Latest Must-Reads in Public Diplomacy: March 2025

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 theory in public diplomacy, global lessons from two mega-events, and city diplomacy. 

Sean Aday, ed., Handbook on Public Diplomacy, (Edward Elgar, 2025). In this just published handbook, Sean Aday (George Washington University) has assembled a wide-ranging collection of chapters on theory and practice in diplomacy’s public dimension by a globally distributed array of scholars and scholar/practitioners. Scene setting chapters offer assessments of public diplomacy’s conceptual boundaries, soft power, strategic narratives, and literature on gender in diplomacy and nation branding. Subsequent chapters offer fresh perspectives on state-sponsored public diplomacy: Britain, China, Russia, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, Australia, the United States, African digital diplomacy, and Arab public diplomacy. Still other chapters focus on topics and issues — AI and public diplomacy, sub-state diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, science diplomacy, sports diplomacy, metrics and evaluation, disinformation, conflict in Gaza and Ukraine, and much more. This handbook is a major contribution to the study and practice of diplomacy. Aday’s introduction is available through open access. Some pages are accessible at Google books here. The eBook edition is available here.

Matthew K. Asada, “Lessons Learned From the Gulf’s Hosting of the Global Mega Events FIFA 2022 Doha and Expo 2020 Dubai,” Gulf International Forum, 2025. In this update of his paper, “An Inter-Event Comparison of Two Historic Global Mega Events” (CPD Perspectives, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, 2023), US diplomat Asada examines five lessons learned from the 2020 FIFA World Cup and Expo 2020 (World’s Fair) and two subsequent “global mega events” hosted by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE): Doha’s International Horticultural Exposition (Expo 2023) and Dubai’s “Conference of the Parties climate conference (COP 28). Asada argues lessons learned in planning, physical infrastructure, human capital, and diplomatic experiences in these events have application for the 2026 FIFA World Cup — to be hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico — and the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Bruce Gregory, American Diplomacy’s Public Dimension: Practitioners as Change Agents in Foreign Relations, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).  eBook text and paperback here; Kindle and paperback here.

Willoughby Fortunoff, Cheryl Martens, and Jenny Albarracín Méndez, “A Space for Kinship in City Diplomacy: Re-imagining Sister Cities Amid Global Migration,”  The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Online publication January 6, 2025. Fortunoff (Harvard University), Martens (Universidad San Francisco de Quito), and Méndez (Universidad de Cuenca Ecuador) examine ways sister cities bridge diaspora and origin communities in the context of migration between Ecuador and the United States. Their article poses three research questions. (1) Is the sister cities exchange model antiquated or has it been under resourced and underestimated? (2) What factors influence their effectiveness as sister cities in fostering long term collaboration? (3) Which stakeholders have been involved in and excluded from sister cities relationships? The article opens with a discussion of the power dynamics of mayors and local governments as substate actors in international partnerships, sister cities’ relationships in the context of international relations kinship theory, and the historical “rise and retreat” of sister cities partnerships. Field research was conducted using semi-structured interviews in Quito and Cuenca and quantitative survey data in 2024.

Paul Hare, “The Revolution in America’s Public Diplomacy: Is Trump Alone Now the ‘Voice of America?’”  March 6, 2025, CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy.