kelman offers this advice, “Always remember history. Always remember context. And try to deal with the immediate while acting for the long-term.” ■ APRIL 2014

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MEDICAL DIPLOMACY

By Rebecca Wexler

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s the Obama administration seeks to revamp America’s international reputation, the idea of global health diplomacy as a foreign policy tool is emerging with the power to both promote stability in conflict-ridden countries and redraw the country’s humanitarian face. Medical diplomacy, and more broadly global health diplomacy, taps into the unique and highly advanced medical capabilities of the United States, which can export medical care and personnel to post-conflict and post-disaster regions.

In an article published in the January issue of PloS Medicine, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Sabine Vaccine Institute President Dr. Peter Hotez called on the global health community to embrace global health diplomacy as a new way forward in combating terrorism and “captur[ing] the hearts and minds” of the international community. Using medicine to promote peace and stability is hardly a new concept. As early as the 16th century, Christian missionaries used medicine as part of their religious conversion efforts by building hospitals and healing the sick.

The comprehensive notion of public health diplomacy, however, gained increasing prominence during the Bush administration. While George W. Bush’s legacy will undoubtedly be marred by the war in Iraq, the administration’s bright spot will be the former president’s commitment to global health, and specifically HIV/AIDS. Created just five years ago, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has become the largest international health initiative in history, leveraging approximately $18.8 billion since 2003 to fund HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts. In working with partner governments, PEPFAR has treated more than 2.1 million people living in roughly 15 target countries. Other organizations like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have also stepped to the forefront of public health diplomacy.

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The link between health and internal stability is both empirically based and intuitive.

Healthy populations are able to work, cultivate food, and earn wages – all activities, which contribute to economic productivity and a functioning society. Conversely, disease is often born in conditions of poverty, festering in unsanitary sewage systems, overcrowded living quarters, and dilapidated housing structures. Disease not only takes advantage of poverty, but also promotes it, leaving people unable to work or care for themselves and loved ones.

Meanwhile, the failure of governments to provide basic necessities to their people like clean drinking water and medical care oftentimes sows internal and regional conflict. It is no coincidence that some of the world’s conflict zones—including Sudan, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine, and Sri Lanka—also bear disproportionate burdens of disease. For example, the DR Congo has one of the highest prevalences of malaria in the world, while the Sudan has one of highest rates of River Blindness globally.

Given this link, it is easy to conceive of medicine as a peacekeeping and stability tool that helps to both prevent conflict and assist in post-conflict reconstruction. Global health diplomacy can further play a role in both the short- and long-term.

In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, for example, the United States sent financial aid, medical personnel, and military units to the region in order to aid local hospitals in treating the influx of patients. U.S. units were also charged with mitigating the onslaught of disease and illness that often follow flooding and natural disasters. Despite predictions of cholera and malaria epidemics, on-the-ground medical teams were able to prevent major disease outbreaks, helping to stem a second wave of disasters.

The United States’ tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia–the world’s largest Muslim nation–significantly impacted Indonesians’ perceptions of the United States. According to a nationwide poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow, 65% of Indonesians expressed support for the United States in the wake of the tsunami compared with just 30% before the U.S. tsunami response. A similar poll conducted in nuclear-armed Pakistan after the 2005 earthquake indicates that U.S. favorability among Pakistanis doubled from roughly 23% to 46% following U.S. led post-disaster humanitarian assistance efforts. Writing in a 2005 editorial in the Boston Globe, Secretary Thompson noted, “America has the best chance to win the war on terror and defeat the terrorists by enhancing our medical and humanitarian assistance to vulnerable countries.”

In another example of how U.S. medical assistance can capture the hearts and minds of even the most hostile populations, the Department of Defense in 2003 spent $5 million to refurbish the Rabia Bahlki Women’s Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, where infant and maternal mortality rates were among the highest in the region. This investment in the health of women and children in a country where the Taliban’s strict gender rules prevented many women from receiving medical care in regular hospitals presented Afghans with firsthand experience of a new type of American intervention.

