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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.
THE SPECTRUM OF SPECTRUMS: A REVIEW OF THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS POSITIONING SPECTRUM
SEP 26, 2008 - 10:34AM PDT
Posted by Ali Fisher
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John Worne’s International Relations Positioning Spectrum (IRPS), and Nick Cull’s response provide interesting perspectives on the Cultural Relations / Public Diplomacy ‘divide’ and how work in the field is to be articulated. The IRPS appears a useful tool at the national level to help mediate in interdepartmental turf wars. However, the IRPS contains national peculiarities, specifically the difficulty the British Council faces in articulating its position, making it unlikely to become transferable internationally. This is best divided into two sections, first discussing the spectrum itself and second how this reflects the difficulty of articulating the position of the British Council. The IRPS The spectrum between aid and power, as Nick Cull has already commented is very closely analogous to the carrot and stick metaphor. This effectively means that the business of influence is something that is done to other people. It remains in the ‘power over’ school of thought, leaving little room for empowerment; providing the means through which others have the ‘power to’. As the British Council has been heavily engaged in education, along with providing assistance to non-violent elements of the anti-apartheid movement, it would be odd if the spectrum lacked elements which could be considered empowerment. Mutuality, listening, and facilitation do appear on the IRPS, but in the middle. Conceptually this means that the process of exchange is placed between being the recipient of messages and the recipient of financial aid. While this means engagement is observed, the emphasis is clearly placed on different methods of projection. As Nick Cull commented a more appropriate spectrum would run: Listening - facilitation - exchange - cultural diplomacy - broadcasting – advocacy. This spectrum frames the relationship with foreign publics from at one extreme an emphasis on projection to, at the other extreme, an emphasis on reception. Genuine exchange, reciprocity and mutuality logically sit at the midpoint between listening and telling. Other variations in emphasis can then exist in relation to these points. Fundamentally this approach drives at expanding the thinking about Public Diplomacy beyond telling the ‘other’ what they should be doing (or advocating a particular policy). It argues for a consideration of a full range of options; this has the potential to create engagement that empowers both sides to find new approaches to the challenges that face them, while maintaining the recognition that in some situations projection / advocacy is the required response. The IRPS engages with many of these points but in a way that buries the relationship with the ‘other’ and gives primacy to considering the actions of the producer. This creates a centralised approach in which the Public Diplomacy actor decides what will happen and only then engages with the outside world. This is reminiscent of Eric Raymond’s ‘Cathedral.’ I’ve discussed elsewhere the importance of the alternative open-source approach and the value of considering dispersed networks, but suffice it to write here, the future of Public Diplomacy will be in considering all the approaches, and selecting the appropriate option for the given context rather than…... FULL TEXT
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