Hillary Clinton Was a Champion of Public Diplomacy

The partisanship surrounding the Benghazi hearings threatens to obscure significant achievements in advancing America’s national interest. In Clinton’s case, her skill in advancing the use of public diplomacy was a highlight of her tenure as secretary.

Clinton showed she understood that in a world with five billion cell phones and growing use of social media, people want to connect directly with those whose policies affect them. Further, once the connection is made, people expect to have their say and be listened to. One-way communication is archaic and ineffective; dialogue is an essential part of a new global politics grounded in media-based empowerment.

Amid her travels around the world, Clinton always made time for town hall-style meetings where she could directly engage with the public. She recognized that such events were essential because these people had formed and discussed opinions about the United States by connecting with the larger world through YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media. During the Cold War, the United States used Radio Free Europe and other such tools to reach out to publics that would listen but were unable to respond. Today, people not only are eager to respond, but they see it as their right in a global society that has been transformed by easily accessible new media.

Beyond her personal engagement with global publics, Clinton also addressed the policy foundations that make this connectivity possible. Her thoughtful speeches and other efforts related to Internet freedom underscored this commitment. State Department employees doing public diplomacy, from Washington or in the field, knew they had backing from the boss. More than any previous secretary of state, Clinton “got it” in terms of understanding the importance of public diplomacy as a foreign policy tool.

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