The Problem With Public Diplomacy
Karen Hughes, the infamous head of public diplomacy at the State Department, has a lot of work to do. A new Zogby International poll, conducted among 3,850 residents of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, found the following:
Nearly 80 percent of those surveyed stated they had unfavorable attitudes — 57 very unfavorable and 21 percent unfavorable — towards the United States. More than two-thirds of those surveyed, or 70 percent, said their attitudes towards America were based on U.S. policy, while only 11 percent said they was based on American values.
Despite the fact that Middle East democracy promotion forms the core of the Bush administration’s rhetoric, 65 percent of those surveyed said they did not believe democracy is a real U.S. objective in the region. In fact when asked what they considered to be motivating U.S. policy in the Middle East, “controlling oil” (83 percent), “protecting Israel” (75 percent), “weakening the Muslim world” (69 percent), and “desire to dominate the region” (68 percent) were identified as extremely important factors. (World Politics Watch)
Hughes’ job is to help shape the way that Arabs think about the United States by organizing student exchange programs, media interviews, public speeches, visits to the Middle East and the like. Her efforts at public diplomacy, however, clearly don’t seem to be having much success. Why? Because telling Arabs that the United States is a great nation that promotes human rights and democracy will not work unless our policies match our rhetoric.
A serious commitment to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance, an end to the occupation of Iraq, and a non-violent and consistent policy of democracy promotion in the Middle East would be a much more effective way of convincing Arabs of our good intentions.
10 Responses to “The Problem With Public Diplomacy”
‘democracy promotion’ is a dangerous idea these days, and has led to the election of Hamas.
I do, however, feel that promoting democratic ideas, like an independent judiciary, women’s rights and others, are valid and
effective topics to pursue.
What is requited is tact and caution,
Karen Hughes is an embarrassment to diplomacy. She is as qualified for her position as Harriet Meijers belongs on the SCOTUS.
The main problem with the US Middle East policy is that it is insufficiently supportive of our major ally, the State of Israel. A first step to improvement would be moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Holly in Cincinnati,
Moving our embassy to Jerusalem would only inflame tensions because we would be recognizing that Israel has the right to the entire city. I also think we put too much support behind them which is detrimental to our attempts to be a mediator and a broker of peace.
Now before I am jumped on for being anti-Israeli, let me give you my solution to part of the problem. Well, first the problem, which is that Jerusalem is the holy city for three major religions, therefore there is conflict over who should control it. It is also a, if not the, major sticking point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My solution is do not allow any one country to control it but make it like the Vatican, except ruled by a coalition of all three religions.
There are of course flaws in that solution, and specifics would have to be hammered out to satisfy all parties, but as long as one country claims complete control of the city, there will always be conflict.
Phttt on our “major ally” in the ME, and phttt on the ME. It’s drained us, and we are faltering here because of that whole region, and we sure could use the billions we blow(without public consent) in the region propping up dictators, kings, and Israel.
Our next president needs to recognize that promoting democracy in the ME has been a failure. Anti-Americanism is at an all-time high, while big problems with the environment, our budget, the future of social security, our health care system, the VA etc loom large at home. These have been largely neglected to support our efforts to democratize the ME. We need to have a much smaller footprint in the ME, and concentrate on prevention of terrorism and enforcement of our own laws on the domestic front.
Not to be overly Machiavellian here, but there seem to be (at least) two separate issues here.
1. What factors influence popular beliefs about the U.S. in the region?
2. What, if any influence, those popular beliefs have on stability, peace, U.S. interests etc?
For what it’s worth, my sense is that once distrust has been created, it’s *very* difficult to change it. As David Schraub pointed out, everybody has their narratives, and they interpret data in terms of those narratives. Even in the Arab world, the invasion of Afghanistan was largely seen as a justified response to 9/11. Iraq, however, has oil. Therefore it’s pretty clear that an invasion of Iraq would be seen, a priori, as being about the oil. If the U.S. goes after Iran, which *is* a signatory the NNPT, but is cozy with Israel, India, or Pakistan which withdrew, how can it be seen as anything other than hypocrisy if you’re already in the anti-U.S. narrative.
If I understand what is known about cognitive biases (Drew Westen, George Lakoff, etc) the only way to change perceptions is to do something that is outside the frame of reference or narrative, i.e. that is clearly contradictory to expectations. I think a good example was the elections held in Iraq. If the U.S. was solely concerned with oil, or regional imperialism, why would they hold elections anyway? Unfortunately, the U.S. also declared a blockade on Hamas’s democratically elected government, which feeds the narrative of the U.S. supporting only regimes which are in thrall to it. In any case, the U.S. would have to do several “unpredictable” or “contradictory” things in a row in order to overcome the current negative narrative, since they tend to be sticky.
Having said all that, I’m not sure what, if any, effect popular opinion on government policies in that region since they are generally not democracies. Really nasty dictatorships seem to be pretty stable as far as I can tell. Saddam managed to hold onto power 10 times as long as George H.W. Bush, and it took an external invasion to topple him.
So even if Hughes were wildly successful at making everybody love the U.S., I’m not sure it would do any good.
R Bell makes a lot of uncomfortable sense.
At present, I don’t think there is anything much the US could do in the ME to improve our image. Our every action is seen with suspicion of having an ulterior and malignant motive.
Loud mouthed propoganda is definitely out.
The only avenue is humanitarian aid, which is good for its own sake as well as a bridge builder. Even though we are not generous, and too often we use it cynically to do exactly what we are accused of -as a political club – in spite of everything, I still feel this is the best hope and would support measures to increase humanitarian aid significantly and meaningfully.
We cooperate well in creating our bad image.
PDPBR for March 5-8…
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, MARCH 5-8 "SENATOR, I JUST THINK THAT IT'S BAD POLICY, FRANKLY, TO SPECULATE ON WHAT YOU'LL DO IF A PLAN FAILS THAT YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE WORK." --Secretary of State Condoleez…
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