The Kryptonite of Soft Power
Evaluating soft power as an adjunct to national security strategy through the lens of
public diplomacy
By Mustafa Abdul-Hamid
Advised by Prof. Russell Burgos
Department of Global Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
June 2010
Dr. John Agnew, Global Studies Department Chair
Professor Russell Burgos, Faculty Advisor
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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Table of Contents
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 3
THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS: THE BULLY, THE BULLIED AND THE BRAIN ............. 3
SOFT POWER AND ITS KALASHNIKOV: PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ............................................. 6
CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ................................................................ 8
STRUCTURAL REFORM, MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTION ..................................... 9
AUDIENCE AND RECEPTION ............................................................................................ 11
ANACHRONISTIC PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ......................................................................... 16
A BRIEF PRACTICAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ............................... 17
USIA: RISE, FALL, AND REINVENTION ........................................................................... 19
COUNTERFRAMING.............................................................................................................................. 24
AN INTRODUCTION COUNTERFRAMING ................................................................................ 24
BASIC DEFINITIONS ............................................................................................................ 25
COUNTERFRAMING AND GLOBALIZATION: DEFINITIONS IN CONTEXT .............. 27
THE SUFFICIENT CONDITION, PARTS A AND B ........................................................... 29
COMPONENT A: GEOPOLITICAL UNGOVERNANCE .......................................... 30
COMPONENT B: COMMUNICATIVE UNGOVERNANCE .................................... 34
MEASURING THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ................................................................. 38
DEVELOPING A METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................. 38
SEARCHING FOR SIGNALS: EGYPT, KUWAIT AND PAKISTAN........................................... 43
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 46
APPENDIX A GOVERNANCE TRENDS AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY SIGNAL STRENGTH ... 48
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................49
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Soft power is espoused as a central component to US national security. This
paper focuses on public diplomacy as an instrument of soft power and evaluates
soft power via an analysis of intermediate and long-term outcomes as indicated
by the World Governance Indicators in US public diplomacy target countries
(Egypt, Kuwait and Pakistan). The concept of counterframing is described as a
force that counteracts public diplomacy in theory and as a practical explanation
for the lack of real outcomes in those cases countries. The ability to
counterframe is a function of access, a willing (or captive) audience, and space.
These three mutually reinforcing, necessary conditions are the practical
requirements that must exist or be present for counterframing to occur.
Globalization has increased the likelihood of these three conditions to occur
simultaneously. In consequence, counterframing poses a threat to US national
security in post-globalization arena of international relations.
Keywords
soft power; counterframing, public diplomacy, national security;
strategic communication
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION
"How can a man in a cave out-communicate the world's leading communications
society?"
- U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke
Theoretical Underpinnings: the bully, the bullied and the brain
The principles of structural realism have heretofore dominated international
relations theory and the conception of security in the international arena. Structural
realism presumes a conception of international relations reminiscent of the work of
scholars in a different discipline—the classical economic theories of thinkers like Smith
and Ricardo. Accordingly, the state is understood as a rational acting firm seeking to
maximize profits (where profit is measured in resources and power) in an environment
characterized by the lack of any regulatory institution with enforcement capabilities. The
definition of the state, therefore, retains more than mere rhetorical significance—it is the
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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impetus behind the entire national and international security paradigm. That traditional
definition of the state and its interests is narrowly tailored to protect the Westphalian
precept: it pegs security to both the territorial sovereignty and institutional functions of
the state. Those notions of territory and sovereignty elicit a very physical understanding
of security. Under these principal conditions, state formation occurs through a process
by which the state systematically excludes and delegitimizes any other group with hard
power potential; in effect, it creates a monopoly over violence and economic coercion.1
In order to maintain its monopoly, the state engages in constant coalition building and
the elimination of competitors via war-making or other coercive tactics.2
Up until the collapse of the USSR, that realist framework was adequate: power
was consolidated into two blocs through coalition building and war. Since the end of the
Cold War, the state’s monopoly on coercive power has diminished. Globalization as a
phenomenon has largely weakened the state. Weapons proliferation, the emergence of
other governing entities existing outside the state (e.g. NGOs, IGOs, etc.), cheaper and
more efficient interstate transportation, information and technology sharing, enhanced
economic interaction—all of these elements of globalization have created space in which
old and new competitors acquire power and threats emerge. In consequence, that
paradigm may no longer be a viable framework in international relations: globalization
theorists contend that proliferating points of political, economic and military power
among sub-state, supra-state and non-state actors annul the realist concept. The state no
longer has a monopoly over organized violence i.e. war making, nor over the provision
of social welfare and health services to its citizens. Even the diplomatic function of the
1
Tilly, Charles. 1985. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime. In Bringing the State Back,
169-187. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2
Ibid.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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state has not emerged unscathed. The institutionalization of supranational and
multilateral organizations has radically changed the context in which a state can vie for
its national interests within traditional diplomatic interaction by transforming and
redefining the concept of sovereignty and space. In that emergent environment, a
concept that would challenge the (structural) realist stronghold on international relations
theory was born: soft power was formally incorporated into theory and policy as an
alternative to violence and coercion.
Soft power is the power of attraction—a mechanism by which people are coopted as opposed to coerced.3 It is an alternative to inducements, threats and military
force. According to Joseph Nye, the scholar responsible for the term itself, there are
three major contributors to a state’s soft power:
The soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources: its culture
(in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives
up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are
seen as legitimate and having moral authority).4
Nye describes soft power, as it is derived from those primary resources, as the
mechanism by which two (often dissimilar) entities begin to seek the same outcomes.
State A accepts the policies and agenda of State B, because State B’s policies are a
manifestation of its values—values that State A has come to view as legitimate and
desirable. There are several instruments that are employed by the state to tap into the
soft power resource reserves that Nye describes, but there are four principal methods:
public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, the export of cultural commodities to the global
market place, humanitarian and development aid. Building on the concept of soft power,
the smart power paradigm was asserted as not only a viable answer for insecurity in the
3
4
Nye, Joseph S. Soft power: the means to success in world politics, 5. Public Affairs, 2004.
Ibid., 11.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
6
post-globalization arena of foreign affairs, but the best response. Smart power integrates
hard power—military and economic coercion—and soft power—non-coercive
attraction.5 This impacts security studies in two important ways: soft power initiatives
are espoused as a fundamental component of foreign policy, and soft power is an
important precept to the modern states national-security strategy. The Obama
Administration has made smart power the center of both the rhetoric and strategy of its
foreign policy. As the shocks of globalization continue to destabilize the international
system of states, academics and policy contributors alike suggest that soft power may
not only be fundamental to national security, its value may begin to exceed that of the
power of coercion. The debate between the realists and the pluralists about the
relevance of traditional military solutions to contemporary security threats is ongoing;
however, it is not my aim to choose either camp as the victor. Since soft power is being
conceived as a remedy for insecurity and subsequently implemented into the foreign
policy strategy of key governments globally (the US is the most potent example), it is
necessary to evaluate the notion of soft power as an adjunct to security.
Soft power and its Kalashnikov: public diplomacy
Although there are several instruments of soft power, this paper addresses public
diplomacy as the primary vehicle of soft power. There are numerous weaknesses in the
construct of public diplomacy that diminish its efficacy: market effects, an intrinsic
deficiency of cultural capital in foreign public spaces, unpredictability of cultural
landscapes, media effects, information and image management strategies are among
those disadvantages. I will explore these issues and the manner in which they diminish
5
Nye, Joseph S. “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science 616, no. 1 (March 1, 2008): 94-109.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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the effectiveness of soft power endeavors in winning the hearts and minds of foreign
publics; however, it is important not to preclude that these issues render public
diplomacy endeavors entirely useless. From a vantage point of theoretical coherence, the
viability of public diplomacy remains intact despite those weaknesses. Therefore, there
must be another explanation; herein lies the probability of counterframing as the
construct that fatally disables public diplomacy as a practical pillar of national security
strategy. The US national security strategy assumes that soft power can be obtained from
foreign publics, facilitate the pursuit of its interests, and that it is a sustainable construct.
This paper challenges the validity of that assumption and the use of soft power as an
adjunct to US national security strategy by introducing the aforementioned concept of
counterframing. The issue with modifying technique, or changing strategic directions is
that those solutions do not address the underlying issues. After the phenomenon of
counterframing is comprehensively outlined, real inroads can be made into solving the
issue of failing American public diplomacy initiatives. Globalization is the prominent
force in the increased effectiveness of counterframing in the current IR arena; it will be
globalization that is instrumental in improving the effectiveness of public diplomacy
efforts.
The Advisory Committee on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World
concluded in 2003 that there were glaring deficiencies in the US public diplomacy
strategy and its flagship programs. The committee came to one principal conclusion: the
Department of State (DOS) must pursue a new strategic direction and use its
appropriated funds more effectively.6 The call to modify tactic and technique, however,
6
Building America’s public diplomacy through a reformed structure and additional
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
8
confirms an inevitable empirical puzzle: is soft power a dependable and sustainable
construct? The academic and professional paradigm has been to conceptualize the
problem in a fashion that allows for simple technical and tactical solutions. That
conception neglects important factors, principally counterframing. Counterframing is a
form of strategic communication used by rational actors seeking to govern or influence
governance—states, terrorists, rebel groups, religious leaders are such actors. I will
assert that this is the force obstructing American soft power endeavors in the Middle
East. The first task in reconceptualizing the problem in order to breed better solutions is
to review the puzzle from the perspective of the academics and policy-makers that are
currently or recently studying the issue.
Current conceptions of public diplomacy
Excluding IR realists, the relative consensus among foreign policy experts and
scholars is that public diplomacy and soft power, to some extent, contributes to both
security and stability, as well as promotes US interests in the target region. At present,
the overall level of security in the Middle East is low and threats to US interests abound:
local and international-terrorist networks remain in tact, relationships with local
populations are erratic, puritan and radical Islamic ideologues continue to attract
recruits, and there has been little in the direction of sustainable, home-grown democratic
government. Accordingly, experts and academics have inundated American public
diplomacy practitioners with recommendations on how to implement and continuously
improve communication with foreign publics. Since 9/11, public diplomacy has been a
priority in US government rhetoric and agenda and sparked an interest in the subject that
resources. Washington, DC: U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2002.
http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/adcompd/rls/index.htm
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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had been relatively inactive since the end of the Cold War. The omnibus of public
diplomacy literature lacks a strong or widely accepted theoretical framework, but there
are several broad analytical categories that proponents of public diplomacy fall under.
There are three umbrella categories (of analysis) that experts generally fall into
when conceptualizing (American) public diplomacy and its key components: structural
reform/management-based analysis, reception/audience-based analysis, and proponents
of a reinvented public diplomacy. These umbrella categories are not mutually exclusive
and discrete methods of analysis, and although scholars and experts may give more
weight to one over the other, most find themselves somewhere in the intersection of the
three circles. It is important to understand these conceptions before attempting to
reconceptualize the problem in terms of counterframing.
Structural reform, management and production
The goal of American public diplomacy is to promote national interests through
understanding, informing and influencing foreign publics and opinion leaders of US
policies and values.7 Accordingly, any failure to effectively spread its message and
maintain a positive image have been assumed to be a product of a deep envy of US
power and prosperity, a misinterpretation of US foreign policy objectives, or a poorly
communicated message.8 In line with this assumption, successful public diplomacy
efforts are achieved by increasing the amount and angles of communication with foreign
publics, making tactical adjustments to a particular program, and tightening up the
American public diplomacy machine (e.g. improved internal communication, branding
7
8
Ibid.
Van Ham, Peter. “Power, Public Diplomacy, and the Pax Americana.” In The New Public Diplomacy,
60. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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strategy, better coordination with executive agenda etc.).9
Experts that advocate production and management-based analysis understand
American public diplomacy programs to be dependent on strong and competent
leadership, access to funding and resources, a clearly defined strategic direction, as well
as efficient intra- and interagency coordination.10 This camp recommends a presidential
directive about the strategy and organization of US public diplomacy programs, the
establishment of a permanent committee for strategic communication within the
National Security Council (NSC), and the formation of a non-profit, non-partisan center
for strategic communication.11 Although they claim that the strategic direction is
essential for government exporters of public diplomacy, the strategy that they propose
does not differ much from that Cold War era information operations. In practice,
however, this camp mostly focuses on doing things better and more efficiently. 12
Cumbersome government bureaucracy is the greatest to public diplomacy exporters in
the real world. Protecting themselves from this treat, practitioners and organizations i.e.
DOS, should use a hybrid model that better engages and coordinates public-private
ventures.13 Christopher Paul, in conjunction with the International Security and Defense
Policy Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD), led a study
that aggregated and surveyed proposals, legislation and recommendations from the
9
Ibid., 60
Paul, Christopher. “Whither Strategic Communication? A Survey of Current Proposals and
Recommendations.” RAND (2009): 16.
11
Vitto, Vince. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication. Defense
Science Board, September 2004. http://www.publicdiplomacy.org/37.htm.
12
Djerejian, Edward P. Changing Minds Winning Peace: A new strategic direction for U.S. public
diplomacy in the arab & muslim world. Washington, DC: Report of the Advisory Group on
Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, October 1, 2003.
13
Kiehl, William P. “Addressing the Public Diplomacy Challenge.” Foreign Service Journal, no. 2009
(October 2009): 49.
10
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Senate, DOS, DoD, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), independent policy
analysts, researchers and policy think tanks that address current US public diplomacy
initiatives. Paul found that the three most widely held (specific) recommendations in the
40 primary documents that he surveyed were to increase resources, to implement new
coordinators in NSC and Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and to leverage
private sector capabilities.14 The pith of this analytical group’s thesis is that sound
management of programs and structural coherence creates a streamlined public
diplomacy machine and a more focused agenda. It is difficult to dispute the overall
significance of management and structure, but in a relative sense, those factors may be
less important than others. There is another group of scholars that asserts that
management/production analysis ignores the other, more important and unpredictable
piece of the puzzle—the audience.
Audience and reception
Under this second umbrella category, the audience is the central component in public
diplomacy operations. The adage that “it is not what you say, but what others hear that is
important,” is certainly a basic principle of the audience/reception model.15 The major
themes from the production camp remain significant, but of less value. Instead,
American public diplomacy is perceived to be a function of concepts that are
traditionally found in disciplines such as communications studies, psychology, sociology
and behavioral sciences. Three key dimensions in this analytical category define
successful public diplomacy—cultural capital in foreign public spaces, media effects,
and credibility:
14
15
Paul, “Whither Strategic Communication,” 16.
Van Ham, “Power, Public Diplomacy, and the Pax Americana,” 59.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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1. Deficiencies of cultural capital result in messages being lost in translation. Mind
this caveat: this is not a clash of cultures or civilization argument. Rather, it is an
issue created by difficulty of being completely aware of evolving cultural minutiae
as a foreigner (or expatriate). Political cultural congruency between the exporter and
recipient of public diplomacy messages is key to the audience being persuadable.16
In order for public diplomacy to reach and sway its intended audience, the message
and style. A major instance where this cultural divergence becomes clearly
problematic is in the framing of the enemy.
An integral part of the current and past US public diplomacy strategy is to
persuade by both undermining the opposing perspective and promoting the image of
the US. The first step is to properly build the American image, as well as identify
and define the enemy (i.e. anti-American opinion leaders, terrorists and Islamic
fundamentalists); in other words, the enemy must be properly framed before
anything can be packaged and disseminated to an audience. 17 (Note: some scholars
define this as a different form of strategic communication—propaganda—and
although there is some validity to that argument, there is unquestionably overlap
between the two practices).18 As foreigners and government officials, American
public diplomacy operatives are stricken with intrinsic deficiencies of cultural
capital. Consequently, the frames produced in programs like Sawa Radio and Al
Hurra television are too often foreign and culturally irrelevant, and sometimes they
16
Entman, Robert. “Theorizing Mediated Public Diplomacy: The U.S. Case.” The International Journal of
Press/Politics 13 (2008): 87-102.
17
Reilly, Robert R. “Ideas Matter: Restoring the Content of Public Diplomacy.” Heritage Special Report,
(July 27, 2009): 23.
18
Copeland, Daryl. Guerilla Diplomacy: Rethinking International Relations,165. Boulder: Lynn Riener
Publishers, 2009.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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produce a blowback effect.19 This not a new problem—it is a historic trend in
American attempts at image construction and framing the enemy of the time.20
American images of itself and of its enemy are superimposed onto an audience’s
already developed and socially constructed perception of a particular ideology,
person or group. Even if a particular group is perceived to be an enemy by locals, the
understanding and framing of that enemy may not match up with the American
perspective. During the Cold War, the frames that were produced in American
strategic communication operations were dependent on discrete spheres of influence.
