2 Public diplomacy and the UK
Public
diplomacy and 'soft power'
4. The concepts of 'public diplomacy' and 'soft
power' have developed over the past fifty years. Public diplomacy
has been defined as:
the transparent means by which a sovereign country
communicates with publics in other countries aimed at informing
and influencing audiences overseas for the purpose of promoting
the national interest and advancing its foreign policy goals.
[It] includes such activities as educational exchange programs
for scholars and students; visitor programs; language training;
cultural events and exchanges; and radio and television broadcasting.
Such activities usually focused on improving the "sending"
country's image or reputation as a way to shape the wider policy
environment in the "receiving" country.[1]
5. The concept of public diplomacy was developed
in the 1960s "partly to distance overseas governmental information
activities from the term propaganda, which had acquired pejorative
connotations".[2]
More recently, the term 'soft power' has been widely used to describe
governments' ability "to get what [they] want through attraction
rather than coercion or payments". Soft power "arises
from the attractiveness of a country's culture, political ideals,
and policies. When [its] policies are seen as legitimate in the
eyes of others, [its] soft power is enhanced."[3]
6. In the past 10 years the FCO has held two
major reviews of its public diplomacy work: the 'Wilton review'
of 2003, which concluded that the Government's work in this field
was unco-ordinated and ineffectively evaluated, and the subsequent
review by Lord Carter of Coles, which reported in 2005. Lord Carter
recommended the establishment of a Public Diplomacy Board to develop
and monitor implementation of a new strategy. He offered a redefinition
of British public diplomacy as:
work aiming to inform and engage individuals and
organisations overseas, in order to improve understanding of and
influence for the United Kingdom in a manner consistent with governmental
medium and long term goals.[4]
The then Government accepted Lord Carter's recommendations,
and the Foreign Affairs Committee in the last Parliament reported
on the FCO's progress in implementing them.[5]
In 2008 the FCO published a collection of essays under the title,
Engagement: Public Diplomacy in a Globalised World. In
an introduction, then FCO Minister of State Jim Murphy MP commented
that in the new context of globalisation and technological change,
"public diplomacy must become an integral part of policy-making
and delivery".[6]
7. In October 2009, our predecessor Committee
was informed by the FCO that the Public Diplomacy Board was being
replaced by a new Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy
Forum, chaired by the Foreign Secretary. The new body would meet
twice a year. It would be supported by a Public Diplomacy Partners
Group which would meet at a lower level, under FCO chairmanship,
roughly every six weeks, to focus on cross-cutting themes and
events. The FCO Minister with responsibility for public diplomacy
would henceforth "focus on providing specific ministerial
supervision of the relationship between the FCO and its directly
funded partners", primarily the British Council and BBC World
Service. Our predecessors concluded that "the new arrangements
for the governance of the FCO's public diplomacy work, with the
relevant highest-level body now chaired by the Foreign Secretary
rather than a more junior Minister, appear to be in accord with
the more central place that public diplomacy is taking in the
FCO's work".[7]
8. The Coalition Government which came to power
in May 2010 has not yet made a formal declaration of its policy
in relation to public diplomacy. The new Foreign Secretary, Rt
Hon William Hague MP, referred to the concept of public diplomacy
(though he did not use the phrase itself) in the first of his
recent policy speeches, delivered at the FCO on 1 July 2010:
if the increasingly multipolar world already means
that we have more governments to influence and that we must become
more active, the ever accelerating development of human networks
means that we have to use many more channels to do so, seeking
to carry our arguments in courts of public opinion around the
world as well as around international negotiating tables. [...]
In my mind, such communication will become all the more important
over time and as we conduct our diplomacy across the world we
overlook international opinion at our peril, and while we cannot
possibly hope to dominate the global airwaves we must try ever
harder to get our message across.
'Nation branding'
9. In the collection of essays on public diplomacy
published by the FCO in 2008, Simon Anholt wrote:
When I started writing about an idea I called 'nation
brand' more than twelve years ago, my observation was a simple
one: that the reputations of countries are analogous to the brand
images of companies and products, and are equally critical to
the progress and prosperity of those countries because of their
influence on the opinions and behaviours of each country's 'target
audiences': foreign investors, tourists, consumers, students,
entrepreneurs, trading partners, the media, other governments,
donors, multilateral agencies, and so on. [...]
