Abstract
Although many governments invest significant resources in public-diplomacy campaigns, there is little well-identified evidence of these efforts’ effectiveness. We examine the effects of a major type of public diplomacy: high-level visits by national leaders to other countries. We combine a dataset of the international travels of 15 leaders from 9 countries over 11 years, with worldwide surveys administered in 38 host countries. By comparing 32,456 respondents interviewed just before or just after the first day of each visit, we show that visiting leaders can increase public approval among foreign citizens. The effects do not fade away immediately and are particularly large when public-diplomacy activities are reported by the news media. In most cases, military capability differentials between visiting and host countries do not appear to confer an advantage in the influence of public diplomacy. These findings suggest that public diplomacy has the potential to shape global affairs through soft power.
Highlights
Many governments invest significant resources to communicate with foreign citizens.1 This type of government-sponsored communication, often called “public diplomacy,” represents a prominent component of states’ overall foreign policy today
We find no mention of public diplomacy in The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Reus-Smit and Snidal 2008)
We further present evidence that it is public-diplomacy activities in particular that drive the effects of visits on foreign public opinion
Summary
Many governments invest significant resources to communicate with foreign citizens. This type of government-sponsored communication, often called “public diplomacy,” represents a prominent component of states’ overall foreign policy today. Many governments invest significant resources to communicate with foreign citizens.. Many governments invest significant resources to communicate with foreign citizens.1 This type of government-sponsored communication, often called “public diplomacy,” represents a prominent component of states’ overall foreign policy today. Their endeavors are intended to shape global affairs through improving the perceptions of their leaders, country, people, and core values and increasing support for specific policies. Can governments sway the opinion of foreign citizens with such diplomatic efforts?. Other scholars dismiss diplomatic outreach to public audiences, claiming that it lacks credibility, delivers no tangible benefits, or is merely a performance.
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