APDS Blogger: Shaocong 'Amanda' Hu

On Jan. 19th, the USC MPD Beijing Delegation attended a roundtable themed “The Present Situation and Prospects of China’s Public Diplomacy” sponsored by the Charhar Institute, a leading public diplomacy and international relations think tank in China.

APDS Blogger: Oscar Castellanos del Collado

As part of the new year festivities, Culture Posts is focusing on the relatively new concept – relationalism – and its implications for public diplomacy. Relationalism is still so new it is not yet in the dictionary. It is only beginning to make its debut in academic journals.

What is perhaps most ironic about relationalism is that it appears to have been hiding in plain sight. All that was needed to see it was a different perspective or lens.

A 3rd Dimension

APDS Blogger: Sarah Myers

APDS Blogger: Dao-Chau Nguyen

On a recent MPD trip to Beijing, a research group focused on Corporate Diplomacy. We listened to Chinese corporate social responsibility (CSR) experts including practitioners from a state-owned enterprise (SOE), a corporate philanthropy magazine, and several public affairs firms, all of whom shared their thoughts on the different concepts of CSR that currently divide the East and the West.

In honor of the New Year (both West and East), I would like to share a relatively new lens for viewing relations in public diplomacy. Many may have heard of the terms individualism, which privileges the individual, and collectivism, which favors the collective or group. What they may not have heard about yet is relationalism, which privileges personal relations. At the time of this writing, relationalism literally “isn’t in the dictionary” – at least the most prominent one in the English-language.

Re-Framing & Re-Imagining the American Brand Abroad

Stephanie Stallings recently suggested that creative collaboration is a useful model for cultural diplomacy. She is definitely onto something. Circumstances have changed around the work of diplomacy. Publics are now much less distant, more assertive, and actively engaged participants in the making of their encompassing cultural worlds.