In other words, inadequate consideration was given for the complex intersections of
history, geopolitics, culture, and individual perspectives. This Cold War tendency
remains a fact in post-9/11 public diplomacy endeavors can transform a receptive
audience into one that is obstinate and uncooperative.21
2. Media effects models are significant when discussing media-based public diplomacy
programs, particularly of recent flagship programs like Sawa Radio, Al Hurra
television network, and the Arabic lifestyle magazine Hi. Research shows that the
direct effects model in which media effects are direct, immediate and powerful is
tenuous.22 Likewise, the limited effects model where the media has very minimal
effects on its audience is also a misconception. Instead, research shows that societal,
environmental and individual factors must be considered, as well as the effect of
19
Kalathil, Shanthi. Soft Power, Hard Issues. Roundtable on Public Diplomacy and the Middle East and
the Forum on Communications and Society, 15. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 2006.
http://www.aspeninstitute.org/publications/soft-power-hard-issues.
20
Robin, Ron Theodore. The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the MilitaryIntellectual Complex, 87. Princeton University Press, 2001.
21
Ibid,. 84.
22
Ball-Rokeach, S.J., and M.L. DeFleur. “A Dependency Model of Mass-Media Effects.” Communication
Research 3 (1976): 3.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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uses and gratification theory.23 According to this logic, opinion leaders are more
likely to procure support than a mass medium:
“A person, unlike a mass medium, is likely to raise issues and
arguments of immediate personal relevance to the reader. And…when
someone yields to personal influence when making a decision, the
reward, in terms of approval, is immediate.”24
Arms length interactions and mass-mediated messages are minimally effective in
regions that values people and faces—not facts and figures.25
The likelihood that mass-mediated public diplomacy has a significant impact on
the Arab public, particularly in an environment where other indigenous and more
popular outlets are competing is low.26 Another highly cited principle impacting
audience reception of the American message is limited and selective perception
when there is a choice of information sources. There is only a limited amount of
information to which audiences can attend, and they attend first to the most easily
mutable or appropriated information that reaffirm pre-existing notions.27 Cultural
barriers, inaccessibility, social stigma etc., make it less likely that the average person
on the Arab street will attend to the mass-mediated American messages over
exported from local media networks like Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera.28
3. A lack of credibility is the third major part of this category, and it is the most simple.
23
Fejes, Fred. “Critical mass communications research and media effects: the problem of the disappearing
audience.” Media, Culture & Society, no. 6 (1984): 229.
24
Robin, The Making of the Cold War Enemy, 83.
25
Zarhana. “The Network Paradigm of Strategic Public Diplomacy.” Foreign Policy in Focus 10, no. 1
(April 2005): 1.
26
Nisbet, Erik C., Matthew C. Nisbet, Dietram A. Scheufele, and James E. Shanahan. “Public Diplomacy,
Television News, and Muslim Opinion.” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 9, no. 2
(April 1, 2004): 11.
27
Sriramesh, Krishnamurthy, and Dejan Verčič. The Global Public Relations Handbook Revised Edition,
843. Taylor & Francis, 2009.
28
Nisbet, “Public Diplomacy, Television News, and Muslim Opinion,” 843.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
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The audience will not settle into a state in which they are persuadable when there is
distrust and suspicion. Conventional logic says “ostentatious (hard) power eclipses
low-profile public diplomacy.”29 In other words, “you can’t smash them with your
left hand and caress them with your right. If you’re going to war you should suspend
public diplomacy.”30 That notion is relatively straightforward; however, it becomes
more complex in a networked world where every action and conflict is monitored
and circulated to audiences that are ostensibly unaffected. Public diplomacy
practitioners must constantly cultivate credibility. The American legacy in the
Middle East makes this difficult, as it is one tainted by two Gulf Wars, the war in
Afghanistan, alleged support of Zionist policies, and allegations (of which many are
true) of covert information gathering, intelligence work or psychological warfare
(psywar). For any exporter of public diplomacy, be it a state or private entity, "the
credibility of the perceived source of any message or action is as significant in
determining its impact as the cultural lens through which it is observed; and, just like
the cultural factor, we ignore it at our peril.”31
Advocates of the reception and audience model believe that public diplomacy is a
powerful tool in moving the needle of public opinion and furthering US interests.
Adjusting and accounting for the aforementioned disadvantages is essential for the
success of any public diplomacy endeavor. Certain tactics and strategies are, according
to this literature, able to inoculate public diplomacy programs from such potential
problems. Extensive research, developing linguistic skills, maintaining a local presence
Van Ham, “Power, Public Diplomacy, and the Pax Americana,” 59.
Ibid.
31
Joylon, Welsh, and Daniel Fearn. Engagement: Public Diplomacy in a Globalised World, 54-56.
London: Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 2008. www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdengagement-jul-08.
29
30
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
16
as opposed to parachuting in when crisis onsets, and using local opinion and community
leaders are suggested methods of negotiating the hurdles. Consequently, good public
diplomacy must employ meticulous marketing and advertising schemes based on public
opinion and polling as opposed to imposing a preconceived plan of attack that may be
culturally incongruent. Also, multiple perspectives must be recognized, as generally it is
the one-sided argument that is perceived by the audience to lack credibility. 32 All things
considered, according to this analytical framework, the audience must be the primary
referent of public diplomacy if the program is to have any success.
Anachronistic public diplomacy
This third umbrella category takes into consideration the recommendations from
both frameworks previously explored, but these scholars and experts draw a sharp
distinction between public diplomacy in the pre- and post-globalization arena. In way
similar to the management and production camp, this framework is strategy and
management centric; however, the tenets proposed in this literature fall more in line with
globalization theory. Public diplomacy is a contextual phenomenon, and must be
understood and adapted to dynamic environment. This camp is harshly critical of the
current US public diplomacy strategy, or lack thereof. In the post-9/11 epoch, “U.S.
public diplomacy has followed an ineffective information strategy borrowed from the
Cold War.”33 The flagship programs of American public diplomacy (e.g. Radio Sawa
and Al Hurra television), according to this framework, are outdated and ineffectual.34
Such public diplomacy programs espouse Cold War realities not those valid under
32
Kendrick, Alice, and Jami A. Fullerton. “Advertising as Public Diplomacy: Attitude Change Among
International Audiences.” Journal of Advertising Research 44, no. 03 (2004): 309.
33
Zarhana, “The Network Paradigm of Strategic Public Diplomacy,” 1.
34
Kalathil, Soft Power Hard Issues, 15.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
17
globalization. In the new environment, public diplomacy must build relationships, create
a network of people and opinion leaders, involve multiple sources (public and private)
sector, and navigate current media. Instead, US programs are better described by what is
now an outdated form of public diplomacy: one-way monologue, image-management,
short-term commitment, and media monopoly.35,
36, 37, 38
In practice, most public
diplomacy efforts have not begun to consistently focus on the proliferation of actors as
opposed to the broadcast of an agenda.39 In other words, deploying skilled agents and
groups to communicate in on a local and individual level exists, but it is still secondary
to large national and regional broadcasts from the studio. Sidney Harman of Harman
International Industries “All of our institutions have reorganized as though
circumstances today require little more than a rearrangement of the architecture that
served us during the Cold War; it is simply irrelevant. As in military engagement, “a
nonlinear, nonserial, nonsynchronous” enemy cannot be defeated using traditional
tactics; the US public diplomacy machine is approaching the new globalized
environment in a classic linear, synchronous fashion.40 In effect, public diplomacy is a
dynamic phenomenon that is rooted in the context of a shifting global environment: it
must be practiced with this understanding if it is to be successful.
A brief practical history of American public diplomacy
Despite significant efforts, the US has struggled to acquire soft power in the
Middle East and North Africa, and insecurity and opposition to American interests are
35
Ibid., 4.
Zarhana, “The Network Paradigm of Strategic Public Diplomacy,” 1-2.
37
Sriramesh et al., The Global Public Relations Handbook, 843.
38
Melissen, Jan. “The New Public Diplomacy: Between Theory and Practice.” In The New Public
Diplomacy, 13. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
39
Kalathil, Soft Power Hard Issues, 16.
40
Ibid., 20.
36
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
18
prominent. Of the four primary instruments used to siphon soft power from foreign
regions (i.e. public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, the export of cultural commodities to
the global market place, humanitarian and development aid), this critical evaluation
addresses public diplomacy in particular. Since 9/11, public diplomacy has been
regarded as an essential part of American national security and reconceived as one of the
more pressing and relevant issues for the US foreign policy establishment.41 The
effectiveness of public diplomacy and soft power will later be operationalized and
measured, but at this point it is sufficient remain as objective as possible. Before
reaching its current state, public diplomacy underwent a long process of definition and
redefinition—a process that must be elucidated before accurately pinpointing and
describing the factors affecting its efficacy.
