Navigating the Web of Public Diplomacy

Public diplomacy is the focus of the latest edition of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, a leading research journal on diplomatic studies. The plethora of topics covered includes PD in the military, PD's impact on food regulations in Mexico and on the crisis in Ukraine, the significance of reputation to diplomatic practice and more.

One article by Andreas Pacher, "Strategic Publics in Public Diplomacy: A Typology and a Heuristic Device for Multiple Publics," addresses an important pillar of PD: publics, and the strategies for engaging with them. By defining the range of strategic publics targeted by diplomats, Pacher proposes terminology for six ideal types. Additionally, Pacher provides a device to guide analyses of PD strategy, emphasizing relationships between public diplomats and governments, immediate strategic publics and mass publics.

Explaining the rationale behind his proposed six types of publics, Pacher notes, "these dimensions significantly broaden the continua of strategic publics, so that it includes actors about whose role public diplomats and scholars have hitherto been uncertain or even blind: official governmental publics; domestic constituencies; and weaker or remote populations." He adds that these tools "can enhance our understandings of strategic publics and their relationships to public diplomats, but also the grounds on which the targets are chosen, and the consequences of each type of choice."

Add Pacher's piece to your reading list by finding the full text here.

Read all six articles featured in this public diplomacy-themed issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy here.