Chapter Seven. Structural Integrity: Competing Designs

Abstract

The question of how public diplomacy should be structured has probably sparked more controversy than any other among practitioners, policymakers, scholars, and interested observers of United States (U.S.) public diplomacy. American public diplomacy has often shuffled back and forth between the State Department and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), with other offices charged with public diplomacy responsibilities springing up and then shutting down later. Numerous post-9/11 reports on U.S. public diplomacy have addressed the issue of structure, with most offering recommendations for reform. Diverse views regarding public diplomacy's role and function in national strategy, and the proper role of the private sector in public diplomacy, have contributed to a lack of progress on the structural front. The chapter also examines structural and organizational factors that contributed to U.S. public diplomacy's effectiveness in the past, and considers recent proposals for how public diplomacy resources should be structured in the future.Keywords: private sector; State Department; U.S. Information Agency (USIA); United States (U.S.) public diplomacy