Frontiers of Public Diplomacy

Colin R. Alexander is Senior Lecturer in Political Communications at Nottingham Trent University, UK. His expertise surrounds propaganda and public diplomacy and the role of strategic communications in the interplay of world politics. He has particular interests in the politics of East Asia, colonialism, moral philosophy and in philanthropy studies. He is the author of China and Taiwan in Central America: Engaging Foreign Publics in Diplomacy (2014) and Administering Colonialism and War (2019).

"A provocative collection of essays that will challenge and redefine critical scholarship on public diplomacy."James Pamment, Senior Lecturer, Lund University"In an era in which public diplomacy is essential to any international actor's success and even survival on the world stage, Colin Alexander has drawn together a terrific collection of essays on its theory and practice. Alexander's own excellent work is front and center. With an engaging mix of established and emerging scholars and a resolutely global perspective this book pushes back against the field's habitual focus on the US and UK. It reveals a set of practices which remain, to a frustrating extent, untapped. Actors considered include India, Russia and North Korea; issues include educational exchange, new technology and the out-sourcing to private contractors. Great questions and challenging answers abound. This is a book for scholars, and practitioners to read and consider with care."Nicholas J. Cull, Professor of Communication, USC"Every reading in this rich and very diverse collection of studies brings an original and critical perspective to what the scholars suggest has become a very normative, positive picture of state-centric public diplomacy. The contributors challenge comfortable notions of what public diplomacy can do to promote appealing narratives or images, and raise uncomfortable but necessary questions about power, hegemony, and counter-hegemony, ethics and morality buried within public diplomacy scholarship and practice."R.S. Zaharna, American University

• Introduction Part 1: The First Frontier: Understanding Public Diplomacy 1. Hegemony, Morality and Power: A Gramscian Theoretical Framework for Public Diplomacy 2. Communications Technologies and Public Diplomacy: A History of the Frontiers of Statecraft 3. Education Beyond Borders: Explaining the Frontiers of Public Diplomacy’s Core Part 2: The Second Frontier: Early Public Diplomats and their Innovations during the Collapse of Colonialism 4. Hegemonic Communications with Colonial Subjects: British Public Diplomacy in Colonial India 5. Colonial Subjects as Hegemonic Actors: V.S. Srinivasa Sastri's 1922 Public Diplomacy Tour of British Dominion Territories 6. Non-governmental Public Diplomacy Networks: The Indian National Congress and US Public Opinion, 1914–1947 Part 3: The Third Frontier: Emergent Forces in Contemporary Public Diplomacy 7. China's "Exceptional" Public Diplomacy: Dressing Up the Dragon 8. India’s Public Diplomacy Re-posturing: The BJP’s use of Yoga within its Political Communications 9. Cities as Public Diplomacy Actors: Combining Moral "Good" with Self-interest Part 4: The Fourth Frontier: Public Diplomacy at the Edge of the World 10. Public Diplomacy at the Top of the World: Sub-state Communications between Russia’s North-west and its European Neighbours 11. Outsourcing Public Diplomacy Operations: Neoliberalism and the Communications of the United Nations since the End of the Cold War 12. Public Diplomacy on the Frontiers of Madness: North Korea and the Hegemonic Coalition 13. Conclusions