Introduction

This essay attempts to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the conduct of public diplomacy for the conduct of foreign policy. It will be divided into four parts, the first part will discuss about the nature, definition and history of public diplomacy. The second part will elaborate the advantages of public diplomacy and continued by the third part which will state the disadvantages of public diplomacy.  They also will be accompanied by examples which support the arguments stated above. The final part of the essay will have the conclusion of this essay, which in short could be presented that Public Diplomacy is a double edge sword in it connection toward Foreign Policy, it could be a powerful tool to achieve national interest abroad if conducted in a proper way but if not it will be a boomerang to the perpetrator. It also considered a very complex concept since it needs a proper balancing act for it to achieved maximum results.

Background

In his book “Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy: The Evolution of Influence”, Manheim stated that there are four distinctive aspects of diplomatic activity: government to government, diplomat to diplomat, people to people and government to people contacts. In this sense, he also added that public diplomacy belong to the realm from cultural exchanges to the ‘efforts by the government of one nation to influence public or elite opinion in a second nation for the purpose of turning the foreign policy of the target nation to advantages’.

Public diplomacy is not a new thing, in the Cold War, it was considered to have played an important role in containing communist doctrine and finally gave victory to democracy. As Leonard stated ‘During the Cold War, the United States created a robust array of cultural and intellectual instruments to spread American values behind the Iron Curtain and plead the U.S. case to nonaligned nations’. Public diplomacy could be defined as the whole range of communication information and propaganda in order to project an image of one country to other people in different countries. In the case of the United States of America, it is one of the components of US effort to manage the emerging formation of neo-liberal Empire and one of the tools of national security. It main purpose is to win the Heart and Mind of the people from other countries. It is not directed to the government of other country but directly toward the people themselves. It is often considered as the link between overt and covert activities. Condoleezza Rice once said that “The victory of freedom in the Cold War was won only when the West remembered that values and security cannot be separated” and public diplomacy would be an essential part to achieve victory in war on terror. Some experts furthermore even define public diplomacy as the broader strategy of political warfare and it is depend on credibility of the enforcer.

The term ‘public diplomacy’ basically involves a range of policies and programs that are created in order to influence foreign public opinion through communication, culture and dialogue. Public diplomacy more recently reflects the increased legitimacy among policy elites of concepts like Joseph Nye’s ‘soft power’, and carries the implication that policies which manage the credibility and image of the country are necessary to sustain strategic objectives in the post-Cold War era. In the end, public diplomacy is tightly influenced by the rapid development of technology which has change the nature of traditional diplomacy as a whole.

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Advantages of Public Diplomacy

There are several advantages that public diplomacy promises if it conducted in the right way. The first is the 'power of attraction' of 'soft power' (which an advantage and a great source of power if it works well). As stated in above paragraph, public diplomacy categorized as ‘soft power’ which differ from military power. It offer a great source of power to the enforcer if is works well. Nowadays, with the advance development of technology of communication, people are having difficulties in sorting all kind of information; here public diplomacy could act as a media ...

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