When a Nation’s Leader is Under Siege: Managing Personal Reputation and Engaging in Public Diplomacy

Abstract

Abstract In 2015, Malaysia’s investment vehicle, 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), came under international scrutiny after it amassed a debt of US$11 billion (€10.3 billion) (Wright & Clark, 2015), which it had difficulty repaying. More disturbingly, investigators found that US$700 million (€658 million) was transferred into the personal bank account of Malaysia’s prime minister, Najib Razak, founder and chairman of 1MDB’s advisory board (Wright & Clark, 2015). Najib was also accused of embezzling state money (Reuters, 2015) and damaging the image of the country (“Najib tried to bribe me”, 2015). This chapter aims to examine the strategies used by the Malaysian prime minister to repair his image in the 1MDB scandal, the effectiveness of these strategies, and how these impacted Malaysia’s public diplomacy efforts in restoring the country’s image and reputation. Findings showed that the prime minister denied wrongdoing, and simultaneously bolstered his position and promised to turn 1MDB around. In contrast to the current explication of Benoit and Pang’s (2008) image repair strategies, Najib’s way of attacking the accusers sheds light into how image repair strategies may be operationalized in the Asian context. A new image repair strategy – diversion – is proposed to be added to the existing framework.