The evolution of public diplomacy is inextricably bound to the development of
other forms of strategic communication (e.g. public relations, propaganda, image
creation, etc.) that first emerged long before DOS, the Internet, or even paper fliers.
Such communicative endeavors can be traced back to ancient Greece, Rome and the
Byzantine Empire, and they continued to grow in importance and complexity with the
advent of new technologies (e.g. the printing press), and the waves of
internationalization in the 18th and 19th centuries.42 Though public diplomacy and the
public relations functioning of the state in those early periods are interesting and
important, American public diplomacy in the modern epoch can be separated into two
distinct periods: the Cold-War period and its successor, the era of Globalization (or what
some call the postmodern period). In theory, the change of the guard from Cold War to
41
42
Melissen, “The New Public Diplomacy,” xix.
Ibid., 3-4.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
19
globalization should have ushered in a “new” public diplomacy—as the literature
previously analyzed made clear.
But in practice, there have been several staple
programs and strategies in communicating with foreign audiences that have persisted
since early activities in the period leading up to WWII—it is these programs and
strategies that characterize public diplomacy in reality. Still a consistent strategy and a
specialized organization for PR and public diplomacy aimed at foreign audiences were
not established until the birth of United States Information Agency (USIA) in 1953.
This section provides a brief exploration of the major trends and programs in American
public diplomacy from the inception of the USIA through present day.
USIA: rise, fall, and reinvention
The Office of Wartime Information (OWI) was the functional precursor to the
USIA, conducting psywar and informational activities in spaces abroad in an effort to
combat propaganda from the Nazis and the other Axis powers.43 There were several
agencies that had performed informational activities abroad predating the OWI: the
Committee on Public Information, the Office of the Coordinator on Inter-American
Affairs, and other ad hoc agencies.44 However, with the onset of the Second Great War,
the US government consolidated its information functions into the OWI. The OWI’s
spectrum of operations included radio programs (e.g. Voice of America), films and
paper media, and the organization worked closely with private publishers and media
networks in producing these efforts.45 The OWI was disbanded in 1945 with other
wartime programs, but WWII and the OWI revealed the need for major communicative
43
Barnes, Joseph. “Fighting with Information: OWI Overseas.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 7, no. 1
(Spring 1943): 35.
44
Ibid., 17-25.
45
Dizard, Wilson P. Inventing public diplomacy, 24-28. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
20
efforts abroad and laid the groundwork for a modern public diplomacy organization.
When the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act (also known as the SmithMundt Act) (1948) was passed, that groundwork was given life: the Smith-Mundt Act
contained the legislative mandates that essentially chartered the USIA and defined the
role of public diplomacy in the US foreign policy agenda.46,
47
Those mandates
institutionalized VOA and the Fulbright exchange programs, limited US propaganda to
overseas operations, and created space for the reorganization and consolidation of all
information programs: the product was the USIA.
The USIA, the executive agency formed during the first Eisenhower
Administration, became “the chosen instrument for ideological operations” and played a
“bellwether role in developing and carrying out a national strategy for overseas
information and cultural operations.”48 The organization inherited all of the former
international strategic communication activities of the state department and its
predecessor organizations; in other words, propaganda was given a “prominent and
permanent place in the foreign policy apparatus of the US government.”49 Although, the
USIA was charged with being more of a news agency than a polemical propaganda
machine—and it did disassociate itself from deceptive ploys and disinformation—its
staple programs still reflected its heritage of propaganda and psychological warfare
(psywar).50 Programs were mostly one-way flows of information aimed at injuring its
46
“United States Information Agency,” n.d. http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/20th/usia.html.
“Smith Mundt Act.” In Public Diplomacy Wiki. USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg
School, n.d. http://publicdiplomacy.wikia.com/wiki/Smith_Mundt_Act.
48
Barnes, “Fighting with Information: OWI Overseas,” 4.
49
Parry-Giles, Shawn J. “The Eisenhower Administration's Conceptualization of the USIA: The
Development of Overt and Covert Propaganda Strategies.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 24, no.
2 (Spring 1994): 263.
50
Ibid., 272
47
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
21
ideological opponent (the Soviet Union) by dominating communications and influencing
public thought. Scholar and former Foreign Service Officer Wilson P. Dizard describes
USIA programs at the height of its Cold War operations as “the biggest information and
cultural effort ever mounted by one society to influence the attitudes and actions of men
and women beyond its borders.”51 Although foreign exchanges allowed for dialogue and
exchange, the majority of other programs were simply designed to information
inundation: tens billions of copies of print media were distributed in over 100 languages,
a global library network with shelves in over 150 countries, documentaries, films,
newsreels, exhibits etc. were produced by the USIA.52 The American foreign policy
agenda was woven into a close nexus with information activities and the basic strategy
was the more times we tell them, the more they will listen.
The Soviet Union, the great American adversary, officially fell in 1991, and with
it declined the American preoccupation with strategic communication with foreign
publics. In 1999 the USIA was integrated into the DOS and since the merger, the
Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs has coordinated public
diplomacy actions. The aforementioned resurgence of strategic communication and
public diplomacy onto the US foreign policy agenda was spawned by the events of 9/11.
The globalized international environment that public diplomacy is functioning currently
is vastly different than the pre-1989 when there was a healthy Soviet Union.
Technological advances and new media, more non-state actors with legitimate political
and governing power, and new ideological enemy (terrorists and their cohorts) changed
51
52
Dizard, Inventing public diplomacy, 4.
Ibid.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
22
the arena for American public diplomacy, but the general strategy and programs are
reminiscent of the Cold-War are still very similar.
US broadcast programs (as well as cultural and information programs) have
primarily built upon those of the past, but some advancements have been made. The
predominant US public diplomacy broadcast programs are largely directed toward the
Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia: Al Hurra TV (a satellite news channel
broadcast to the Middle East), Radio Sawa (a pop radio station), VOA and Hi (a youth
magazine), the SVI campaign (a series of advertisements and mini documentaries), etc.53
(Note: other programs wit other demographic targets exist, particularly via publicprivate partnership, but the Muslim public and Arab Diaspora are the primary audiences
being pursued by the most heavily funded programs). The primary difference between
current programs and those of the past are the different forms of technology being used:
satellite, the Internet and blogosphere, social networking sites, and SMS text messaging
are becoming a more integral part of the broadcast public diplomacy programs.54
Congressionally funded programs like Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty now have
websites with RSS feeds that can be downloaded to computers and mobile phones,
multimedia features, blogs and internet broadcasts. This alludes to a more networked
conception of public diplomacy, a direction in which policy analysts and experts have
been pushing the DOS to move.
American public diplomacy is under a constant process of transformation, as
adjustments to the system under globalization are starting to be recognized and
53
Galal, Injy. “The History and Future of US Public Diplomacy.” Global Media Journal 4, no. 7 (Fall
2005). http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/gmj/fa05/graduatefa05/gmj-fa05gradinv-galal.htm.
54
“FY 2009 Joint Summary of Performance and Financial Information.” USAID, 2009.
http://www.usaid.gov/policy/summary09/.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
23
accounted for. The US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy is a bipartisan panel
created to evaluate and make recommendations to Congress about the state and direction
of public diplomacy endeavors. Recent reports and proposed legislation by both that
commission and Congress include improved intra- and interagency coordination,
increased requirements for executive oversight, enhanced partnerships with specific
countries, increased exchanges, increased monitoring, evaluation, and accountability, as
well as several other structural reforms.55 The most recent releases from the Commission
point toward the necessity of improving the “human resource dimension” of public
diplomacy by focusing on the quality and training of its practitioners in addition to the
structural adjustment agenda that it proposed in earlier reports (USAC public diplomacy
2008 6, 2002).56, 57
With a proficient level of knowledge of American public diplomacy between
both theory and practice, it is now possible to carefully reconceptualize the soft power
problem in terms of counterframing. The shocks of globalization are producing an
environment where insecurity necessitates greater soft power for the safety of a state and
its interests, while at the same time making it more difficult to access soft power
stockpiles, particularly in the Muslim World. Many experts describe soft power as a
central construct in a competent post-Cold War national security strategy, and US
policymakers are shifting the budget and national security defense arsenal in favor of
55
Nakamura, Kenneth H., and Matthew C. Weed. U.S. Public Diplomacy: Background and Current
Issues. Congressional Research Service, December 18, 2009.
uscpublicdiplomacy.org/pdfs/PD_US_World_Engagement.pdf.
