Front Matter: Preface, Scope, Intent,
and Executive Summary

Scope and Intent

1. Scope  

PD Foundations is the cornerstone project developing foundational principles that guide the practice of public diplomacy (PD) at the Department of State.  This volume of PD Foundations lays out the central argument for understanding the logic of public diplomacy in the contemporary world; its relationship to U.S. foreign policy, strategy, and national security; and the mental models and core values that guide decision-making at all levels.  PD Foundations is a starting point to successfully planning, implementing, and assessing public diplomacy interventions.

2. Purpose  

The Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R) directed the preparation of PD Foundations by the Office of Resources, Policy, and Planning with input from practitioners and other experts.  As such, it provides direction for the interpretation of policy and the design and implementation of PD activities by PD offices and sections, PD practitioners, and others implementing PD functions for the Department. 

The PD Foundations project is composed of multiple parts. The Contemporary PD series explores our shared identity, examining the current state of the field through various lenses–historical, theoretical, logical, metaphorical, functions over time, and PD’s role in the U.S. government. The PD in Practice” series lays out shared vocabulary and practices for the modern tradecraft of public diplomacy, including at overseas posts and other contexts. And the PD Theories and Concepts series  contains deeper explorations of the application of core aspects of public diplomacy.  This volume is part of the Contemporary PD series. 

3. Application  

Guidance established in this volume applies to all PD practitioners serving in assignments abroad and to any headquarters or domestic elements that support, coordinate, or collaborate with PD practitioners overseas.  

Public diplomacy practitioners should follow the guidance provided in this publication except in rare instances when PD Section Chiefs and Office Directors judge that exceptional circumstances dictate otherwise. The U.S. Constitution, Congressional legislation, the  Foreign Affairs Manual and Foreign Affairs Handbook (FAM/FAH), and specific guidance from the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (R) take precedence over this document.  

4. Change Requests and Comments 

Users of this document are encouraged to submit comments and provide recommendations for changes to this document.  Email Feedback and recommendations to PDLearning@state.gov.

5. Supporting Documents and Follow On Conversations

The PD Foundations text is published on the PD Foundations Learning Hub, available to Department of State users on OpenNet, GoVirtual, GoMobile and GoBrowser at: https://cascloud-usdos.msappproxy.net/pdfoundations/.  The PD Foundations Learning Hub also hosts supporting materials to put PD Foundations into daily practice, including tip sheets, work guides, and tools for skills and concepts presented here.  Subject matter experts and experienced practitioners in R/PPR are also available for consultation and coaching on these concepts and others.  Additional support for individuals and teams may be available. Please contact PDLearning@state.gov for support.  Individuals outside of the State Department should contact the R/PPR/OLU team by email for additional information.

Executive Summary

This volume of PD Foundations, “Principles of Public Diplomacy,” outlines the practice of contemporary public diplomacy and its contribution to U.S. foreign policy and national security. Its purpose is to establish a common understanding of PD for various audiences by discussing PD from various perspectives. “Principles of Public Diplomacy” describes the current state of public diplomacy, with some acknowledged tension between descriptive (the way things are) and prescriptive (the way things should be). This publication focuses on U.S. public diplomacy, with some generalizations.  It may be directly useful introductory material for new public diplomacy practitioners. PD practitioners may also draw on it when framing public diplomacy for non-PD partners, including Congress, interagency partners, and external stakeholders. 

“Principles of Public Diplomacy” explores public diplomacy in several contexts:

• as one instrument of national power (“Power, statecraft, and diplomacy”); 
• as a method to prioritize and connect work to larger goals (“Linking strategy, and tactics”)
• within an ends-ways-means framework, describing the relationships between the goals of public diplomacy, and the concrete tools and programs used to change relationships and outlooks between actors (e.g., foreign publics, US government agencies, individuals, implementing partners, and media) (“How public diplomacy works:  The Logic of PD”); 
• as a set of shared mental models and metaphors to explore PD tradecraft’s shared identity (“The profession and craft of public diplomacy”). 

“Power, statecraft, and Diplomacy” discusses the international system and information environment, tracing the organization of the international environment from the Treaty of Westphalia through modern structures of power. It places public diplomacy in the context of the DIME framework (Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economics), which outlines instruments of national power. 

