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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.

PD AS GLOBAL THERAPY: CAN THE FAMILY OF NATIONS GET ALONG?
MAY 7, 2009 - 2:07PM PST
Posted by Rob Asghar
All posts by this author

The nascent Obama era has captured the imagination of people everywhere who believe that the foundational aspects of international relations involve human, not economic, interests, and that those interests involve healthy dialogue. That has led to a pushback from those who suspect that Obama is, well, a wimp. The latter view was captured recently in a Wall Street Journal commentary by Josef Joffe, a German-born fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. The passage that most riveted me was his conclusion, in which he tossed scalding abuse on the approach Obama has used in recent weeks: Conflict between states is made from sterner stuff than bad manners or bad vibes, past grievances or imaginary fears. International politics is neither psychiatry nor a set of "see me, feel me" encounter sessions. It is about power and position, about preventing injury and protecting interests. Love and friendship move people, not nations. I ended up offering a lengthy response to Joffe’s words in a piece for The Huffington Post, in which I employed as my rebuttal some of Joffe’s own past words that indicated a bit more respect for issues within the realm of public diplomacy. Yet I believe that the thinking articulated by Joffe in the Journal is pernicious, pervasive, almost eternal in its scope. It prompted me to ask questions about collective human behavior that are implicit in anthropology, sociology, and culture – but especially in basic human psychology. I discussed the relevance of psychology to PD with Joanne Weidman, a family therapist based in Pasadena, California. "I think it’d be extremely helpful for people involved in global issues to have some basic understanding of family process and family systems theory, " Weidman told me. I find myself in agreement. Don’t the essential dynamics of families and early development set the stage for how we perceive tribal, national and global threats years later? Isn’t good public diplomacy, in this way, similar to being a family therapist (for a really, really large family)? Don’t the world’s citizenries represent the full range of family possibilities, from the stern father to the embittered and ignored middle child, to coalitions that assert or reject parental authority? Those who study hard power, and who roll their eyes at the concept of soft power, often seem impatient with concepts such as dialogue, understanding and empowerment. That is "sissy talk, " in a nutshell. In fact, all talk is sissyish to them, except for blunt expressions of "our" interest and clear threats to make rivals back down. At the international level, just as at the family level, these are the people who are currently in charge or who intend imminently to take charge. But they are not the people who can reduce conflict or violence, as they are convinced that conflict can only be reduced when they get their way. They mock the notion that "see me, feel me" encounters can offer a better way at any level of life, because they are quite threatened by what that can mean…... FULL TEXT
 
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Read Comments:

A. Rima Tatevossian on May 8, 2009 @ 9:07 am:
Thank you for this post. Whether we agree with every decision President Obama makes, he does embody the much needed global perspective that respects plurality and dialogue, which is the way to move forward in this new century. It's not about being 'touchy feely' as the critics contend, it is about approaching, as you put it, the global family system in a constructive (instead of destructive) manner.

Debbie Trent on May 10, 2009 @ 6:46 am:
This is an important dialogue. Thanks much for initiating it. My research is on public diplomacy as government-citizen relations. My framing of public diplomacy is as a community of citizens inside and outside government who work on or are otherwise engaged/interested in public diplomacy policy and programs. I see your comparison of PD with family systems and therapy as analogous to the framing of PD as government-citizen relations. Sharing power is central to both framings. I look forward to further dialogue!

Rob Asghar on May 11, 2009 @ 10:04 am:
Debbie and A. Rima -- thank you for your comments, which I agree with. Taking a constructive approach definitely need not be dismissed as touchy-feely! And Debbie, I think your PD approach is great!

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