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Last week British consultancy firm Portland Communications published its yearly Soft Power Index. The Index soon garnered global media attention as France ranked first trouncing America which had to settle for third place. According to Jonathan McClory, author of the Soft Power 30 report, France advanced to the first place thanks, in part, to the... Continue Reading →
In September of 2009, John A. Quelch and Katherine E. Jocz penned an article titled “Can Brand Obama Rescue Brand America?” In this article, the authors postulate that the traits associated with brand Obama may help bolster the international image of America which, following the Bush presidency, was that of a polluting, greedy militaristic empire.... Continue Reading →
Earlier this month, China hosted the leaders of the G20 countries for their annual summit. International summits have traditionally played an important role in diplomacy. On the one hand, summits hold ceremonial or dramatic importance as they demonstrate one of diplomacy’s function in international relations- ensuring stability and peace. On the other hand, summits also... Continue Reading →
On the 30-31 of March of 2016, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the University of Tel Aviv co-hosted Israel's first digital diplomacy conference. Alongside representatives from 20 foreign ministries, and leading academics from the fields of communication, international relations and diplomacy, we endeavored to further investigate the term "digital diplomacy". Over the next few weeks,... Continue Reading →
On Nation Branding: While the practice of digital diplomacy brings with it many benefits to foreign ministries, its practice also poses many challenges. From the need to coordinate messages on a global scale, to the training of diplomats and ambassadors in the use of social media platforms, the practice of digital diplomacy requires a growing... Continue Reading →
There is a popular urban legend according to which during the space race of the 1960's, NASA spent substantial resources on developing a special pen for Astronauts that could work in a zero gravity environment. Instead of spending exorbitant amounts of money on a Cosmonaut's pen, the Russians simply used pencils. While this is more... Continue Reading →
Two weeks ago I published an analysis of the 2015 MFA social network. My analysis found that over the past year Norway's MFA has become one of the most dominant foreign ministries among its peers. In fact, Norway's MFA is one of only four foreign ministries to rank high on all three parameters I evaluated... Continue Reading →
When studying the Cold War, one cannot help feeling overwhelmed by the amount of acronyms used by both the US and the USSR. From NATO and ICBMS (Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles) to SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) and VOA (Voice of America), acronyms seem to have played a major role in this prolonged global conflict.... Continue Reading →
The underlying assumption of nation branding is that countries have images, whether they manage them or not. Moreover, some believe that national images serve as stereotypes as they enable people to make sense of the world around them. Viewing national images as stereotypes leads to the conclusion that altering a nation's image is a prolonged... Continue Reading →
A Swedish diplomat once asked me how one can reduce the complexities of international diplomacy to a 140 character tweet. I responded by saying that Twiplomacy must be regarded as an art form, one that uses the language of twitter in order to condense foreign policy initiatives or official statements into short bursts of diplomacy.... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 