APDS Blogger: Alex Laverty

Jon Stewart, Bassem Youssef, & U.S. Embassy, Cairo: Reconceptualizing Diplomatic Norms in the Digital Age

As an indication of how online media are becoming ever more dominant in our world, consider two newspaper front pages (the ink-on-paper versions) on Wednesday, April 24.

Social media have become one of the few places where young people from Armenia and Azerbaijan can meet. Yet, not without risks. While it might be nearly 19 years since a May 1994 ceasefire put the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh on hold, analysts are increasingly viewing the situation on the Line of Contact (LOC) with alarm.

A. Iain Johnston has the lead article in the latest issue of International Security. It's available for free right now, and it's quite the doozy. Entitled "How New and Assertive is China's New Assertiveness?", Johnston picks apart the claim made by many (including your humble blogger) that China's post-2008 foreign policy represented anything all that much out of the ordinary.

U.S. Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine rejected the idea that relations between the U.S and Russia are deteriorating and said social networking should be used to forge better ties during her visit to Moscow.

There is most probably no left wing leader who had influenced public opinion inside and outside the Latin American part of the Western hemisphere to the same extent as the unconventional Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez had over the last decade. Doubtlessly, his death three weeks ago ended one phase of Venezuela’s political development. Now facing the caudillo’s loss, the electorate has to determine the sustainability of principal public diplomacy paradigms of the Chavez government.

eInterns (American students working virtually) are an initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Virtual Student Foreign Service. The goal, according to the State Department website, is "to harness technology and a commitment to global service among young people to facilitate new forms of diplomatic engagement." The eInterns work from their own campuses in the U.S. and are partnered with our U.S. diplomatic posts and other organizations on "digital diplomacy." The program began in 2011