Frontiers of Public Diplomacy
This edited volume provides one of the most formidable critical inquiries into public diplomacy’s relationship with hegemony, morality and power. Wherein, the examination of public diplomacy’s ‘frontiers’ will aid scholars and students alike in their acquiring of greater critical understanding around the values and intentions that are at the crux of this area of statecraft.
For the contributing authors to this edited volume, public diplomacy is not just a political communications term, it is also a moral term within which actors attempt to convey a sense of their own virtuosity and ‘goodness’ to international audiences. The book thereby provides fascinating insight into public diplomacy from the under-researched angle of moral philosophy and ethics, arguing that public diplomacy is one of the primary vehicles through which international actors engage in moral rhetoric to meet their power goals.
The Frontiers of Public Diplomacy is a landmark book for scholars, students and practitioners of the subject. At a practical level, it provides a series of interesting case studies of public diplomacy in peripheral settings. However, at a conceptual level, it challenges the reader to consider more fully the assumptions that they may make about public diplomacy and its role within the international system.
Colin R. Alexander is Senior Lecturer in Political Communications at Nottingham Trent University, UK. His expertise surrounds propaganda and public diplomacy and the role of strategic communications in the interplay of world politics. He has particular interests in the politics of East Asia, colonialism, moral philosophy and in philanthropy studies. He is the author of China and Taiwan in Central America: Engaging Foreign Publics in Diplomacy (2014) and Administering Colonialism and War (2019).