Public Diplomacy: Why is it Rudimentary yet Relevant to Vietnam's Politics?

Abstract

There is such a rekindled interest in public diplomacy (PD) that elevates it to the status of a catchword among diplomacy practitioners. Yet mainstream literature in international relations has predominantly focused on PD in Western democracies, and to a lesser extent, in other emerging powers like China and India. To enrich the current scholarship on PD, this article analyzes the PD practice by Vietnam. This authoritarian state's distinctive political system has resulted in three defining characteristics of its rudimentary PD, namely, the domestication of PD, extensive interference of propaganda, and far‐reaching control of the state. Since PD is domesticated, it has been utilized as part of the package solution to strengthening the regime's legitimacy. Therefore, as underdeveloped as it is in its state of affairs, the practice is more relevant to Vietnam than ever, considering the regime is facing both external and domestic pressure that warrants better coping mechanism.