ukraine

After decades as a career diplomat, Ambassador Y.J. Choi of South Korea wanted to find the root of the difference between Eastern and Western societies. 

A pro-Putin rally near the Kremlin, 2012.

Michael Ardaiolo takes stock of the current state of public diplomacy.

Despite the widespread adoption of digital diplomacy, few studies have investigated how governments use SNS in order to frame foreign countries and themselves. Self-framing is practiced by countries as part of nation branding activities. 

Manor & Segev's study on self-framing by Russia, Iran and the U.S. in Social Networking Sites

According to the American-born filmmaker and writer, Ukraine is just the latest country in a long list to fall prey to “America’s soft power technique called ‘Regime Change 101.'"

Debate, diplomacy, and dynamism: 2014 was a headline-generating year for Pope Francis and the Catholic Church. The pope encouraged open debate about controversial topics, stepped up his diplomatic game on the world stage, and continued to shape the Church in his unpredictable yet wholly entertaining style.

Russia-watchers and Russians have spent much of the year debating what's behind Putin's adventurism in Ukraine, his meddling in eastern Europe's Baltic states, his support for anti-American dictators like Syria's Bashar al-Assad and North Korea's Kim Jong Un, and the headaches he is generally causing Western leaders.

The idea of Russian “soft power” became fashionable, but it was very different to European “soft power”. So-called Russian soft power was just “softer power”, including any means of coercion not involving tanks. It was, in the English phrase, “softly-softly” power, or “covert power”, the type of behind-the-scenes influence encapsulated in the Russian phrase kuluarna polityka – politics in corridors, not just away from public influence, but without formal record.

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