56
Hybl, William J. Getting the People Part Right: A Report on the Human Resources Dimension of U.S.
Public Diplomacy, 6. US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, June 25, 2008.
http://www.state.gov/r/adcompd/.
57
US Advisory Commission o Public Diplomacy, Building America’s public diplomacy through
a reformed structure and additional resources
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
24
this conception. In light of such occurrences, public diplomacy (as an alleged primary
instrument of soft power) must produce some sort of positive result greater than its
cost—even if its effect is minimal. The latter is an expectation that is unproven and
potentially problematic.
COUNTERFRAMING
“When the United States says this is not a war against Islam, 1.2 billion people hear
that it is.”
-John Rendon, President of The Rendon Group
An introduction counterframing
Counterframing is a rational form of strategic communication used to offset the
information operations of an antagonist group. A problem arises when the group being
counterframed is the “good guys,” and the “bad guys” consequently seize power and
influence in a given region; in other words, counterframing is a US foreign policy issue
when it erodes US influence and impedes the pursuit of American interests. This is the
force inhibiting American soft power endeavors in the Middle East. Counterframing is
not a novel phenomenon, and it predates the modern epoch of globalization. However,
the conditions that activate this kryptonic force—as the potential to effectively
counterframe has at times been rendered dormant by unfavorable geopolitical
conditions—are those that have coincided with globalization. This is what makes
counterframing theoretically significant in international relations strategy. Soft power is
conceived as a prominent and necessary feature of the national security agenda;
counterframing hampers American soft power endeavors; counterframing is particularly
viable in an arena characterized by globalization; therefore, the intersection of
globalization and counterframing is a threat to US national security.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
25
Counterframing occurs through mediated and indirect methods of interaction that
reflect the sort of public diplomacy efforts of large, well developed states (e.g. broadcast
programs, advertising campaigns, speeches and events). It also occurs through direct and
conventional human interaction that is more characteristic of local and community-level
groups: conversation, helping or assisting community members, teaching, coaching,
advising, reprimanding, etc. It is a practice that all actors (states, parents, teachers,
terrorists, rebel groups, religious leaders and countless others) engage in—whether it is a
deliberate action or it occurs unconsciously. The ability to counterframe is a function of
access (which generally manifests itself in the form of cultural capital and credibility), a
willing (or captive) audience, and space. These three mutually reinforcing, necessary
conditions are the practical requirements that must exist or be present for counterframing
to occur. Defining these necessary conditions is not a simple, one-step process. First, I
will define them as discrete theoretical conditions, then I will contextualize the
conditions of counterframing within globalization theory and geopolitics, and lastly I
will examine the concept of space as the central and most salient condition needed for
counterframing in a globalized world.
Note: Clearly from its name, the counterframe is the message opposing the original
frame; therefore, the perspective with which you perceive the interaction determines
which is the frame and which is the counterframe. Generally, in this study, the
counterframe is that which is opposing pro-US strategic communications endeavors.
Basic definitions
Access is primarily a function of being organic. An organic actor is one that is
indigenous to the community that is in question, whether that community is as small as a
group, town or enclave, or as large as an entire state, region or religious sect. 58 As long
58
Wenger, Etienne. Communities of practice, 6. Cambridge University Press, 1999.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
26
as the community distinguishes itself from others with some type of identity marker,
those members that are homegrown (and have not been deliberately rejected) or have
been accepted into the community are organic. A shared ideological perspective,
language or dialect, and even skin color can act as such markers and create an in-group
and an out-group. As a result, despite existing within the state’s jurisdiction, if a given
community asserts a separate identity from the greater state identity or nationality, then
the state will face the disadvantages of an inorganic actor. Organic actors have an innate
communications advantage. An organic actor has social capital unique to that
community which makes it immediately more credible than an outsider and far less
likely to encounter communications barriers like the suspicion of foreign imperialism,
xenophobia, cultural prejudices, linguistic misunderstandings etc.59 Some organic actors
in heterogeneous communities still come across those latter sorts of barriers; however,
navigating and overcoming those barriers is far less complicated and difficult for such
actors than for their foreign or out-group counterparts. These organic entities are fluid in
the cultural constructs that make communication more or less effective. As these actors
are immersed in the constant evolution of the relative community and its culture, their
communications strategy, rhetoric, style, etc. are a product of the cultural minutiae that
define and redefine a community everyday. An organic actor
(for the most part)
bypasses the problems of the deficiency of cultural capital that is cited by advocates of
the reception/audience model in their analysis of successful public diplomacy.
The willing or captive audience is the most straightforward piece of the puzzle.
A willing audience is one that openly receives the counterframing message: this
59
Ghoshal, Sumantra, and Janine Nahapiet. “Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organizational
advantage.” Academy of Management Review 23, no. 2 (n.d.): 243.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
27
audience most likely shares values, grievances, interests or an ideology with the
counterframing party. A captive audience is created when circumstances are such that
the counterframing message is imposed on that audience through physical or economic
coercion, high levels of social or political pressure, or when one communicative entity
monopolizes a primary medium (giving the community only one option for information,
news, opinion, etc.).
Space or a communicative gap must exist for the counterframing party to operate
within. If the message cannot physically be disseminated, then the counterframing
message will remain an idea without the possibility of immersion into the community
agenda. Jamming frequencies, limiting television to only state broadcasts, Internet
censorship, and outlawing congregation and political meetings are all ways of closing
communicative space. Often such repressive tactics have a backlash effect, and if the
counterframing organization can avoid censorship and continue to spread its message,
the counterframing message may receive a measure of added resonance.
Counterframing and globalization: definitions in context
The conditions for non-friendly governing forces to harness the potential of
counterframing in the pre-globalization period were, in many cases, absent. The
conditions that transform the latent potential of counterframing into a threat to the
security and soft power (of the pursuant state) are those that have coincided with
globalization, particularly the upsurge of ungoverned spaces. This next section explores
the interaction of globalization and counterframing. The primary definitions of the first
two necessary conditions (access and audience) are expanded upon and the effect of
globalization on those conditions is explained. The third condition (space) is then
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
28
presented as the sufficient condition for counterframing—meaning that it is explains
counterframing as a phenomenon.
Access and audience as keys to counterframing are vastly different in the
globalized world than they were during the Cold War era and the waves of
internationalization that preceded the Cold War. Technological advancements have
consistently improved the speed and quality with which communication and
transportation occur over long distances. The onset of globalization coincided with
levels of operational communications and transportation technology that were accessible
and affordable to the point where that innovation could have an actual impact on the two
necessary conditions in question. Actors that were previously unable to transport goods,
services, weapons and people efficiently over long distances can now do so in order to
capture an audience via inducements, coercion or even attraction. Vehicles are now so
readily procured that group leaders can move across boundaries that were heretofore
impassable: improved transportation facilitates face-to-face interaction between leaders
and their target audience. In-person, direct communication contributes to the credibility
and influence of the actor producing the counterframing message. Communications
technology that produces quasi face-to-face interaction by using multimedia, streaming
videos, interactive and dialogical features, and constantly updating social networking
sites among other innovations also provides greater access to the target audience.
Communication with audiences can occur efficiently and effectively in spite of distance
and time differences. The network parameters and quantities of people that can be
accessed via communications systems are bound only by the audience’s use (and access
to) a particular medium. In his analysis of strategic communications techniques by
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
29
Jihadist organizations, Major Dr. Carsten Bockstette describes the way in which
technological innovation has reproduced quasi person-to-person interaction to massive
audiences:
“The world of mass communication is evolving into a world of networked
mediated mass communication, where different mediated technologies
combine interpersonal mediation devices with mass communication ones
[...] The fusion of interpersonal communication and mass communication,
connecting audiences—that all can also be publishers or broadcasters at
the same time via the World Wide Web—enhances the resonating cavity
of terrorists and greatly increases their access to audiences.”60
As hardware becomes cheaper, the limitations of the mediated communication are
diminishing. Overall, improved methods of communication and transportation that
facilitate person-to-person and quasi face-to-face interaction, as well as increases in both
network size and speed boost access level to target audiences and the relative
compliance of those audiences.
Space, in the context of international relations, possesses two distinct but equally
integral parts. Together, those two components embody the sufficient condition that
produces counterframing as a phenomenon in strategic communications and
international relations. In other words, those components produce three effects: the
process of successful counterframing, the activation of latent counterframing potential,
and they introduce more insecurity into the international arena. Those three effects are a
part of a cyclical and mutually reinforcing process that injects more insecurity into an
international system that is already less secure for both people and states.