Moving away from a purely strategic perspective, it is evident that medical diplomacy presents the United States with the chance to reaffirm its commitment to humanitarianism and reawaken the spirit that once spawned the Peace Corps and USAID. In an interview with the Health Affairs, Secretary Thompson stressed, “What better way to knock down the hatred, the barriers of ethnic and religious groups that are afraid of America, and hate America, than to offer good medical policy and good health to these countries?”

Good health is a cross-cultural value that transcends religious, ethnic, and other demographic barriers. Thus far, however, it has been underutilized as a tool of diplomacy.

Civilians worldwide recognize the white and red Naval hospital ship the U.S.S. Mercy as it sails into port, outfitted with 62 patient wards, four operating rooms, vaccinations, radiology labs, and burn care. The U.S. government needs to augment this effort to develop interventions that signify that medical diplomacy is the wave of the future. ■ APRIL 2014

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DOLLAR DIPLOMACY REVISITED

By Ken Weisbrode

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ommercial diplomacy is as old as diplomacy itself. Some of the first treaties dealt with trade; some of the first “overseas” settlements were trading outposts; some of the greatest empires began as commercial enterprises.

It is customary to consider commercial diplomacy as subordinate to traditional “great power” relations and the grand narratives of war and peace. Yet, throughout most of human history, commercial interaction was the norm among people from different places.

The exchange of goods, markets, and the broader variety of commercial activity is a longstanding historical practice.

Today’s global economy, like its predecessors, is not self-governing. Norms, institutions, laws and treaties give it structure and standards. This has been true to such an extent that some optimists have argued intermittently since the 18th century that commerce can buttress peace. Trade is said to follow the flag, but it also happens the other way around.

So too with peace.

American proponents of this theory at the turn of the last century coined the phrase “dollar diplomacy” to describe it. This was distinct from the diplomacy of the dollar – that is, the international role of the U.S. economy. Rather, it meant that dollar, or peaceful, commercial diplomacy could supplant what was then known as gunboat diplomacy,

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widely referred to both then and now as power politics.

Alas, the first half of the 20th century disappointed many such optimists, but the second half renewed their faith. Western Europe led the way by demonstrating that economic cooperation from the bottom up could undergird peace. Free trade – a liberal mantra that survived from the 19th century – became the ruling doctrine of the latter 20th. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade evolved into the World Trade Organization, and today a wide varietyof bilateral and regional trade agreements crisscross the globe.

But trade does not offer a full picture. By the mid-1970s, international economic relations had reached a point of crisis with the collapse of the Bretton Woods Institutions and the gold-pegged dollar. It was at this moment that the leading economies of the West joined forces to remake the basis of what we now call global governance. The effort began humbly as informal talks in the library of the White House, hence its original name, “the Library Group”, but was since resuscitated and reinvented as the G-5, and later G-7 “summits” of industrialized nations. Later this became the G-8, and is now the G-20 with additional permanent guest states.

The agenda of these gatherings is now so broad, and the numbers of attendees so large, that the institution looms over its modest beginning. Certainly the meetings bear little resemblance to their 1970s predecessors, although even by the end of that decade the summits required professional “sherpas” to guide the way.

It is on these lower levels of interaction – where sherpas and deputies and their non-governmental counterparts dwell – that global governance, or what used to be called world order, is hammered out and negotiated. The work can be tedious, but the alternative to dollar diplomacy, and to peace, is in nobody’s best interest. ■

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DIPLOMACY OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

By Mark C. Partridge

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he failing of AIG, Merrill Lynch, and HBOS in quick succession gripped headlines around the world in 2008. These events led to increased government intervention as officials searched desperately for a way to contain the toxic mortgage-backed securities that infected even the strongest institutions.

The U.S. government has alternately saved companies deemed too large to fail, let others fall on their swords, before moving back to saving institutions. With the markets continuing to fall at drastic rates, the Bush Administration evidently saw the limitations of addressing the problems of individual firms.

Changing tack, then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke – himself an expert on finance in the 1920s and ‘30s – sought to address the underlying issue by using at least $700 billion in public funds to buy troubled assets from private companies. With the increasing government intervention out of Washington, many wrote Miltonian economics obituaries. One Republican senator lamented: “The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America.”

