Public Diplomacy: How to Think About and Improve It

Abstract

In a speech on March 19, 2002, in Chicago, Newton Minow, former chairman of the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, issued an eloquent call for the development and deployment of a strategy for "public diplomacy," the process of explaining and advocating American values to the world. To answer that call, RAND President and Chief Executive Officer James Thomson and RAND Executive Vice President Michael Rich invited proposals from the RAND staff for a short-term effort aimed at outlining the essential elements of an effective public diplomacy strategy. They selected the response submitted by Charles Wolf and this paper is the result of the brief exploratory effort that followed. This research in the public interest was supported by RAND, using discretionary funds made possible by the generosity of RAND's donors and the fees earned on client-funded research.