Latest Must-Reads in Public Diplomacy

The May 2016 edition of Bruce Gregory's public diplomacy reading list is now available. Known affectionately at CPD as "Bruce's List," this list is a compilation of books, journal articles, papers and blogs on a wide variety of PD topics, and features a number of CPD scholars. Highlights in this edition include:

Kailey Hansson, Canadian Public Diplomacy and Nation-Building: Expo 67 and the World Festival of Arts and Entertainment, CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paper 3, 2016. Hansson (Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario) explores the variety of ways communist and non-communist nations used Canada’s 1967 Montreal Expo to showcase their architectural creativity and talent in the performing arts and to channel their conflicting Cold War ideologies.  For Canada, Expo 67 was an opportunity to demonstrate the nation’s performing arts and an attractive cultural identity that differed from the mass entertainment culture many perceived to be dominant in the United States.

International Research and Exchanges Board, IREX 2020 Strategic Plan, April 2016. IREX’s new strategic plan focuses on four goals: empowering youth populations, cultivating leaders, strengthening institutions dedicated to prosperity and social justice, and broadening access to quality education and information.  IREX was established in 1968 to consolidate exchanges with the countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  Today, this non-profit organization has very different goals and a worldwide commitment to the exchange of scholars, students, and ideas through partnerships with government and private organizations in the US and abroad.

Alex Oliver, “The Irrelevant Diplomat: Do We Need Embassies Anymore?” Foreign Affairs, March 14, 2016. “The embassy,” Australia’s Lowy Institute Director for Polling observes, “at least in its traditional form, is facing an existential crisis.”  Her reasons include 21st century transformations in diplomatic practice, shrinking budgets, reluctance to embrace innovation, lack of diversity, insufficient priority for social media and other digital technologies, competition from media reporting and exhaustive country analyses by NGOS and risk consultancies, increasing national preferences for trade offices and innovation hubs, and threats to embassy security.  Nevertheless, Oliver cites reasons why embassies still have many significant roles in diplomacy and foreign relations.

Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars, “Public Diplomacy in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Public Diplomacy Magazine, University of Southern California Issue 15, Winter 2016.  This edition of PD Magazine, edited by graduate students in USC’s Public Diplomacy MA program, includes interviews, case studies, and brief articles intended to start a dialogue about the “practice and possibilities” of public diplomacy in Africa.  Topics include Ethiopian millennial diasporas, basketball diplomacy, film and cultural diplomacy, and China’s public diplomacy in Africa.

To review the entire list, click here.