Countries, cities and regions that are lucky or virtuous
enough to have acquired a positive reputation find that everything
they or their citizens wish to do on the global stage is easier:
their brand goes before them like a calling card that opens doors,
creates trust and respect, and raises the expectation of quality,
competence and integrity. Places with a reputationno matter
how ill-deservedfor being poor, uncultured, backward, dangerous
or corrupt will find that everything they or their citizens try
to achieve outside their own neighbourhood is harder, and the
onus is always on them to prove that they don't conform to the
national stereotype.[8]
10. Mr Anholt draws attention to the difficulty
of changing a nation's "brand":
there is little or no evidence to suggest that private-sector
marketing techniques can change national images. It is remarkable
how many governments are prepared to spend large amounts of taxpayers'
and donors' money on such campaigns without the support of any
proper case-studies [...] and often without even the most rudimentary
success criteria or mechanisms for performance measurement.[9]
11. Mr Anholt argues that "in reality, the
images of places appear to be remarkably stable, and highly resilient
in the face of any kind of deliberate manipulation". He notes
that the Anholt Nation Brands Index (NBI), a survey he has run
since 2005 to track and analyse the global images of 40 countries
using a panel of nearly 30,000 respondents in 35 countries, shows
that almost no country's image changed by more than 1 or 2 percentage
points over the period 2005 to 2008.[10]
12. A change in a country's image, Mr Anholt
argues, usually takes place over decades not years, and is dependent
on objective changes within that country or in its behaviour.
Mr Anholt cites the slow improvement in the international reputation
of Germany and Japan since 1945, to the point at which in 2008
they ranked first and eighth overall in the Nation Brands Index.
In these cases, an "improved reality" led in due course
to an "improved image", but over a very lengthy period.[11]
The UK's international reputation
13. Research shows that the overall perception
of the UK overseas is a positive one. The FCO told us that:
In 2009, the FCO's Public Diplomacy Group reviewed
all available research into the UK's reputation amongst international
audiences. We concluded that the UK's overall reputation worldwide
was strongranking 4th out of 50 in countries in the 2010
Anholt Nation Brand Index. The UK was seen as fair, innovative,
diverse, confident and stylish. However, negative images still
persisted which painted Britain as arrogant, stuffy, old-fashioned
and cold. We used these findings to identify the key themes about
modern Britain we wanted to project overseas in order to overcome
false impressions that acted upon our prosperity and political
influence. We want to showcase modern Britain as the open (welcoming,
diverse, tolerant), connected (through our involvement in the
UN and G20, politically, geographically, in terms of trade and
travel), creative and dynamic place it really is.[12]
14. Simon Anholt noted that the UK's reputation
was very firmly established:
When you are talking about a country like the UK,
which has been internationally prominent for centuries, I think
you will find that the roots run very deep indeed. One of the
reasons why the UK, to use that horrible phrase, punches above
its weight in reputational terms, is because we have been at it
for so long. We have so much influence and so much engagement
with other people in other countries, and that's one of the things
that makes our reputation so good, because generally [
]
the more you know about a country, the more you approve of it.[13]
15. However, Mr Anholt also drew attention to
the UK's perceived weaknesses, which were that its people are
seen as being
A little bit arrogant. A little bit overbearing.
A little bit cold. London, for example, in my City Brands Index
is regarded to be an unwelcoming, expensive place. None of this
is terribly bad, by the way, because it's quite difficult to admire
somebody and find them cuddly at the same time. Our reputation
is the kind of reputation that nine out of 10 countries would
give their right hands for.[14]
The reputational impact of major
sporting events: lessons from other countries
16. In assessing the FCO's public diplomacy strategy
for the 2012 Olympics, what lessons can be learnt from other countries'
experience of hosting major international sporting events? The
four most recent comparable examples are those of the FIFA World
Cup held in Germany in 2006, the Olympics held in China in 2008,
the World Cup held in South Africa in June/July 2010 and the Commonwealth
Games held in India in October 2010. All four countries used their
hosting of these events for the purposes of public diplomacy,
with the intention of improving their international reputations.
The results were mixed: from a public diplomacy perspective, the
German World Cup can be regarded as an unqualified success and
the Beijing Olympics as a qualified one, while the extent to which
the South African World Cup and the Indian Commonwealth Games
enhanced those countries' reputations is rather more open to question.
