In the case of a decades-long conflict between India and Pakistan, citizen diplomacy has the potential to counter a negative way of thinking about each other through people to people interaction. The Indian and Pakistani governments can help create a better environment for future official relations by supporting the unofficial citizen diplomacy already occurring.

U.S. government funded international broadcasters reached an estimated 187 million people every week in 2011...The BBG’s Performance and Accountability Report follows on the heels of BBG’s latest strategic plan which sets an over-arching objective of making BBG the world’s leading international news agency working to foster freedom and democracy with the goal of reaching 216 million people weekly by 2016.

A star-studded...cultural forum that brings the likes of organic-food advocate Alice Waters, filmmaker Joel Coen and cellist Yo Yo Ma to Beijing this week...is a response to the sclerotic environment surrounding China policy in Washington D.C...a “class trip” that would create “some fund of common experience [between the two sides] where you’re not always arguing.”

Once you're networked via social media...you're open to profound changes in "who you are and what your personal space is". The idea of any seemingly arbitrary authority standing in the way of all that can easily become an affront – and at the same time, your means of communication offers you a method of opposition and resistance: online, in the real world, or both.

Cal Ripken Jr. took a message of hope and perseverance to Japanese children affected by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. The Hall of Fame infielder...put on a baseball clinic in Ofunato, Japan, as part of a nine-day mission as a sports diplomat on behalf of the U.S. State Department.