There was a clear shift to a more hands-on approach to managing markets, but there were also limits to how far U.S. officials are willing to go. For example, Bush

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Administration officials were quick to quell calls for limits on executive pay. Such intrusive measures were designed to have limited life spans, such as p lans to buy up securities that were to run for two years. Similarly, the loans issued to AIG had a twoyear span. These plans were intended to be short-term antidotes rather than a long-term regulatory structure.

The need for these extraordinary measures became clear as confidence eroded and the crisis spread into other areas of the economy, domestically and abroad. One of the major issues with these assets is that many are owned by foreign companies. Thus, Secretary Paulson indicated that these funds would go towards both domestic and foreign financial institutions. “If a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution,” the Treasury Secretary said on a morning news program.

The same can be said of American companies operating abroad. The economic troubles cost New York at least 11,000 banking jobs, and London’s financial district suffered to the tune of an estimated 20,000 lost jobs. Even China, which enjoyed growth of at least 10% since 2003, cut interest rates to maintain growth. With economic malaise, inflation, and rising unemployment threatening the U.S. and global economies, it is little surprise that Washington is stepping into the fray.

The result has been more coordinated action between governments. Central banks around the world were prompted to release funds in concert to stabilize markets. Billions in public funds have flooded the marketplace to keep liquidity afloat. Regulators in Australia, Canada, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the U.S. placed moratoriums on shortselling, a process by which investors bet that a stock will fall. Many observers believed that speculators and short-sellers artificially drove down the stock prices, bringing financial giants to their knees.

The U.S. has long been the Mecca of deregulation and free trade. The Bush Administration is not the group that will dramatically change the country’s economic course. It has rigidly stuck to the principles of tax cuts and a hands-off approach to the market for years—despite eschewing the third pillar: fiscal conservatism. Instead of a dramatic shift in ideology, these steps are strongly pragmatic moves to combat a unique challenge.

Free markets have not been killed by this crisis, yet, but its fate remains somewhat in limbo, even after the restorative measures taken by the subsequent Obama administration. ■

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UN-ORDAINED DIPLOMATS

By John Bavoso

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theme which seems to constantly reemerge, yet never resolve itself, is that of celebrities and national icons making political declarations about a parties and issues or coming down on one side of a heated debate. The commentary seems to fall mainly into one of two camps: those who feel that celebrities are entitled to use their fame in the promotion of causes and, as human beings, are entitled to their own opinions, or those who feel that cultural icons should more or less “shut up and sing”, and that artists and famous personalities should stay out of affairs which they are not well-versed in and which may be highly divisive and sensitive.

When celebrities, artists, and athletes become de facto diplomats in the international realm, these concerns become magnified and complex. One of the reasons for this is that as both individuals and citizens of a particular nation, a celebrity in the international community not only represents himself or herself, but may also embody the identity of their home country – for better or worse – in the eyes of both the sending and receiving nations.

The New York Philharmonic’s historic visit to North Korea in early 2008 sparked a lively debate over the merits and pitfalls of musical diplomacy. While many saw the visit as a chance to build cultural bridges between two countries that are in conflict, others saw a willingness to be friendly with a regime accused of grievous human rights abuses.

This was a particularly divisive course of action with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing approaching, an event during which both open international exchanges and strong feelings of nationalistic pride were simultaneously prevalent, and the issue of understanding the power of unofficial ambassadors became more relevant.

American history alone provides a wealth of examples of cultural icons serving as unofficial diplomats. Bobby Fischer’s defeat of defending World Chess Champion Boris

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Spassky in 1972 serves as an interesting example of how a chess match evolved into a diplomatic battle, and then a diplomatic victory. Fischer’s win was seen as a major victory for the United States over the Soviet Union during the Cold War. When he competed in a rematch against Spassky in 1992 in Yugoslavia, however, he came into conflict with the U.S. Government, which saw his participation as a violation of the UN’s embargo of the country. As a result, Fischer became an expatriate, never to live in the U.S. again.