The sufficient condition, parts A and B
60
Bockstette, Carsten. “Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques.” The
Marshall Center Occasional Paper Series, no. 20 (December 2008): 15.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
30
As the sufficient condition of counterframing, space or ungovernance, makes the
existence of the phenomenon necessary and inevitable. It also is the condition that
allows the counterframing to occur. In other words, the sufficient condition acts in
multiple capacities to facilitate counterframing.
Component A: geopolitical ungovernance
Counterframing is best described as a symbiotic partner of insecurity. Decreases
in the net security of State A under the regime of globalization enhances the ability of
(non-state actor) Group B to successfully produce counterframes; those counterframes
pose a threat to the interests and security of State A; the overall effect is a less secure
environment that produces more actors like Group B with active potential to
successfully counterframe State A. The spark that ignites this sequence of insecurity is a
concept that political scientist Anna Leander terms ungovernance.61 This analysis of
Component
A
examines
the nexus
between geopolitical
ungovernance
and
counterframing in order to elucidate the impact of counterframing on the security
environment.
Globalization
Figure 1 Geopolitical Ungovernance and Counterframing
Geopolitical
Ungovernance
Proliferation of non-state actors
analgous to Group B
61
Decrease in net
security of State A
Increase in Group B’s
ability to counterframe
Counterframes produced by
Group B threaten State A’s
interests and agenda
Leander, Anna. “Global Ungovernance: Mercenaries, States and the Control over Violence,” 2002.
http://www.privateforces.com/content/view/1087/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_vi
ew&gid=179&Itemid=41.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
31
Transformations under globalization produce spaces of ungovernance and
insecurity that create a demand for actors to fill those gaps. Those same transformations
under globalization supply such actors with manpower and public support or tolerance,
as well as the crises that are needed to maintain the necessary surplus to fuel those
actors’ agendas.62 The outcome of that supply-demand interaction is the emergence of
non-state, local or regional security providers that use counterframes to legitimize their
actions. As opinion leaders, governing forces and security suppliers, they export those
counterframes to the greater population to advance their agenda. En route to achieving
their own goals, these actors manipulate, radicalize and frame the strategic
communication of their home state and allies (i.e. the US Government) as a means of
delegitimizing the state and its interests, and usurping its governing authority.
Several elements of globalization contribute to the creation of the
aforementioned gap in governance and security by incapacitating the state or
internationally recognized governing forces. Consider these key trends that are produced
or enhanced by globalization: the proliferation of weapons since the end of the Cold War
(particularly small arms), the expansion in the means and frequency of migration
(particularly emigration from states and regions of immediate crises to neighboring
states), growing economic inequity, and disease. Such trends are either an outcome or
contributor to conflict and instability, and often can be both. Internal and regional
instability and conflict are especially important as globalization facilitates the contagion
of the effects of conflict. Those effects disrupt the states ability to provide security on
multiple levels (e.g. physical protection, access to food, territorial integrity, etc.).
62
Leander, Anna. “The Market for Force and Public Security: The Destabilizing Consequences of Private
Military Companies.” Journal of Peace Research 42, no. 5 (September 1, 2005): 605-622.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
32
Weapons proliferation, for instance, undermines the state’s monopoly on violence by
providing non-state actors with affordable artillery, enabling them to compete with the
state military and police forces. In this way, such actors can create as well as mitigate
violence—they usurp the security making responsibilities from the state. Likewise,
poverty and disease breed a sense of despair and limit opportunity for economic
prosperity; inordinately impacting youth, people seek other avenues to make social
contributions and achieve individual satisfaction. In her discussion of the dangers of
security under globalization, Lynn Davis provides a succinct explanation of how such
trends produce a nexus of threats that creates the security gap:
“To the extent that governments are not able to cope, these economic
difficulties contribute to the underlying causes of various forms of
international criminal activities, lack of attention to environmental safety,
cutbacks in critical health and other social services, and large-scale
migration and refugee flows. These in turn provide the environment in
which some of the transnational threats arise.”63
Although Davis is explicitly addressing the development of transnational threats,
in the process she incidentally captures the manner in which globalization produces
threats that raise the demand level for some entity to fill local, national and regional
security gaps. That demand-driven analysis is what Leander uses to describe the
emergence of private military corporations to restore public security in ungoverned
spaces.64 However, if the referent object of Leander’s argument is changed from the
state to the individual, that nuanced analysis aptly describes the emergence of the type of
non-state actor that it is relevant to this study.
63
Davis, Lynn. “Globalization's Security Implications.” 4. RAND Corporation (2003): 4.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP245/.
64
Leander, “Global Ungovernance.”
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
33
As the shocks and transformations of globalization create spaces of
ungovernance and insecurity, the decision to fill those gaps (and allow those gaps to be
filled) is strictly logical.65 Decreases in the individual security of youth, poverty,
infrastructural damage to health and education systems, death and the inability to
provide for family members all supply rebel groups, warlords, terrorists, etc., with
individuals seeking a way to improve public as well as their individual security. Even if
the people in the region itself are preoccupied with survival and subsistence—as some
scholars suggest—such conditions provide a grievance for others (e.g. students,
expatriates, etc.) to appropriate the perceived burden and join the non-state actors or
groups. Anti-state forces (e.g. terrorists, rebel groups and non-state militias) “feed on
insecurity and instability” and conflict “evoke[s] suffering and passions and unintended
consequences that add to the list of terrorist grievances.”66 In fact, this supply-side
analysis was a focus of former President George W. Bush’s National Security Strategy.67
The NSS refers to the relevance and emergence of failed states as security threats, where
failed states are those that are laden with ungoverned spaces. Susan Rice, US
Ambassador to the United Nations simplifies this aspect of the 2002 NSS:
“First, these [failed] states provide convenient operational bases and safe
havens for international terrorists. Terrorist organizations may also recruit
foot soldiers from local populations, where poor and disillusioned youth
often harbor religious or ethnic grievances.”68
Other members of society, who are unable or unwilling to join these groups, still face the
same individual security threats. As rational actors in need of security—actors that are
65
Leander, Anna. “The Market for Force and Public Security: The Destabilizing Consequences of Private
Military Companies.” Journal of Peace Research 42, no. 5 (September 1, 2005): 605-622.
66
Rice, Susan. “The New National Security Strategy: Focus on Failed States.” The Brookings Institution,
February 2003. http://www.ciaonet.org/pbei/bi/ris01/.
67
Ibid.
68
Ibid.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
34
unable to physically contest those warlords or terrorists—they will either embrace or
tolerate them. Essentially, an insecure public whose net security is determined by a
terrorist group or tribal militia is rendered a captive audience for any potential security
provider: in a Tilly-like fashion, these actors enlist the loyalty of the people. The state,
the US and other classical (and often inorganic) entities attempt to maintain their role as
legitimate authorities and combat the influence of those non-friendly actors through soft
power and other strategic communications endeavors. Any actor seeking sustainable
governance needs the cooperation of the people (or at least needs them not to support the
other side). Necessarily, a war of strategic communication emerges as an important
aspect of these attempts to usurp or reestablish governing authority: counterframes, as
disseminated by instruments of strategic communication, are the ammunition in this war.
In the aforementioned intersection of supply and demand, terrorists, rebel leaders and
even non-state actors with less violent agendas, are able to mobilize counterframes more
successfully not only because of their innate communicative advantages, but also as a
result of the communicative ungovernance. This second component is the bridge
between geopolitics and strategic communication, and it is what directly threatens the
America’s ability attain soft power and win the war over the public.
Component B: communicative ungovernance
As geopolitical ungovernance makes counterframing necessary, communicative
ungovernance facilitates counterframing in an environment that gives the counterframe a
distinct advantage over its competitor message. With respect to globalization, there are
two principal reasons that counterframes are generally more effective than state-led or
foreign public diplomacy attempts, particularly in regard to the counterframing of US
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
35
messages: globalization functions as a conceptual reinforcement to anti-American
counterframes, and it creates vast spaces of ungovernance in both technologically
advanced mediated communication as well as traditional communication. This
exploration of Component B will make those processes clear.