In addition, there are at least two cases in the more distant
pastBarcelona in 1992 and Sydney in 2000where the
Games undoubtedly uplifted their host countries' reputation. We
briefly consider all six of these cases in the paragraphs that
follow.
SPAIN 1992
17. Dr Patrick Spaven told us that the 1992 Games
gave added momentum to the regeneration of Barcelona, not only
raising the city's profile abroad but enhancing its own citizens'
self-esteem. He added that the positive media coverage had also
benefited Spain as a whole. He commented:
Barcelona [
] was a declining industrial city
until it started to transform itself. It started to do that before
the Olympics, and would have carried on even if there hadn't been
Olympics. However, it got an enormous boost from the Olympicsfrom
potential markets, because people were looking at it, but the
bigger factor was the internal market. [
] one million to
2 million people [
] became really proud of their city and
went out to become public diplomats. There is no more effective
public diplomacy than individuals talking to other individuals.[15]
AUSTRALIA 2000
18. The Sydney Olympics in 2000 are also widely
believed to have had a long-term beneficial effect on the reputation
of Australia. Simon Anholt told us that:
What the Australians succeeded in doing with the
Sydney Olympics was telling one very simple, very compelling story
about the kind of country that it was, and people bought it and
loved it. That is a country with a previously somewhat weak but
generally positive reputation; there was nothing negative in there.
In a situation such as that, an Olympics can have a strong long-term
effect. It simply raised its game by a notch or two and it has
benefited from it ever since. It has maintained the momentum.[16]
GERMANY 2006
19. Dr Spaven summarised the impact that Germany's
hosting of the 2006 World Cup had on that country's image:
I was able to track with statistically reliable research
data the changes to Germany's reputation in and around their hosting
of the FIFA World Cup. Germany improved its standing in the Anholt
Nation Brands Index significantly in the six months leading up
to the events and beyond. It maintained this advantage throughout
the following year.
I was not able to identify any other factors that
could have significantly influenced this change. No other country
with a mature reputation improved its status significantly in
the Index from its origins in 2005 until President Obama took
office and dramatically lifted the results for the USA.[17]
20. Dr Spaven noted that "Germany's public
diplomacy effort was research-informed, highly co-ordinated and
begun long before the event". It was specifically targeted
at particular audiences. For instance, a strand aimed at breaking
outdated stereotypes of Germany as a nation of humourless, conventional
people was directly focussed at a mass youth audience. However,
to avoid this message on its own undermining Germany's reputation
for reliable, high-quality engineered products, another part of
the strategy aimed to protect that market.[18]
21. Simon Anholt was less persuaded that the
2006 World Cup had led to a long-term enhancement of Germany's
reputation. He commented that although there was "a measurable
up-tick in other people's perceptions of Germany [
] it didn't
last for long. It went back down again after a year." However,
he considered that the World Cup was of real value in changing
Germans' self-perception:
We could see on television ordinary middle-class
Germans gathering together and singing their national anthem without
irony or aggression, and remembering the words. That was a really
significant moment in Germany's post-war history, because they
suddenly discovered what it was like to be, say, Italian, and
just to be ordinarily proud of the country you come from.[19]
CHINA 2008
22. A recent academic analysis of China's use
of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in its public diplomacy work, by
Meg Young of the USC Institute of Public Diplomacy, concludes
that:
The 2008 Olympics offered the People's Republic of
China an unparalleled stage to demonstrate past achievements and
future potential to a global audience. They also demonstrated
intriguing lessons for public diplomacy practitioners. It is easy
to say the Olympics were a success, and by most measures they
were: China won the most gold medals (51), the games brought in
the most television viewers ever (4.7 billion), they generated
incredible press coverage and introduced Beijing as a world class
city on par with Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Certainly the global public received greater exposure
to China, its people, and culture in 2008 than in any year prior.
However, public diplomacy isn't just about exposure; it has many
facets. During the 2008 Games two of these facets came into interesting
tension: image creation and credibility. In the world of public
diplomacy, any image that is created or promoted to a foreign
public must be able to stand up under scrutiny in order to become
truly credible. Some of the images that China sought to create
were supported and even enhanced by the greater scrutiny brought
by the international press during the Games. Other images were
destroyed and harmed the credibility of the state. [...]
