Monday 14 February 2011
Today's TALK by diplomatic practitioner Caroline Clennell-Jaine
Today’s workshop/talk by diplomatic practitioner
Caroline Clennell-Jaine was an interesting, educational and informative for a few reasons, which I would like to briefly summarize.
First of all Ms Clennell-Jaine has opened her talk with an interesting opinion, that the diplomat – besides other significant qualities – should possess certain amount of a real life experience, which – according to Ms Clennell-Jaine – can help with day to day challenges.
Than we did watch a short video; What is public diplomacy…
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUWJm3KOTU4)
I have found three of the definitions of public diplomacy (PD) the most interesting.
• Ian Hardgreaves (former director, Strategic Communications UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office)
‘PD are the things that you do in order to help people to trust you more’
I definitely agree with this definition, obviously if “you” want to influence the others in any way or direction, “you” must gain their trust first. Than what? Is the action of trust gaining followed by sheer propaganda or by exposing your ideas and cultural values or your will over those people?
• According to the author Simon Anholt;
‘We don’t know what we mean by the PD, PD is a false term’
With all due respect to Mr. Anholt, I did find this statement quite pretentious, to be academically different for whatever reason and whatever cost.
• But the most clearly defining and probably the most educated and the most sane definition of PD has been articulated by Prof Nick Cull;
‘PD is conducting Foreign policy by engaging with the foreign public’
Actually the largest part of the talk was engaged with the defining of the PD. Ms Clennell-Jaine herself defined PD as
‘Aligning yourself with other organizations and individuals in order to gain strategic advantages.’
This definition is kind of the extension of the definition by Prof Cull. Than she extended her definition to; PD is about ‘possibilities to engage with real people’ (she did not define the term “real people”)
Overall, I did not find the talk intellectually stimulating enough but certainly challenging or better to say opening, and at the same time answering a few questions, after all it was not a talk given by an academic but by a practitioner.
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Thank you for your thoughts, Mario. I was sorry I couldn't be there, but I knew you would find Caroline's presentation insightful and thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteI also share your opinion on Simon Anholt's views. I suppose he would prefer to think in terms of his concept of 'competitive identity', which we'll get to later in the module.
Finally, Caroline's emphasis on strategy gels with the recommendations set out in the review of British public diplomacy carried out by Lord Carter of Coles in 2005, which argued that British institutions engaged in PD seemed to have no strategic goals or sufficient coordination (see www.britishcouncil.org/home-carter-report).
I thought the talk to be very enlightening. Although, as Mario points out, it was a talk given by a practitioner rather than an academic, I think we all have to remember that the diplomats role is one of practice in which skill sets are developed over a long period of time through hard won experience. Even the academic writing in his ivory tower must surely gain his insights from the practitioner to make his work relevant. For me, the insights we gain from the practitioners like Caroline and the simulation we did with International Alert, are important lessons in demystifying these subjects and bringing them to a level I can relate to them on; an enormous help in visualising the true nature of the process.
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