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on October 6, 2009 @ 12:56 pm
And surely the higher the expectations, the more crushing the potential disappointment. Higher to rise, further to fall.
on October 6, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
Nick, you have it exactly right. Let us hope that Washington policy-makers wake up to the fact that public diplomacy cannot rest on the "charm" or "charisma" of a single individual.
on October 6, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
I think that what has led to this change in perception of the US is not Obama himself but the enabling environment that allowed him to become President. Over the last 18 months, people outside the US have really learnt a lot about American society and its political system, and value how the American voters rewarded a talented and hard-working outsider, son of an immigrant, who was able to challenge the status and win the election. The primaries for the Democratic Party in New Hampshire were followed in Spain with more interest than the recent general election in Japan, the second economy in the world… But you are definitely right to caution the US administration against complacency.
on October 6, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
My question would be, if the needle can move up so fast, will it go down just as quickly? You're exactly right that Obamamania has overshadowed the need for PD reform. Is it possible in the age of
instant communication and global reach, the information program component of PD as usually understood is no longer needed? Obama radiates such a glow, PD doesn't need to do anything for everyone to love us. Bush generated so much ill will, PD could do little to help. So looking at some your earlier writing, maybe PD should be strictly policy advocacy -- this is what the US thinks --and exchanges and forget about broader information programs aimed at building good will.
on October 6, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
... and why should the ebb and flow of national reputations be the primary concern of PD practitioners in the first place?
Take the example of the United States: it would appear unrealistic, if not simply pretentious, to assume that the work of PD practitioners in the US has any significant influence on their country's reputation with the wider US population.
On the basis of a realistic assessment of the means available to the average practitioner, I would suggest that effective PD is to be understood as social marketing, rather than a branding effort: in general, rather than aim at an elusive influence on a country's nation brand, PD should focus on influencing the behavior of key target groups.
PD will be more focused and more effective if it is understood and practised as a form of social marketing, rather than branding.
(The views expressed are the personal opinion of the author.)
on October 6, 2009 @ 4:03 pm
I entirely agree, and always have done. Everything depends on the credibility of the messenger - people who have decided they like you like what you do, and people who have decided they don't, won't. That can't really be altered. You can only affect things at the margins, and it's questionable whether the return really justifies the investment. "Nationbranding" and "Goodwill building" are for developing countries, places without images, not familiar monsters like the USA.
In answer to 'a friend in Washington DC' I don't think the needle could ever move down again so quickly for the US. The needle can move sharply down in a case like Denmark and the infamous
cartoons, because the country had a very simple image in most countries - a "nation brand", in fact - and the one new thing that Muslim people then learned about Denmark (a country that wishes to insult our Prophet) effectively outweighed everything they previously knew or cared about it.
America has behaved infinitely more provocatively towards infinitely more people for infinitely longer than Denmark, and yet because its image is rich and complex and contradictory, just as a national image should be, it suffers far less damage. I don't believe that America, try as it might, could really sink much below seventh in my index - which is where GWB managed to hold it for several years.
So how did it manage to rise up so quickly this year? For me, there is only one explanation for this phenomenon: it must be that First is in fact America's natural position in the NBI, and, like most nations and their images, it is tied to this position by a piece of very strong prejudicial elastic. It just so happens that since 2005 (and no doubt before, but 2005 was when I started running the NBI), a particularly dark phase of America's international relations has held it in an unnaturally low position. The arrival of President Obama - or, more accurately, the American electorate's decision to vote in President Obama - served to release that strong elastic,and 'Brand America' has simply snapped back into its accustomed place as the world's most admired country. Interestingly, since the survey was launched,it has never departed from that position in the eyes of the Muslim respondents in the NBI.
on October 7, 2009 @ 7:53 am
(Comment posted at http://mountainrunner.us/2009/10/keepingperspective_nationbrandsindex.html)
I agree with Nick. I am fairly certain that McHale and her boss won't seriously laud the rise, even if they do highlight it in public. I do hope some within the public diplomacy apparatus doesn't think they are a big cause of the movement.
I echo Nick's concern that this 'good news' will remove the urgency, but I sincerely believe it won't. In part because there remains too little urgency in the first place, regardless of the current debates in Congress over Defense spending and leadership in global engagement. It's important to keep in mind that the Defense appropriators and authorizers are not actively working with the appropriators and authorizers for State. In other words, reducing the "prominence of the military in the delivery of the 'brand America' experience" is simply that: reducing the military without increasing State (at least not as of this writing). I am certain, however, that few in Congress will see this as a metric of success and suggest slowing down planned expansion of public diplomacy. Wait, there is no serious planned expansion of PD, never mind....
Imagine if the White House and State had not failed to capitalize on the engagement opportunities afforded by our charismatic leaders over this past year.
on October 7, 2009 @ 9:40 am
Thanks for the excellent comments, and thanks for the cross-posting Matt.
I can see a couple of further problems here.
1) What will the world think if America doesn't cooperate with their favorite leader? The extremity of the health care debate does not bode well.
2) Given the correlation between strength and public suspicion, the jump of the US to the top spot may be (ironically) an indicator of American weakness. The US isn't really intimidating anyone at the moment (beyond the Af/Pak region). The Afghan War is clearly going badly and the US has its share of economic difficulties.
We have seen these poll spikes before when a new political face spoke wonderfully and America seemed diminished by both strategic and economic setbacks: 1961 and Kennedy? Perhaps, but I'm thinking of 1977. This is unfolding like a re-run of the world falling in love with Jimmy Carter, and we know how that one ends if words are unmatched by action.
on October 7, 2009 @ 11:23 am
Going back to the beginning of this interesting conversation, I just wanted to add to the Nick's "word of caution" the latest comment of The Economist on this matter: at least in Europe, there are clear signs of Obamadisappointment among political and economic leaders. The impact caused by Obama administration's "multilateral humility" (interesting expression) is ending. Af/Pak, Climate Summit, Iran, Doha trade talks, need more than "good image".
on October 7, 2009 @ 1:08 pm
I reinforce Nick's "word of caution" in my own piece.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-snow/america-the-nation-brand_b_312420.html
Will address this Brand Obama/Brand America marriage in a forthcoming piece for Perspectives (Layalina).
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