The empowerment of Arab publics through months of uprisings and popular protests is driving a structural change in the texture of regional politics which has only begun to unfold. Whether or not regimes fall, or real democracy emerges, every political player in the region who hopes to remain competitive will have to be more responsive to the concerns and demands of the mobilized public.

The Arab Spring is in its third month, and some already express concern about its next phase. In Tunisia things are moving too slowly. In Egypt, the moment of the revolution has been replaced by the routines of national politics, and the revolutionaries are frustrated.

One implication of this is that the burden on U.S. public diplomacy has never been greater. As the role of publics expands, it becomes ever more urgent that the U.S. better understand them and effectively engage with them across a far wider spectrum (it's incomprehensible that Congress wants to slash funding for these functions at precisely the time they are most needed).

Hungary has taken the rotating presidency of the European Union at a hugely important moment. Having been the UK’s Europe Minister during Britain’s last EU Presidency in 2005, I have some experience of the hard, diplomatic work involved.

The European Union awaits "strong and clear" action from Tunisia to help stem the flow of migrants fleeing the country, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday.

The State Department's point person on human rights says his office is in a "cat and mouse" game with authoritarian governments that are trying to restrict free speech on the Internet. "We are trying to stay ahead of the curve and to provide technology, training and diplomatic support to allow people to freely express their views," Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner told a group of reporters at the State Department this week.

If anyone was underestimating the spread of these tools it only took the social media-infused revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt a few months later to spell out how wired the world has become and how unpredictable the uses of social media will be. For public diplomacy practitioners it served as a reminder...

In recent times, the Russians, the Americans and West Europeans have found that the constant interplay of timeless social structures and a readiness to sacrifice life and property in what often becomes a religious struggle produces totally unforeseen crises.