CSIS-CPD Release Report on PD & National Security in 2017

CPD's recent partnership with the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) has resulted in a report titled Public Diplomacy and National Security in 2017: Building Alliances, Fighting Extremism, and Dispelling Disinformation. This project was led by Shannon N. Green, director and senior fellow of CSIS Human Rights Initiative, Katherine A. Brown, Visiting Fellow at CSIS Human Rights Initiative and CPD's director Jay Wang. 

"Throughout the world, citizens are increasingly flexing their muscles and shaping their governments’ decisionmaking on domestic and foreign affairs. Expanded access to information, facilitated by new media and communication technologies, has greatly empowered nonstate actors and strengthened their role in international politics. In this environment, the U.S. government cannot afford to engage solely in state-to-state diplomacy. The new global landscape requires foreign ministries and diplomats to go beyond bilateral and multilateral diplomacy and broaden and deepen relationships with a broad and diverse range of actors. The public diplomacy (PD) toolkit of informational, educational, and cultural programs is central to this objective by creating and maintaining relationships with influential leaders and opinion-makers in civil society, commerce, media, politics, and faith communities worldwide. This paper attempts to capture the lessons that the U.S. government and PD experts have learned over the past eight years in applying PD tools in order to chart an effective course for the incoming administration."

The report's recommendations were presented at a January 17 event at CSIS in Washington, DC featuring the report's lead authors as well as Benjamin K. Rhodes, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, James K. Glassman, Former Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and Michael Crowley, Senior Foreign Affairs Correspondent for POLITICO.

To read the full report, click here.

To watch the program, click here.