In the past, particularly under dictatorial or authoritarian rule, counterframes
could be suppressed by restricting or controlling mass media broadcasts, jamming nonauthorized signals, criminalizing political meetings and congregation, and other forms of
censorship. The state of mediated communications is now one characterized by almost
complete ungovernance. The technological advancements in the media that were
previously explicated (i.e. internet-based communication tools, streaming video,
satellite, etc.) are the functional equivalent of the Hindu Kush and Swat Valley—they
are nearly impregnable and present serious problems in terms of management and
governance. Internet filters and censorware can give a central authority some sense of
control over the information being shared on the World Wide Web, but in reality there is
no method effectively to censor such vast quantities of information, images and
messages. Organizations disseminating counterframes cannot only operate via third
parties or remote, essentially untraceable channels, they can shift identities, rename sites,
send encrypted messages, and post multimedia messages anonymously among other
tactics assist clandestine or untraceable activity. Actors in democratic countries may not
go through such great lengths to conceal themselves, knowing that their speech is
protected; nonetheless, under these circumstances the government remains highly
limited (by law) in its ability to regulate strategic communication from counterframing
sources. The communicative possibilities of the Internet have made actors engaged in
counterframing more numerous, agile, and well coordinated, and these actors have become
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
36
quite proficient in the use of their new tools: “21st century information and communications
technologies and the associated infrastructure…maximize the psychological impact of their
[terrorist] operations and communiqués.”69 Thus, communicative ungovernance allows
counterframing to occur practically free of any real interference. In an unregulated
market, the inherent advantages of counterframing will facilitate the dominance of the
counterframes and the subsequent damage to the strategic communications operation of
the opposing actor.
Communicative ungovernance of mediated communication is compounded by
the increase in the quantity of physical ungoverned spaces that are produced by
globalization. It is increasingly difficult to monitor and disrupt political meetings and
assemblies, particularly in states where globalization has created significant security
gaps: the state’s capacity to monitor and censor traditional communication has declined.
In dictatorships and authoritarian states, the government may use violence in attempts to
prevent such gatherings, but with its declining capacity, the state in the globalized world
will find such measures increasingly difficult to reproduce. In democracies, such
censorship diminishes the legitimacy of the state and diminishes the access to soft power
that it is seeking to protect. In effect, the ungovernance in mediated communication is
reinforced by ungovernance in traditional interpersonal communication, and the
counterframe will consistently be the most valued commodity in a laissez faire strategic
communications market. The market, however, is not entirely free from intrusion—
globalization itself adds an incentive for target audiences to accept counterframes.
The interaction between the effects of globalization and the public’s conception
of globalization is an important dynamic in counterframing when the competing interest
69
Bockstette, “Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
37
is a pro-Western entity. The case for globalization as a contributor to insecurity in
developing, less-developed, and non-Western countries has been made clear. In these
regions, however, globalization is also charged as a form Western exploitation, and it is
associated with consumerism, liberalism, secularism, and other non-traditional values.70
In trying to explain the reasons for insecurity and grasp modern socioeconomic and
political transformations, the public correctly points their attention and blame toward
globalization. Allegations of exploitation and cultural imperialism when used as the
causal logic for instability, poverty, conflict etc. may be false; nonetheless, there is still a
rather indiscriminate reaction against values associated with globalization. Globalization
is an ideal culprit as its effects are pervasive and provide countless grievances—
grievances that can subsequently be packaged as anti-Western counterframes. Those
counterframes are likely to champion egalitarianism, communal or tribal allegiances,
religious law, etc., and they may include different standards of fairness, morality and the
derivation of political authority. These counterframes are in direct competition with the
Western frames asserted in American in strategic communications (particularly public
diplomacy) campaigns; they have the advantage of cultural legitimacy, and are often call
upon deeply engrained religious duties and customs. This is the push side of the
counterframing phenomenon. Globalization, the chief contributor to insecurity, pushes
the public away from Western values—the very same values that the US hopes these
publics are drawn to through its public diplomacy campaign. The push of globalization
eases the audience’s rejection of US strategic communication and that of its state
allies—and a victory for the counterframe ensues.
70
Serafim, Ana. “Terrorism—A Cultural Phenomenon?” The Quarterly Journal (March 2005): 61-74.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
38
MEASURING THE IMPACT OF PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
There is no standard method for measuring the impact of public diplomacy
endeavors. An operative methodology would require a process that is logistically
feasible as well as a direct relationship between public diplomacy and a designated
policy or performance outcome. The former appears unlikely to transpire; the latter is
more improbable than the former. Although there may not be a functional methodology
that has been published and is in practice, there are conceptual models that provide a
framework from which to begin. This section contributes to the further development of a
coherent methodology and evaluates the effects and effectiveness of US public
diplomacy by assessing keys pillars to the public-diplomacy-soft power-national security
complex. If public diplomacy produces the effects that it is said to produce, then there
should be observable signals of improvements in security, mutual understanding, and the
acceptance of the US and its policies in regions where public diplomacy activities are
abundant. Even if those indicators are weak, they still allude to the possibility of public
diplomacy as a real contributor to American security goals; however, weak signals or the
complete absence of such indicators implies that other conditions and variables are
superordinate and more powerful factors than public diplomacy in the modern
international arena. It also shows the possibility that public diplomacy is no contributor
to long-term policy goals and security at all. Consequently, imperceptible or nonexistent
primary signals allow important conclusions to be drawn about public diplomacy and
soft power, and such a result would strengthen the principle of counterframing.
Developing a methodology
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
39
The US DOS has suggested a mechanism for assessing its public diplomacy
performance. In its Performance and Accountability Highlights for Fiscal Year 2006,
and its Summary of Performance and Financial Information, the DOS concluded that
US public diplomacy was performing at or above target levels in each one of its
performance indicators in 2006, and only performing below target levels in one of seven
indicators in 2009.71,72 However, the indicators selected were narrow and provided
minimal insight into the effectiveness of the programs being evaluated and no insight
into the greater effect of public diplomacy. The DOS performance reports assert that its
public diplomacy programs had the following effects:
“Public diplomacy activities seek to counter anti-American sentiment,
promote better appreciation and understanding for the U.S. abroad and
foster greater receptivity for U.S. policies among international publics, as
well as greater knowledge among Americans around the world.”73
Those effects are important insofar as they “affect official decision-making” and are
“fundamental to security,” which the report describes as the real “public benefit” of
public diplomacy.74 What the report is describing is the process by which public
diplomacy leads to the acquisition of soft power, and soft power facilitates the US
agenda and enhances US security. All of those aspects in the process must be considered
when evaluating public diplomacy.
71
USAID, “FY 2009 Joint Summary of Performance and Financial Information,” 45.
“FY 2006 Performance and Accountability Highlights.” 53. US Department of State,
n.d. http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/perfrpt/2006hlts/pdf/.
73
Ibid.
74
Ibid., 54.
72
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
40
The primary performance indicators used to assess American public diplomacy
activities in practice were the changes in Arab media coverage of US messages and
policies, program participation (e.g. American Corners), and participant opinion
regarding US policies, society and values before and after participation.75,76 The issue
with the primary indicators that the reports included is that they focus mostly on
exchange programs, do not address whether or not shifts in the opinion needle are
sustained after participants are frequently exposed to anti-American opinions in society,
provide no real measure of the impact of technology-based and broadcast programs, and
do not offer any information regarding how these activities have translated into
successful and sustainable policies from official decision makers. The US method is
incomplete; in consequence, the results that are
offered based on that method are questionable.
The
British
Foreign
and
Commonwealth Office (FCO) and British
Council introduced a pilot framework for
evaluating public diplomacy that is relatively
comprehensive and consistent, and one that
improves upon recent DOS, GAO and USIA
public diplomacy performance assessments.
Like the US assessment reports, the British
model includes an impact measurement that
uses media tracking and influencer tracking
75
76
Figure 2 FCO and British Council pilot framework
for assessing public diplomacy activities
Ibid.
USAID, “FY 2009 Joint Summary of Performance and Financial Information,” 46.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
41
which monitor the changes in media coverage of relevant issues as well as shifts in
opinion leader messages.77
What distinguishes the British model from less complete models is that it treats
“public diplomacy as a journey from input to policy goal.”78 This conception of public
diplomacy as a process necessitates the use of a “concrete change tracker” to monitor
“observable changes” over different lengths of time: immediate and intermediate
outcomes can be monitored in order to determine if progress toward long-term goals is
being made.79 Effective public diplomacy activities will display signs or signals of longterm goals via its intermediate outcomes—it is those signals that will be used to evaluate
public diplomacy as a contributor (or non-factor) to national security. One method to
detect such signals is to observe governance in the target region.