This example highlights the difficulty in recognizing celebrities as unofficial diplomats: since no real connection to the state exists, it becomes challenging to determine where state-sponsored action ends and individual priorities and volitions take over. Whether or not the actions of individuals are attributable to a state is a fundamental consideration in international law. The matter is complicated further by the fact that states are generally more than happy to be associated with such figures as Fischer when it engenders national prestige, yet are quick to create distance when personal and national interests diverge.

The lines were blurred even further in the case of the 1972 World Championship because the Soviet participants were subsidized by their government, further causing them to personify their sending state.

Sometimes a public figure can serve as a diplomat for more than just their home country.

This was famously the case with Jesse Owens, who shattered expectations during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Nazi Germany by winning four gold medals in track and field events. While on the surface it may seem like a triumphant moment for the United States over a future adversary and a setback for Hitler’s public display of German superiority, it was Owens’ racial identity, which ultimately made his story so important. In fact, Owens made very public statements to distance himself from the United States government and famously announced that, “Hitler didn’t snub me—it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.” It wasn’t until 1955 that Dwight Eisenhower belatedly bestowed upon Owens the title “Ambassador of Sports.”

While the government and the news media saw an opportunity to portray a diverse American team being shunned by a racist Germany, in many ways the opposite was true.

Owens was frequently asked for autographs by Germans in the street, was able to stay in a racially-mixed hotel (unlike in the United States), and when the media tried to say that Hitler snubbed him because of his race, Owens replied, “When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany.” Clearly, the United States wasn’t looking for any American to defend or validate the Nazi regime on the global stage at that time.

The inherent l nature of being an unofficial diplomat makes things more complicated.

As an individual, one may not always wish to be viewed as a representative of his or her nation, but only as a single human being. Because of this, the priorities and agenda of a nation and of an individual understandably do not always mesh. Identities are always multi-faceted, and when the global community is involved as spectators and critics; things often have a way of becoming even more complicated.

This still begs the question whether this issue just a moot point, anyway? As the world becomes more and more globalized and individuals have morphed into empires, is one’s nationality even at the forefront of his or her identity anymore? As China prepared itself to impress the world and validate its superpower aspirations through the 2008 Olympics, individual athletes have preemptively stated that they would not compete in the games given China’s human rights record. Similarly, athletes from traditionally excluded groups are now being charged with representing their nationality and their group, as well as themselves as individuals. As we saw in the 2008 games and thereafter, one thing is for sure: recent events have provided interesting case studies of the debate over un-ordained diplomats and their relationships with their home and host nations. ■ APRIL 2014

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THE ‘FINE ART’ OF DIPLOMACY

By John Bavoso

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n October of 2007 I wrote a piece detailing the impact that a South African play was having through attempts to heal post-conflict areas around the globe. While this project was lauded for its unique and innovative approach to unifying conflict-torn regions around the world, more often than not the intersection of Fine Art and international politics and diplomacy is overlooked. While the old cliché about music being the world’s universal language may be a bit simplistic, one should not underestimate the power that artistic expressions can have in bridging political divides and overcoming cultural differences in ways that even the most skilled diplomats often cannot.

While the diplomatic power of the Arts may often go unnoticed the majority of the time by those in the diplomatic community, occasionally an event comes along which makes even the most hardened of political strategists sit up and take notice. In early 2008, the New York Philharmonic made news with its landmark visit to North Korea. During its two day stay in the communist state the NY Phil offered tutorials and musical lessons, were treated to exclusive performances of traditional North Korean dance and song, and ended its trip with a performance of Antonin Dvorak’s New World symphony and George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. While the visit of America’s oldest orchestra to North Korea is certainly a major event in musical history and the group’s own director denies any motivations for the event beyond the artistic, the press and political pundits have

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been more focused on the potential political implications of music-as-diplomacy.

American orchestras have a long history of playing – and being well-received – in countries whose diplomatic ties to the United States could at best be described as “strained.” In 1956, during the Cold War, the Boston Symphony Orchestra toured the Soviet Union; the NY Philharmonic played in Peru in 1958 when American politicians were not popular; and the Philadelphia Orchestra visited China in 1973, making its members some of the first Americans to enter the country following the Communist Revolution. While it was clear that American musicians were more readily accepted and welcomed than their governmental counterparts, did these instances of cultural exchange have any lasting positive impact on diplomatic relations between the United States and the receiving countries?