“Policy, strategy, and tactics” outlines building blocks and vocabulary used throughout the rest of the document and in larger PD discussions. This chapter defines policy as something that guides or gives direction to our work, and strategy, which is about defining the relationship between our goals and how we seek to achieve them. The chapter outlines the various nested policy documents from which PD initiatives and activities grow.  The National Security Strategy (NSS) guides the State-USAID Joint Strategic Plan (JSP), which influences the Bureau-level Strategy (JRS/FBS), which, in turn, steers Integrated Country Strategies (ICS).  Finally, PD programs support specific ICS goals.  Through these nested strategies and plans, PD initiatives and activities are broad foreign policy goals made concrete—specific to their local context and tailored to the foreign publics they are designed to engage. 

“How Public Diplomacy Works: The Logic of PD” highlights the strategic logic of PD, making connections between goals (ends); concepts (ways) of PD including understanding, informing, influencing, and relationship-building; and the PD toolkit (means). The chapter analyzes PD’s rhetorical logic to influence the attitudes, beliefs, and actions of foreign publics.  This chapter classifies some of the methods for engaging with foreign publics into several categories of diplomatic tools: listening, direct engagement, engagement through intermediaries, broadcasting, and information access.  

Finally, “The profession and craft of public diplomacy” addresses the complexity that makes it difficult to define PD in static, monolithic terms.  It outlines the core values of public diplomacy; identifies PD’s productive tensions; uses metaphors to discuss the craft of PD; counters myths about PD, and outlines the fundamental premises underlying PD.  This chapter highlights shared mental models and habits of mind that make up a shared professional identity and mindset and unify PD practitioners into one professional community of practice. 

Introduction

What makes something “public diplomacy”— as opposed to traditional diplomacy, public relations, marketing, propaganda, development, or influence operations? Is PD defined by its purpose, its programs, its outputs, the people who do it, its structure within the government, its funding—or something else? 

Diplomacy is engagement between a government and other entities to advance a country’s interests and foreign policy objectives.  Public diplomacy has sometimes been called “diplomacy in the public sphere.” Whereas much conventional diplomacy between governments and states happens in closed or private meetings or formal settings, public diplomacy takes place in many different settings with open, attributable engagement with publics at the center.

Public diplomacy is defined by the purpose of the activity, not the activity type or the government agency supporting the activity. Public diplomacy includes activities that advance U.S. Government (USG) objectives with foreign public audiences that are intended to inform, influence, and build networks. Public diplomacy is often incorrectly defined as only those activities undertaken by State Department public diplomacy personnel utilizing public diplomacy programs or resources.  Public diplomacy includes all overt, attributable action and funding directed at foreign publics by the USG, both within and outside of the State Department, even when those activities are funded and executed by offices and personnel without an explicit mandate for public diplomacy.  Public diplomacy can also include government-sponsored or private-sector-facilitated engagement between the people of the United States and people in another country.*  To be most effective, this expansive work of public diplomacy requires careful and considered coordination among many USG actors since multiple Federal agencies and offices engage with foreign audiences.

As practiced at the Department of State, modern public diplomacy entails clearly defining desired short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes or behavior changes related to U.S. foreign policy priorities and working back to identify which specific sectors of foreign publics to engage with targeted programs, messaging, activities, and networks to achieve U.S. policy objectives.  In the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, public diplomacy should be an integral component of strategic and detailed planning, performed in close coordination with colleagues throughout the interagency, Department, or mission.  It should work in concert with government-to-government, economic and commercial, or other forms of diplomatic engagement.

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* Track I diplomacy is largely understood as “traditional” diplomacy–that is, formal interactions between governments and their agents, while Track II diplomacy does not involve governments or government officials.  This definition of public diplomacy largely excludes Track II diplomacy that also involves establishing connections and forging relationships between publics and individuals in different countries.  This type of public-facing and public-engaging work may be mediated by non-governmental organizations or other private groups.  For more on Track II diplomacy and how it serves a nation’s interests, see the United States Institute for Peace, https://www.usip.org/publications/2019/07/primer-multi-track-diplomacy-how-does-it-work and Searching for Common Ground, https://www.sfcg.org/track-ii/