The Diplomacy of the Tunisian People and the Psychology of the Arab Street

“Hope” is the first lesson the Arab street is learning through the Tunisian experience. For decades, the Arab peoples have been depressed, felt helpless and had to live with the injustices, the failures and repressions of their post-colonial states. For the first time, an Arab people, Tunisians, have won against one of their regimes. The event had an echo among all Arab peoples. Many of them felt this strengthened their trust in themselves and their hope in the future. Read More

Mapping the Playbook: To facilitate a more collaborative public diplomacy

Partnership, cooperation, and collaboration are recognized by most, if not all, as an important part of 21st century public diplomacy. One important challenge in developing a more collaborative public diplomacy is the need to identify the opportunities and resources to put the collaborative aspiration into action. This task might be simplified if we recognize the bureaucratic infrastructure as a series of connections – or networks. The task is then to map that network and recognize potential areas of common experience and opportunity for collaboration. Read More

Qatar’s Well-Funded Public Diplomacy

DOHA --- Money is a wonderful thing. Qatar has plenty of it and is putting it to use in its expanded public diplomacy. With wealth rather than weaponry, Qatar is becoming a new kind of superpower. Read More

Pakistan: When U.S. Policy Limits Public Diplomacy

When a nation is busy devouring itself, in a manner that threatens the larger global peace, other nations' policies and public diplomacy will be complicated indeed. In the case of a disintegrating Pakistan, American policy has tended to make effective public diplomacy virtually impossible and irrelevant. Read More

NBC Drops Voice of America

WASHINGTON -- Last month, NBC announced it had bought the Voice of America, as we noted at the time. NBC planned to use the name for a weekly musical series that will premiere on the network in a few months to compete with "American Idol." Read More

Moving Ahead of the Pack

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal agency that oversees U.S. government non-military international broadcast and Internet services, probably knows more than it's letting on. The good news is that it has released another in its series of expertly researched documents on viewing and listening habits related to its many language services abroad. Read More

Jordanian Diplomacy Tested by Social Networking

Jordanian and Palestinian social network activists were busy this past weekend exchanging videos, pictures, and comments on the clashes following a local match in Amman on Friday evening. The match was between Al-Wehdat and Al-Faisali clubs. The players of the first club are made up, mainly, of Jordanians who are from a Palestinian origin, and the latter represents the originally Jordanian national team. Read More

NBC Buys Voice of America

NBC, a division of General Electric, announced last night it has bought the Voice of America. No joke. Read about it here. But it's not the U.S. government’s Voice of America: NBC will launch "The Voice of America" as a new weekly television series next spring. Consider the opportunities for confusion, especially when NBC's VOA is broadcast in other countries. Even sophisticated viewers might believe NBC VOA is related to that other VOA. Read More

Give Women a Bigger Stake in Building Gulf Economies

I attended the closing session of the Gulf Cooperation Councils (GCC) Summit in Abu Dhabi this year. As all the delegates arrived and were seated I would estimate at least a total of 60 people, I could not help but observe, from all the government delegations present, we were 10 women in attendance as part of these delegations. A clear reminder of the gender gap in our region. Read More

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