Latest Must-Reads in Public Diplomacy: August 2024

CPD Faculty Fellow Bruce Gregory has compiled a list of the latest must-reads in public diplomacy. Known affectionately at CPD as "Bruce's List," this list is a compilation of books, journal articles, papers and blog posts on a wide variety of PD topics.

Highlights from the latest list include publications on topics spanning diaspora diplomacy and the implications of disinformation on public diplomacy. 

Alina Dolea, “Diaspora Diplomacy, Emotions, and Disruption: A Conceptual and Analytical Framework,” June 2024, CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy. In this perceptive article, Alina Dolea (Bournemouth University and USC CPD Research Fellow) develops a theoretical framework for understanding diaspora diplomacy. She advances important claims. (1) Diaspora diplomacy requires a foundational assessment of emotions understood as enabling and disruptive mediating factors in diplomatic agency, practices, and discourses. (2) The way forward lies in a constructivist approach in which identity, belonging, and transnational ties are central analytical categories. (3) Media, migration, and digital technologies are essential gateway perspectives. (4) Diasporas should be examined, not as bounded entities, but as categories of practice in which actors make claims, initiate projects, project loyalties, make judgments, and mobilize support. (5) The intersubjective and sociocultural nature of emotions as political forces linked to relations of power -- and the sense of loss and trauma common to all displaced peoples -- are key dynamics. Dolea applies her framework to the Romanian disaspora in the United Kingdom. She employs semi-structured interviews with 21 representatives of their organizations to address two research questions. How do these representatives construct their identity? And how do they situate themselves with roles and identities in the diaspora assemblage as a “field of power?” Her essay provides a capacious review of relevant literature and is filled with research enhancing ideas. 

Alicia Fjällhed and James Pamment, “Disinformation,” in Eytan Gilboa, ed., A Research Agenda for Public Diplomacy, pp. 173-186, (Edward Elgar, 2023). This essay stands out in the enormous literature on disinformation for its clarity and generative ideas. Fjällhed (Lund University) and Pamment (Stockholm University) argue central challenges for public diplomacy research and practice are (1) to connect disinformation’s development to a volatile political, security, and communications environment and (2) to “deliver cutting-edge insights to practitioners of PD before they become outdated.” To achieve this, public diplomacy requires reciprocity between vast transdisciplinary research domains and diplomacy-specific studies that can enhance research and practice. The authors begin with a summary of the evolution of propaganda and disinformation research. Then they identify “windows of opportunity” for theoretical and empirical inquiry. Continuous engagement between scholars and practitioners is critical to developing evidence-based concepts and enhancing the operational value of theory. Examples of how this can work are drawn from collaborative efforts of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Lund University’s work with the Swedish, U.K., and Finish governments and EU institutions.

The full edition of Bruce's List can be found here.