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The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

GETTING DOWN…
DEC 5, 2007 - 11:11AM PDT
Posted by Daryl Copeland
All posts by this author

"There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it." Lord Acton Notwithstanding a conviction still popular in certain circles to the effect that diplomacy is a special calling or vocation, there is nothing sanctified about it. To cope with the myriad requirements of effective practice in the 21st century, diplomats have to chill out and loosen up. While there will always be a place for confidential negotiations and formal exchanges, globalization has caused the centre of diplomatic gravity to shift out of the chancellery and into the street. Very often, this will mean going retail, and, more particularly, taking diplomacy public, swimming like a fish in the sea of the people rather than flopping around like a fish out of water. The transformed international security environment, among other things, requires no less. Pedigree, decorum, set piece exchanges and credentialism won't cut it here; experience as a world traveller is likely to get you much further ahead than a stack of ivy league degrees.. The requisite qualities of today's diplomat include a critical consciousness and inquiring mind; an appreciation of diversity and taste for adventure; an enterprising spirit and the courage of one's convictions. In the memorable words of my colleague Chris Westdal: brains, spine and stomach. As a networker and knowledge worker, the public diplomat becomes an agile agent with access to critical information sources, navigating pathways of influence which others can't chart or manoeuvre through. Boring deep into the interstices of power or operating unconventionally, often outside of their traditional metropolitan comfort zones, diplomats, through dialogue, can connect directly with the proximate drivers of insecurity - anger, resentment, humiliation, alienation. In this way insights can be gained into the possible actions and potential consequences of those harbouring such feelings. The implications for intelligence collection are profound. And the domination of information flows, or data dumping, will never substitute for using communications as an interactive social platform upon which to construct relations based on confidence, trust and respect. In the words of my friend and former diplomat Francois Taschereau, now Director General of the Montreal office of Edelman PR: "The name of the game today is about giving up control, sharing, exercising transparency to create conversations around subjects of mutual interest. Being at the centre of a conversation is what enables one to drive an agenda." Public diplomats use the tools and tactics of public relations - a commitment to continuing conversation, the identification of shared objectives and relationship building - to connect with populations at both the mass and elite levels. Practitioners count on the effective use of networking and advocacy - as opposed, for instance, to a demarche at the foreign ministry followed up by a diplomatic note - to shape public opinion and in so doing help to move host governments towards desired ends. Public diplomacy, then, is most effective when meaningful exchange finds demonstrable expression in policy development and changed behaviour. In other words, PD works when the feedback loop is…... FULL TEXT
 
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Read Comments:

François Taschereau on December 9, 2007 @ 5:03 pm:
You are right, Daryl, today's diplomacy is about participating in conversations with a point of view and an objective in mind, reaching out to all stakeholders to listen, learn, interface and co-achieve concrete results.

Caroline Jaine on February 27, 2008 @ 12:35 pm:
The future of diplomacy is an an ambitious order indeed and radical change is needed all around. The catch up game with society and technology is not one that central governments are traditionally good at, so I anticipate (and have bitter experience of this in Iraq) that it will be too little too late. Incredibly, there is such little investment in foreign policy communication compared to say, domestic policy and erm.....election campaigns. Like you say, without a strategic approach to communicating embedded at the policy forming stage the job gets tougher.

Incidently, I love the fish analogy, although I could liken some I know to short sighted canibal guppies!

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