Many commentators have pointed out that the NY Philharmonic’s performance in Pyongyang was hardly a free and open cultural exchange. The members of the orchestra were not allowed to mingle with ordinary citizens or travel without a North Korean guide, Kim Jong Il backed out of attending the performance at the last minute and, while the concert was aired on television, the state-run newspaper conspicuously avoided mentioning the American orchestra’s visit at all.

Christopher Hitchens, columnist for Vanity Fair and Slate wasvery critical of the Pyongyang regime and the United States’ policy of diplomacy. He wrote of the humanitarian crisis in the isolated country, “North Korea is, in fact, a slave state in the true meaning of the word. Everybody within its borders is forced to toil in famine conditions for the members of a dynastic crime family.When runaway slaves are caught, fleeing across frozen rivers to the grim and inhospitable border provinces of China, they have been known to be led back in coffles, with wire threaded through their noses or collarbones, before being handed over to the punishment system.”

Even the Human Rights Envoy Jay Lefkowitz was critical of diplomatic engagement with North Korea. As Hitchens explained, Lefkowitz has said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute that “The State Department’s insistence on ‘diplomacy,’ had yielded nothing but another round of stalling and obfuscation from Pyongyang on the weapons issue. It was time, he concluded, that the United States ‘should consider a new approach’ to this longstanding impasse.”

But while this historic cultural exchange may not have brought about an immediate end to hostilities between the United States and North Korea or an end to human suffering in North Korea, there was a clear impact of both a symbolic and long-term nature. The opening of the concert provided an interesting embodiment of the aims and strengths inherent in using music as a diplomatic tool.

The NY Philharmonic’s musical director Lorin Maazel, speaks seven languages but does not know Korean. He refused to use a translator for his opening remarks, and instead composed a brief orchestral piece to be played during his speech, which reflected musically the emotions he was conveying verbally. It was a poetic demonstration of music succeeding where language failed.

In an example of popular music following on the heels of classical, it was reported that Eric Clapton was soon thereafter invited to perform in Pyongyang as well, making him the first Western rock star to receive such an honor. While even the guitar skills of Clapton may not be enough to settle disputes between the international community and North Korea over nuclear, political, and humanitarian issues, it hopefully represents the beginning of a process. As Maazel said in an interview at the time, “We may have been instrumental in opening a little door.” The hope is that with each subsequent cultural exchange the door will open a little more, until it’s wide enough for diplomats to walk right through. ■ APRIL 2014

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THE DIPLOMATIC WOMAN

By Michael B. Huang In reading Leo Tolstoy’s epic work War and Peace, a clear demarcation becomes apparent.

War revolves around men, while the crux of peace is women. Women socialize and emote, consumed by issues of love, while men negotiate the landscape of warfare. Bellicosity is in a man’s blood, it seems, while women navigate society with a far more humane comportment.

War and Peace isn’t necessarily centered on the distinctions between men and women, but its survey of early 19th century Russian society and the grand events of war that affect it encapsulate a certain essence about the traditional roles of men and women in society. While it depicts a specific Victorian gender ideology, War and Peace’s strict gender roles still typify modern stereotypes about male and female attitudes toward life. Women take care, while men take action.

What does this mean for diplomacy? In a world still run predominantly by men, are diplomatic relations nowadays predicated more on aggression than they would be if more women worked as ambassadors and diplomats? As scholar Francis Fukuyama once posited, a greater feminization of government might result in a different kind of diplomacy. “As women gain power… [countries] should become less aggressive, adventurous, competitive, and violent,” Fukuyama wrote in a 1998 article in Foreign Affairs.

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Fukuyama’s argument is that government would benefit from women’s less overtly competitive, divisive, and aggressive nature. While there are always exceptions to the rule, scholars ranging from primatologists to psychologists to evolutionary biologists have backed the idea that physical and verbal aggression in males is an innate trait. Though culture does play a major role in developing gender roles, an early 1980’s study by Stanford psychologists Dr. Eleanor Maccoby and Dr. Carol Jacklin confirmed that males are more aggressive across the entire spectrum of societies. While this aggression doesn’t necessarily extend to assertiveness or competitiveness – these two traits are more culturally inculcated than biologically predetermined – it does lay the basis for male interaction. The conclusion,

by Fukuyama and feminist scholarship on international politics, is that a male-dominated world results in a superfluously aggressive international system.