China's Government, accustomed to choreographing
and managing images, spared no expense in putting on the best
Olympic Games possible, and was able to create a spectacular image
of modern China. However, the international press was always on
the lookout for cracks in the perfect veneer, and when they found
them it was worldwide news. For every story of the Beijing's improved
air quality during the games, there were at least two detailing
China's environmental profligacy. For every story mentioning China's
efforts to create a more open environment for the press, there
were many more describing the limits imposed on reporters. For
every feel-good cultural piece about ethnic minorities there were
dozens of articles and exposés about separatist efforts
in Xinjiang and Tibet.[20]
SOUTH AFRICA 2010
23. Early findings as to the impact of the football
World Cup held in South Africa in summer 2010 suggest that, although
the tournament was organisationally a success, its impact on South
Africa's international reputation may have actually been negative.
Simon Anholt told us that:
It was widely believed that South Africa's World
Cup had improved the image of South Africa but my study has shown
that it is nowhere near as clear-cut as that. In the minds of
many people in the study, South Africa's image actually deteriorated
after the World Cup. That was perhaps as a result of the fact
that many people overseas didn't really know what South Africa
looked like; all they'd seen was tourism promotion and they thought
that it was a first-world country through and through. They then
saw it on the television and realised that in many respects it's
still a third-world country, and the image was therefore corrected
downwards.[21]
24. Dr Patrick Spaven gave a more upbeat assessment:
South Africa probably gained overall from its successful
handling of the FIFA World Cup, simply because it confounded pessimists
by pulling off a relatively incident-free series of events.[22]
INDIA 2010
25. India hosted the Commonwealth Games at New
Delhi in October 2010. The opening ceremony was widely praised,
and the Games themselves ran relatively smoothly. However, world
media coverage of the run-up to the Games was dominated by stories
relating to delays, corruption, insanitary conditions in the athletes'
accommodation, and use of child labour in construction work. Simon
Anholt commented that:
A lot of people have been hearing nothing but stories
of India's meteoric rise in commerce and economics and so on,
and then they see what Delhi actually looks like. If you come
from Toronto or London that might shock you. Therefore there will
probably be a bit of a downward correction, but they will pick
up again afterwards, and one might say that that is a necessary
correction because the perception has been restored to something
closer to reality.[23]
Likewise, Professor Nick Cull noted that:
Just as hosting the Olympics can deliver a dividend
to the host's international image so there is a risk that a problem
with the games could reflect negatively on the host. The negative
press associated with India's hosting of the 2010 Commonwealth
Games is an example of what can go wrong.[24]
1 University of Southern California Center on Public
Diplomacy, "What is public diplomacy?" (uscpublicdiplomacy.org) Back
2
Ibid. Back
3
The quotations are from the coiner of the term 'soft power', Joseph
Nye, Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School
of Government at Harvard University, from the preface to his book
Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004) Back
4
Lord Carter of Coles, Public Diplomacy Review (December
2006), p 72 Back
5
Foreign Affairs Committee, Third Report of Session 2005-06, Public
Diplomacy, HC 903; and the Government's reply, Cm 6840 Back
6
FCO, Engagement: Public Diplomacy in a Globalised World,
ed. Jolyon Welsh and Daniel Fearn (2008), p 5 Back
7
Foreign Affairs Committee, Fifth Report of Session 2009-10, Foreign
and Commonwealth Office Annual Report 2008-09, HC 145, paras
285, 287 Back
8
Simon Anholt, 'The Importance of National Reputation', in Engagement:
Public Diplomacy in a Globalised World (FCO, 2008), pp 31-32 Back
9
Ibid., p 33 Back
10
Ibid., p 34 Back
11
Ibid., p 34 Back
12
Ev 20 Back
13
Q 5 Back
14
Q 7 Back
15
Q 24 Back
16
Q 24 Back
17
Ev 34 Back
18
Ev 34 Back
19
Q 25 Back
20
Meg Young, "Choreographing the Image: What China Wanted the
World to See", in Public Diplomacy Magazine (Winter
2009) Back
21
Q 33 Back
22
Ev 35 Back
23
Q 33 Back
24
Ev 38 Back
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