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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.
WHY IT’S HARDER FOR GOVERNMENTS
OCT 15, 2008 - 10:39AM PST
Posted by John Worne
All posts by this author
In today's 24/7 news environment, governments have it hard. In my experience, working at the centre of UK government in the Cabinet Office, I found that government has to know its position on everything and be able to articulate it in a sound bite. You have to be either 'for' or 'against' any proposition, policy proposal or idea. You cannot be equivocal; you cannot have a nuanced view. If it's a significant policy or issue, then you have to be crystal clear. When government isn't clear, the media pursue, challenge and provoke you in 24 hour news cycles until you are clear. If you can't offer clarification- on a number, a position or who's to blame - within two news cycles of about 36 hours, your job as a politician is on the line. That certainly focuses minds but can also narrow perspectives. British Governments, like US Administrations, are also political constructs. They are generally Labour or Conservative like US Administrations are Democrat or Republican. This means governments have ideology. They probably have less ideology these days than in the past (although the global financial crisis might change that), but they have beliefs which are anchored somewhere on the spectrum of views in the society they represent. Ideology means it’s hard for governments to reflect the diversity of views of a whole society. A central tenet for liberal democracies is to protect free speech and the freedom to hold different beliefs. Part of the problem for governments is that they are largely denied this ability. Governments can't have a range of views or a variety of beliefs - they have to know what they stand for, and be for or against absolutely everything. This is what makes two-way public diplomacy hard for governments. Genuine two-way engagement - or cultural relations - works by putting people together. If you take British people and have them talk with Americans, they'll find a lot that’s positive about which to agree. Take Brits and put them with Afghans, Iranians, or Zimbabweans, and they'll have things in common too. Our Governments can find it harder to engage in such dialogue. At the British Council, we find that at a people-to-people level pretty much everyone has something they can agree on – as well as much they won't. The advantage of cultural relations through an independent body is that you can connect people, exchange views and find common ground in a way that's hard for a direct government agency. Of course, we have to be strategically aligned with our government, but we can do and say and listen to things which would be hard for a government department. We get to go places government can't. When I was in government, I often found myself sympathising with the views of another; but, if the views were not in line with the government’s policy position, I couldn't easily admit it. I did so once, in passing, to a stakeholder at a health conference and immediately found myself quoted…... FULL TEXT
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Nick Cull on October 18, 2008 @ 9:39 am:
I think that the question of how we do PD and CR in an age of tighter budgets is moot. I suspect that this will accelerate the shift that we'd already seen towards a PD of coalitions built around issues. The PD around climate change is an excellent example of this. The foundational skill for building these sorts of coalitions is listening and a real respect for our partners. PD practitioners are moving into a new game but maybe cultural relations has a skill set that will help.
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