Charlie Edwards
Senior Researcher
Charlie Edwards writes, lectures and consults on national security, resilience, defence and intelligence. He works with international institutions, government departments, companies, and NGOs. He is a regular commentator in the national and international media.
Our project on new the new public diplomacy is beginning to produce some interim outputs. Readers may be interested in the following talks:
The new public diplomacy and Afghanistan – a talk at a Defence Academy seminar on Strategic Communications, Public Diplomacy and Afghanistan.
Technology and public diplomacy – a talk to the University of Westminster Symposium on Transformational Public Diplomacy
Next month, the Foreign Office will publish a book on the new public diplomacy, with a chapter from David and Alex that offers a preview of their Demos pamphlet. The book will be launched in Washington at the Brookings Institution and in London at Chatham House.
From the chapter’s abstract:
Today’s global risks – climate change, HIV, radicalisation to name just three – have something in common: they are diffuse, involving the decisions of millions if not billions of people. So when policymakers deal with the most important global risks, they are – inevitably – engaging in public diplomacy.
This chapter argues that public diplomacy has three goals. The first is to build shared awareness: a common understanding of an issue around which a coalition can coalesce. With that in place, shared platforms – networks of state and non-state actors who can campaign for a collective vision or preferred solution – can be assembled. These platforms in turn work towards shared operating systems: frameworks for a collective response to a joint problem.
These goals can be pursued through four distinct public diplomacy strategies, which we term engagement, shaping, disruptive and destructive. Together, they offer the prospect of a theory of influence for 21st century public diplomacy.
Full text will be posted here following publication.
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