While I was thinking about comparing new media and international
exchanges in my quest for a focus in cultural diplomacy, an event at USIP
occurred just a few weeks ago - Exchange 2.0.
Speakers opened the event, including Her Majesty Queen Noor Al
Hussein, who promoted understanding differences to craft solutions to shared
problems. Rebecca Saxe, a charismatic neuroscientist at MIT, showed us all the
scientific side of virtual exchanges, proving the need for measurements of
change and effectiveness. Finally, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Tara Sonenshine spoke on the new initiatives
currently brewing at State.
The event closed with a panel on how public-private partnerships
can bring virtual exchanges to scale. The PDAS from State’s Educational and
Cultural Affairs, Director for Global Engagement of the National Security
Council, Co-Director of Bezos Family Foundation, Founder of Soliya, and the
Executive Director of the Qatar Foundation International all spoke with one
another on the topics of international education and virtual exchanges. Each of these speakers and panelists represented a different
sector of the international exchanges field. USIP brought them together to
discuss the emergence and usability of virtual exchanges – no roadmap has been
established yet, no government initiative was promoting them to come together.
As Sangeet Kumar states in his article on Google Earth and the Nation State, “the world order of nation
states and the form of sovereignty it represents is undergoing significant
alteration”. Since the onset of globalization, networks of actors in varying
fields have begun to connect with one another. Aday and
Livingston state that “greater global interdependence and the nature of global challenges mean that
the state is not necessarily the best source of information, or even the most
likely catalyst of policy change and stability concerning an array of important
issues”, and I couldn’t agree more. As this event and others in different
fields such as Food Security and Women's Issues prove, different actors have roles that
are just as strong as the government’s. While meeting together may be motivated
by a need to prove the government is working with the private sector, it is not just for show: each sector is now adjusting to this new form of networks, wholeheartedly contributing their ideas for next steps. I just hope the new administration will continue to
expedite these necessary partnerships and fresh ideas.
Thanks for posting about the event at the USIP--I couldn't attend the event myself and enjoyed reading your thoughts on it. Your reiteration of Aday and Livingston's point that the state is "not necessarily" the best source of information or the likeliest catalyst of policy change particularly caught my eye. Although I'm hesitant to assert that this is always or even usually the case, I also agree that an increasingly diverse range of players populate the policy and communication scene. I also think that public-private partnerships hold much potential for cultural and public diplomacy, and your discussion on it reminded me of the Thai-U.S. Creative Partnership I learned about while interning in Bangkok this summer. It is one of U.S. Embassy Bangkok's numerous efforts to foster public-private partnership, and goes beyond collaboration between American government agencies and the U.S. private sector to also foster partnership across national boundaries by working with Thai firms on a broad range of projects. Needless to say, many of the Partnership's activities also prove to be great public diplomacy projects--especially at events attended by the Ambassador herself. Here's a link to the Thai-U.S. Creative Partership blog, in case you're interested: http://www.creativepartnership.org/
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this, Grace! I enjoyed reading about how the least one can do to become a partner is to engage in the discussion on their blog. An action as simple as that already begins to build bridges between diverse groups of people, and I'm glad to know that the U.S. Embassy Bangkok is utilizing these methods. I feel as though at this time, the state is the primary source of information and catalyst for change since public diplomacy has been mainly directed at State institutions in the past. What I think is interesting now, and what Exchange 2.0 confirmed, is that partnerships are really making a difference in how this understanding between groups is carried out. The roundtable capped off the seminar by discussing next steps for bringing virtual exchanges to light. Some members stated how the government will be the catalyst for showcasing the effectiveness of virtual exchanges, but the White House representative disagreed: he stated that each organization is an equal catalyst. This is a point that the public diplomacy sphere is not used to, and I agree with you that we haven't quite reached that level of equal responsibilities yet.
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