The World Bank Institute conducts global research operations and analyzes data
from other research institutions in order to measure development, economic stability,
health and other social, economic and political conditions: among those conditions is
governance. The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are a measure of six
dimensions of governance that reflect the coherence of citizen-state relations and the
institutions that govern them, the capacity of the state to elicit cooperation as well as
implement formulated policies.80
77
Vinter, Louise, and David Knox. “Measuring the impact of public diplomacy: can it be done?,” n.d.
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/publications-and-documents/publications1/pdpublication/impact.
78
Ibid.
79
Ibid.
80
Kaufmann, Daniel, Aart Kraay, and Massimo Mastruzzi. “Governance Matters VIII: Aggregate and
Individual Governance Indicators, 1996-2008.” SSRN eLibrary (June 29, 2009): 8-9.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1424591.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
42
Figure 3 Definitions of Worldwide Governance Indicators from
the 2009 Update on the WGI Research Project.
The WGI do not directly or perfectly measure the impact of public diplomacy—
nor are they entirely comprehensive. Still, there are two primary advantages of using
governance indicators to track the impact of public diplomacy opposed to evaluating the
success of specific programs or isolated shifts in opinion polls. Governance, specifically
the six WGI, is a sign of the capacity and conditions that are needed for intermediate
outcomes to be achieved and progress toward long-term and overall policy goals to be
made. By focusing on the WGI, a shift or redefinition in a single program is a peripheral
occurrence, and the impact of public diplomacy toward a broader strategic direction or
policy can still be measured. For instance, two major US goals in Egypt are to curb
rising levels of Islamic extremism in the region and to continue to empower Egypt as a
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
43
pro-US regional security provider. The Political Stability and Absence of
Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, and Rule of Law dimensions of the WGI
directly serve those goals and there is an overlap between the WGI and US interests.
Furthermore, public opinion polls should be considered when evaluating public
diplomacy, but it is important to know that an opinion shift is a means to creating
tangible outcomes—not an end in itself. For that reason, the WGI are the primary tool of
evaluation in this study. Clearly, the capacity and effectiveness of an individual state to
govern is dependent on countless variables (e.g. financial capacity, security, history,
leadership, etc.), of which the intersection of such variables creates a complicated mess.
Nonetheless, if public diplomacy is a dominant factor, or even a factor with a less
significance, WGI trends should contain signs of improvement after the public
diplomacy operations targeting the region were initiated.
Searching for signals: Egypt, Kuwait and Pakistan
This section analyzes the WGI trends of three states—Egypt, Kuwait and
Pakistan—from 2003 until 2008. These countries were chosen for evaluation for several
reasons: all are Muslim countries in the Middle East and Central Asia, have high levels
of exposure to US public diplomacy programs and are strategic US allies in the region.
These three factors make the selected nations major targets for US public diplomacy and
information operations. Also, GDP based on purchasing power parity per capita of each
of the three countries indicates highly variant levels of population wealth between the
nations, and quality of life indices showed disparate living standards as well. 81,
81
82
“World Economic Database.” International Monetary Fund, April 2010.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2010/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=88&pr.y=7&sy=2
008&ey=2015&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=564%2C469%2C443&s=PPPPC
&grp=0&a=.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
44
Variation amongst population wealth and standard of living alludes to variation of other
factors (e.g. literacy rates, freedom of the press, conflict, etc.). Such variation provides a
better sample and facilitates conclusions that are not skewed or biased as a result of the
influence of a single factor like wealth, education, etc. Lastly, the three cases are
evaluated based on their worldwide percentile rank over the five-year period from
(2003-2008). Although it is important to recognize the WGI in these nations before 2003
for contextual purposes, American public diplomacy in the period before 2003 was in a
transition phase in which institutional reforms were not fully implemented, the Bush
Administration’s strategy was still underdeveloped, and fledgling programs were not yet
functioning at full strength.
Tracking the WGI over this five-year period is done using worldwide percentile
ranks in addition to raw data scores in order to give that data context and tangible
significance. Important international and regional events, crises, wars, etc., may
significantly lower raw WGI scores, but world percentile ranks account for such events
by using other states and broader governance trends in the international as points of
reference. Raw data scores are most useful when determining if substantial or
statistically significant changes in WGI of a single state occur over time.83 In this
research, such substantial or significant changes in the WGI are considered to be signals
that indicate progress toward or regress from intended intermediate outcomes, long-term
outcomes and overall policy goals. In target countries (i.e. Egypt, Kuwait and Pakistan)
during the period of mature US public diplomacy initiatives, such signals also indicate
82
“Quality of Life Index 2010.” International Living, 2010.
http://www1.internationalliving.com/qofl2010/#Egypt.
83
Kaufmann et al., “Governance Matters VIII,” 33-35.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
45
the possibility of effective US public diplomacy endeavors (Note: see charts and brief
descriptions of those trends in Appendix A).
In all three cases examined, there was only one significant change in the WGI
from 1996-2008: the focal period of this research between 2003 and 2008 saw even less
movement in the WGI than the expanded period. Pakistan experienced a substantial
decrease in its Political Stability and Absence of Terrorism/Violence scores, indicating
that public diplomacy may have produced a minimal or negative effect on governance
and detracted from the intended outcomes and goals of the US policies.84 Although the
Figure 4 Political Stability Trends in Pakistan
data from all three cases exhibit consistently weak signals, it is still not possible to
entirely rule out public diplomacy and the gains in soft power that are attributed to it.
Public diplomacy may have a stabilizing effect, meaning that it slows down or
undermines force working against US policy goals. Nevertheless, the governance trends
as represented by the WGI do not lend themselves well to the claim that US public
84
Ibid.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
46
diplomacy is a key factor that produces real outcomes in the international arena and
serves as a reliable adjunct to the American national security.
CONCLUSION
The current US national security paradigm operates under the assumption that
public diplomacy—as a means of acquiring soft power from foreign publics—creates
real outcomes that further national security interests. That conception of public
diplomacy, however, is relatively tenuous, as public diplomacy has not consistently
produced observable outcomes in the post-globalization geopolitical environment.
Counterframing offers a plausible explanation for what appears to be the ineffectiveness
of public diplomacy. In consequence, major state exporters of public diplomacy
programs need to reevaluate the construct of public diplomacy as a pillar of national
security. Those conclusions about public diplomacy and counterframing are valuable in
themselves, but more importantly they introduce a broader set of challenges to what is
becoming a highly sought after resource: soft power.
Soft power has heretofore been conceptualized as a producer of security;
however, the direction of that logic may be backwards. It is quite possible that soft
power is an effect or byproduct of security, not a cause. People and publics are simply
rational actors: if security is a necessary commodity that can be provided by a governing
actor, then the people will choose the actor that maximizes sustainable access to that
commodity. So from the perspective of the public, the actor that most effectively
increases aggregate security (i.e. human, physical, economic, food, environmental etc.)
will appear to be more attractive than its counterparts, its policies and ideologies will
share that same quality of attractiveness, and it will be more capable of eliciting public
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
47
cooperation. That conception of soft power ostensibly suggests that the realists were
right all along and that the notion of soft power is secondary or inconsequential;
however, the answer may not be quite that simple. If soft power is a byproduct of
security, the focus must now turn to maximizing the soft power profits that an actor
receives from providing security. Even if soft power does not produce security, it surely
facilitates good governance. So in the competition to fill ungoverned political spaces, the
most effective security provider will receive some allotment of soft power; that
allotment of soft power will facilitate good governance if the actor is inclined to govern
well; good governance will in turn enhance security.
Soft power is not a simple or easily definable construct, and future research must
evaluate and define the meaning and capacities of soft power. The key lesson from
current body of work is that soft power does not necessarily contradict the realist
conception of security and international relations; in fact, it seems to be a functional
byproduct of the central components of realism (i.e. hard power and security).
Globalization has not yet invalidated nor transformed the framework of international
relations theory that has aptly described geopolitics for so long, but surely shifts and
expansions are becoming manifest.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
48
APPENDIX A Governance Trends and Public Diplomacy Signal Strength
Figure 5 Governance Trends: Egypt
Evaluation
No significant changes in WGI from 2003-2008. Public Diplomacy Effectiveness Signal
Strength: weak to no signal.
Figure 6 Governance Trends: Kuwait
Evaluation
No significant changes in WGI from 2003-2008. Public Diplomacy Effectiveness Signal
Strength: weak to no signal.
The Kryptonite of Soft Power
49
Figure 7 Governance Trends: Pakistan
Evaluation
One substantial change in WGI from 2003-2008: substantial decrease in Political
Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism. Public Diplomacy Effectiveness Signal
Strength: weak signal, no signal or negative signal.
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