Increasing American soft power by more effective public diplomacy

This essay is excerpted in part from testimony by the Hon. Douglas Bereuter to a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Sept. 23, 2008.

By Douglas K. Bereuter

This year I will have the privilege of presenting the first lecture in the 2009–2010 E. N. Thompson Forum on World Issues on Sept. 14, 2009. That lecture series will focus on China, and my remarks will center in large part on Chinese soft power relationships with Asia and the United States. Soft power, a term famously coined by Dr. Joseph Nye of Harvard University, occurs “when one country gets other countries to want what it wants,” via “intangible power resources such as culture, ideology, and institutions.”¹

One of the most effective means for a government or country to consciously maximize and employ its soft power is through a concerted public diplomacy program. Public diplomacy can be broadly and properly defined as governmental and nongovernmental activity that reaches out beyond foreign governments to directly communicate and affect the citizens of other countries. This article, however, will focus not on the Chinese but will share some of my thoughts on reorienting American public diplomacy.

Soon after Sept. 11, even before I left Congress, I reviewed the reports of eight high-level task forces, commissions and blue ribbon committees, which were convened to provide a broad range of advice for America’s policymakers. Among their many findings and recommendations, there was a strong consensus that it is emphatically in our national interest not only to emphasize public diplomacy, especially in the Islamic World, but also the conclusion was reached that such an effort should be implemented through a very major role for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), credible high-profile individual Americans and the private sector in general. Nearly all of these reports also strongly emphasized the importance of utilizing soft power tools with creativity and flexibility. Interestingly, they also concluded that these tools and practices are much better developed in parts of the NGO community and private enterprises than in our government. Ambassador Edward Djerejian, then chairman of the State Department’s Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, for example, urged the U.S. government to collaborate with American businesses and nonprofit organizations “that have the world’s best talent and resources in communications and research” and that “the U.S. recognize that the best way to get our message across is directly to the people—rather than through formal diplomatic channels.”²

In my subsequent examination of these reports and the subject of public diplomacy, I concluded that there has been and is a common mistake or misunderstanding repeated over and over again when our government or advisory groups seek to improve American public diplomacy. It is a failure to recognize that while bureaucratic reorganization and better management practices can bring improvements, the most important American public diplomacy assets are (a) the American people and, relatedly, (b) the opportunities for foreigners to see demonstrated, or otherwise experience, those characteristics of our country and our people that the world traditionally has most admired. In fact, the world has long admired American openness, system of justice, popular culture (generally) and unmatched environment of opportunity. They admire, above all, the practices, principles and values undergirding American traditions of democracy, pluralism, rule of law and tolerance, which Americans embrace as universally applicable. It is only when we seem to have strayed from these principles, practices and values that we disappoint the world and are seen as hypocritical.

Today, while there is still much confusion and certainly has been a misplaced sense of priorities and ineffective practices in U.S. public diplomacy, it fortunately is increasingly recognized and accepted that public diplomacy cannot just be regarded as the job of the nation’s diplomats, high-level State Department spokesmen or other governmental officials. A major impediment to improving America’s public diplomacy has been the prevalence of the view that improving our nation’s image and influence abroad is primarily a direct governmental function. One might say, to emphatically make a point, that the implementation of effective public diplomacy is too important to be solely or even primarily the responsibility of governmental officials. Instead, public diplomacy should be implemented under a coherent, coordinated strategy, not only through governmental officials and direct programs but also through a broad collaborative effort involving the nongovernmental organizations, other parts of the private sector and the efforts of individual citizens.

Indeed, of course, there is admittedly nothing new about the U.S. government conducting some of its public diplomacy programs through NGOs and other parts of the private sector. We just need to recognize the value of their capabilities and emphasize and use them more.

In fact, a very significant share of the development programs of The Asia Foundation, which I now lead, implemented in nearly two dozen Asian countries, in part with funds from USAID, the State Department, foundations and a dozen other democratic countries, is also properly characterized as public diplomacy. With these funds, we implement a wide variety of educational and cultural exchanges, including study tours for Asians in America and Asia; support Track II dialogues; provide library resources and educational materials; and we implement parliamentary assistance programs, intercultural and interfaith dialogues, fellowships, media exchange and training programs and American studies programs, to name only some of the more effective programs. Also, working with Muslims populations and Muslim groups for more than 35 years in several Asian countries gives us crucial, unmatched credibility. In short, we use American public and private donor resources to implement a whole range of governmental and NGO programs that provide the recipients with practical experience in democracy, pluralism, tolerance, citizen participation and other activities that involve or reinforce principles and values which Americans embrace as universally applicable.

In conclusion, I would emphasize that for a truly effective public diplomacy effort, to strengthen the soft power of the United States, America must return to (and I do emphasize the words “return to”), reinforce and remind people around the world, by example, what they had especially admired about our country and people. It won’t be accomplished primarily by an improved governmental public relation campaign, by governmental reorganization or only by adding more State Department public diplomacy officers in our embassies, consulates or Washington, D.C. However, greater good will, respect, credibility and support for our country can be regained. Changes in policies and emphases, a smarter variety of public diplomacy and perhaps some governmental reorganization are part of the answer. Yet the primary reorientation of our effort must be to remind people abroad, and reinforce by example and their direct experience what they and their leaders traditionally have liked and admired most about Americans and our country. We have done that well in the past; we can and must do it again.

Notes

1. Joseph S. Nye Jr., “Soft Power,” “Foreign Policy,” 80 (Autumn 1990): 166–67.

2. Djerejian, Edward P., “Changing Minds Winning Peace: A New Strategic Direction for U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab & Muslim World” (Washington: The Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, 2003), 14–15.

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