The hypothesis, therefore, is that a greater female presence in government might temper the more aggressive male slant that currently exists. This is because the idea of male aggression extends to how men and women negotiate. That is, men tend to see negotiation as a competition of wills, while women tend to value the sense of community that comes from working with another negotiator by searching for common interests.

Consequently, women are more likely to pay attention to tacit clues indicating how well negotiations are proceeding, while men focus more on the task to be resolved, according to Psychology Today.

Furthermore, neurological research has found that innate differences between male and female brains also contribute to a contrast in negotiating styles. Females generally have a greater ability to empathize, while males are better at systemizing. As such, women are better able to see the broader historical context of a negotiation, as they are more attuned to alternate sides of an argument. Men, by systemizing issues, see them far more myopically. While this allows them great concentration and focus in dealing with an issue, it sometimes limits their ability to see the broader picture.

The progress toward parity in diplomacy has been slow. While Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice have brought equality to the top of diplomacy, the numbers for the U.S. diplomatic forces still lag behind. In 2006, women held only one-third of all ambassadorships, with all major ambassadorial assignments being given almost exclusively to males. However, women have been entering the Foreign Service at a faster rate than men in recent years. Of the 387 new FSOs enrolled at the Foreign Service Institute in 2006, 215 were women, 172 men.

Countries not normally recognized for gender parity are also improving their numbers of female diplomats. According to the Jakarta Post, nearly 25% of Indonesia’s diplomatic corps are women. While this is not full parity (particularly if one notes that only 9% of ambassadors and chiefs of mission are women), 47% of new recruits in 2006 were women. This brings hope for a changing diplomacy.

The statistics elsewhere are a mixed bag. Though generally recognized as a leader in the Middle East for women’s rights, women comprise only 10% of the diplomatic corps in the United Arab Emirates. Similar to the U.S., 35% of Diplomatic Services in the British Foreign Office are women.

While these numbers show that women can succeed in a male-dominated society, one might also ask: do only women with the traits of men succeed? One might point to examples such as Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, and Golda Meir as women who succeeded by taking aggressive stances. Much has been said about Hillary Clinton’s fight to hide any stereotypical female “weakness” with that criticism that she has attempted to show her strength and resolutionby taking more hawkish stances.

As Ambassador of Israel to Russia Anna Azari once said, “What is important is not the gender, but the brains.” As gender equality increases, women feel less inclined to adopt APRIL 2014

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The Diplomatic Woman (continued) male posturing in order to succeed. This may be a good thing, as research has shown that female managers who are seen as unkind, insensitive, and unaware of other’s feelings are judged to be worse bosses, even though men who exhibit the same qualities are not, according to research in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology.

Professor Kristin Byron notes in her research that, “It seems female managers may be expected to be sensitive to others’ emotions and to demonstrate this sensitivity by providing emotional support. Because of this, female managers’ job performance is judged on them being understanding, kind, supportive, and sensitive.” She continued, “In contrast, this is not the basis to evaluate the performance of male managers. It is far more important for male managers, and men, in general, to be seen as analytical, logical, and good at reasoning than showing care and concern for others.”

Applying this logic to success in the field of diplomacy, women should utilize their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses instead of taking aggressive stances in negotiation. They will, in turn, complement traditionally masculine approaches to negotiation.

Will this cause a collision between the worlds of War and Peace? One would hope not.

Fukuyama’s idea of tempered, peaceful governance through feminization is an optimistic one. Its reality remains to be seen. ■

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EULOGY TO PAPAL DIPLOMACY

By Jon Haron-Feiertag

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here was a time when the Pope was the single most powerful man of Europe.

In years past, the power of Rome’s Bishop was not confined to the realm of ecclesiastical affairs, but extended into the temporal world as well. By the authority of his pontificate and the prowess of his diplomatic corps, the Pope imposed his will on the politics of Europe, arbitrated between princes, and made and unmade kings. It was Pope Innocent III who ruled as suzerain over the kings of Aragon, Bohemia, England, and Portugal. By his influence he reconciled France to Denmark, and resisted the election of a Holy Roman Emperor while forcing upon the Germans his own pick instead.

