American Diplomacy's Public Dimension

This is the first book to frame U.S. public diplomacy in the broad sweep of American diplomatic practice from the early colonial period to the present. It tells the story of how change agents in practitioner communities foreign service officers, cultural diplomats, broadcasters, citizens, soldiers, covert operatives, democratizers, and presidential aides revolutionized traditional government-to-government diplomacy and moved diplomacy with the public into the mainstream. This deeply researched study bridges practice and multi-disciplinary scholarship. It challenges the common narrative that U.S. public diplomacy is a Cold War creation that was folded into the State Department in 1999 and briefly found new life after 9/11. It documents historical turning points, analyzes evolving patterns of practice, and examines societal drivers of an American way of diplomacy: a preference for hard power over soft power, episodic commitment to public diplomacy correlated with war and ambition,an information-dominant communication style, and American exceptionalism. It is an account of American diplomacy's public dimension, the people who shaped it, and the socialization and digitalization that today extends diplomacy well beyond the confines of embassies and foreign ministries.

Bridges diplomatic practice and multidisciplinary scholarship Narrates the evolution of American public diplomacy from colonial times to the present Shows how practitioners transformed US diplomacy and shaped its public dimension

Autorentext

Bruce Gregory taught graduate and undergraduate courses on public diplomacy at Georgetown University and George Washington University for nearly seventeen years. Prior to that, his 33-year government career included positions at the Department of State, U.S. Information Agency, 13 years as executive director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, and three years on the faculty of the National War College. Publications include peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, public policy reports, and a bimonthly literature review.

Inhalt

Introduction.- Part I Precursors and Concepts.- Chapter 1. Colonial Era Foundations.- Chapter 2. Turning Points in a New Nation.- Chapter 3. Framing Practitioner Communities.- Part II, 20th Century Practitioners.- Chapter 4. Borrowing from Civil Society, 1917-1947.- Chapter 5. Foreign Service Building a Foundation, 1948-1970.- Chapter 6. Foreign Service Transforming Diplomacy, 1970-1990.- Chapter 7. Cultural Diplomats.- Chapter 8. International Broadcasters.- Chapter 9. Soldiers.- Chapter 10. Covert Operatives and Front Groups.- Chapter 11. Democracy Builders.- Chapter 12. Presidential Aides.- Part III 21st Century US Diplomacy.- Chapter 13. Reinvention and Fragmentation.- Chapter 14. A Failure to Communicate?.- Chapter 15. Drivers of Change.- Chapter 16. What Happens Now?.- Acronyms.- Selected Bibliography.- Acknowledgments.- Index.