Picture available at at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2009/jul/06/russia-obama-administration?picture=349891252
I believe that with this action I will make the Earth with small amounts reduced CO₂ emissions as well as my belief is the same regarding the new START Treaty between Russia and USA. The information technologies are playing a huge role in the world (e.g. my belief that I will decrease CO₂ with turning off the lights).
As CSIS expose on their website: “The intent of public diplomacy is to communicate with the people, not the governments, of foreign countries.”
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/071106_csissmartpowerreport.pdf
“A smarter public diplomacy is one that shows respect toward other countries and a willingness to understand local needs and local issues.” (John Zogby-ibid)
This statement is very well illustrated in the Barack Obama speech on nuclear Treaty: “...I stated America’s intention to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons...”, “...when the US and Russia can cooperate effectively, it advances the mutual interests of our two nations, and the security and prosperity of the wider world.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/03/2010326153215998861.html
In the high politics, this Treaty is promoting a greater security, for the “global” citizens it is given credence to promote less funds for the military and respectively more funds for development in general in the other fields including environment and poverty. But how this news reached my ears? To understand more, I visited a Russian website where it was written: “MOSCOW -- for the past two days the city’s downtown language was English. If you were grabbing a coffee or dining with friends, local waiters rarely bothered to switch to Russian, even with Russians. Obama brought an unprecedented 600 advisors, media, and assistants with him.”
http://www.russiablog.org/2009/07/obama_in_moscow_reset_yuri_mamchur.php
It is possible not to be true, however this is the power of the media, but the important fact is that public diplomacy played its role successfully not only making gratified the world governments, but the non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, citizens etc, too.
Thank you for your thoughts on this subject. However, I couldn't quite follow how public diplomacy is related to environmental issues. Regarding Obama, are you claiming that he used public diplomacy to promote the arms control agenda or simply that he wanted to emphasize his efforts at arms control in order to improve the image of the US in the eyes of overseas publics? I'd be grateful if you would clarify these points.
ReplyDeleteIn respect of the relations between public diplomacy and environment I think that generally with the power of public diplomacy could be emphasized important issues as environmental problems of sustainability thanks to the revolution of information and communication technologies and the involvement of specialized NGOs and their relations with, as Haas call them "epistemic communities" (Haas 1992).
ReplyDeleteRegarding Obama's arms control agenda, the signing of the new START Treaty has noting to do with environment, at least directly. I think many NGOs and citizens greeted this fact positively because it is related to the world security, but also to the evironmental security. I would say something probably idealistic, but as this is a blog and we can write with more freedom (of course following the academic regulations) but I would argue that the funds used to create more nuclear weapons now could be used for forestation and NGOs here could put in action their influence as they can cooperate with diplomats. In this view the environmental issues are indirectly linked with, in the case of the new START Treaty, the reduction of nuclear weapons.
Haas, Peter M. (1992) Introduction: Epistemic communities and international policy coordination, International Organization, 46 (1)