In the past, , the papacy was led by statesmen of matchless ability. Some of the greatest triumphs in the history of diplomacy were the exploits of popes. Most famous, and perhaps most deserving, were the celebrated maneuvers of Alexander VI—forever memorialized by Machiavelli in his famous treatise to Prince Lorenzo di Medici. There, in cunning detail, Machiavelli describes how Alexander defied and repulsed the French invasion of Italy. In so doing he not only preserved the independence of the Papal States, but also established in Italy a status quo post bellum that endured in its essentials for more than three and a half centuries.

How things have changed. Where has this august papacy gone? To what depths has it descended? Once so powerful, once at the juncture of all royal intercourse, once the APRIL 2014

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Eulogy to Papal Diplomacy (continued) dictator of kings, the most coveted position of great ambitions—the papacy is now a feeble remnant of its former self. Even the Ottomans, who were despoiled of their Empire, managed to save the Turkish homeland and resist Greek and Italian encroachment. The House of Hapsburg has since passed, but at least Vienna still rules as sovereign over its own.

The Papal States, on the other hand, are gone and papal rule entirely vanquished.

Undone not only by schisms, infighting, and mistakes of all kinds; it has been the failure of diplomacy chiefly which has compelled the retreat of the papal sovereign into its tiny cloister, barred within the walls of Vatican City, brooding, in an area smaller than the state of Monaco. What ignominy. The failure of papal diplomacy over the past several hundred years can be attributed to several things, but two reasons in particular should be noted: pride and stupidity.

Pride, the saying goes, is the scourge of great minds. The same might be true for great sovereigns. But among popes it was not always so. Recall Gregory II and his diplomacy between the Byzantine emperor and the king of Lombardi. There, caught between the two vying powers, he deftly pivoted to assure one and make peace with the other. The Pope was powerful, but he would not jeopardize his rule for titular aggrandizement, and was happy to acknowledge his fidelity to the emperor as tradition required.

Compare this episode with Leo X who casually dispensed indulgences and blithely ignored the recriminations that followed, such as it did with Martin Luther. Or Clement VII, Leo’s younger brother, who refused to deal with Henry VIII of England on the terms of his marriage annulment. For his stubborn hubris he lost permanently the allegiance of the English King to the papal establishment, and created a powerful sanctuary for Lutheran voices.

Then there was the inane diplomacy of Pius IX. Pius, who championed the nationalism of the Italian people, who favored reform of the politics, and who was well positioned to lead the peninsula to reunification, yet he still found a way to make enemies of everybody involved. By a sequence of disastrous decisions, choices which couldn’t have been more dreadfully selected if by design, the Pope found himself exactly opposed to the same movement he first championed. And when the French would protect no longer him from the Italian nationalists because of his blunders, they relieved the Pope of his rule.

The more recent diplomacy of John Paul II represents the most dramatic departure from this tradition of ailing statecraft. His effort to broaden Rome’s message to truly ecumenical proportions and assume humanitarian causes marked a new course for papal endeavors. But as moral or uplifting as work of this type might seem, it promises no satisfaction for irredentist ambition. Emulation of Gandhi or Mother Theresa make for good publicity, and provide partial amends perhaps for the internment of Galileo or the persecution of heretics, but they are no salve for the sores that disease the papacy.

One can see how weak the papacy has become when the only attention it draws is a fuss over a papal gaffe, such as the pardon of holocaust-denying bishops, or the meaning of a medieval quote regarding Mohammad. “Show me just what Mohammad brought that was new,” Pope Benedict XVI recited from the speech of a Byzantine emperor, “And there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Much ado…

Probably. But when the Pope must be explained rather than exalted, it is humiliating— not because it is about so much, but because it is about so little. The papacy has been reduced to it, and what’s left provides not even the faintest glimmer of hope that the pontiff’s authority will ever be restored.

Papal diplomacy is dead. May it rest in peace. ■ 50

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