There is a puzzling and particularly difficult separation in the conception of power in public diplomacy today. As Joseph Nye put it, wielding soft power (or using attention, persuasion and communication to meet some form of foreign policy end) comes in two different forms: "Power Over" and "Power With," with particular emphasis on the former.
In "Power Over," the primary actor implements the public diplomacy strategy with the intent to exert influence over other actors from a centralized effort, excluding influence or suggestion from the target audience prior to implementation. In addition, there is a motive of controlling or at least directly influencing the behaviors/outcomes of the strategy over the target audience.
In "Power With," all the actors are of equal standing in the public diplomacy strategy. In this model, there is no actor that reserves authoritative control or influence, rather, each actor contributes to the strategy and all parties are expected to let other opinions influence their own goals as well as have their goals influence others'. Results or outcomes of the strategy are of equal credit.
Ali Fischer conceived of these two models as a choice between leadership or empowerment, and noted that the classification of intent be seriously considered prior to the implementation of any public diplomacy strategy because mixed messages lead to communication failure between actors.
Finally, Anne Marie Slaughter, in response to Nye's preference of "Power Over" suggested a comprehensive move in public diplomacy towards what she deemed "collaborative power" more along the lines of the "Power With" model.
Now, the problem lies in how to put these approaches together, if at all.
Slaughter mentioned an Egyptian-American blogger being arrested in Cairo, and being released shortly after because she tweeted her situation her followers, who used their various network associations to create a call to action. This isn't the only instance of Twitter working towards the benefit of collaborative power, as a similar situation occurred in Kyrgyzstan. Personally, I'm very thankful for and impressed by this form of collaborative power, but the fact that it occurred organically makes it extremely difficult to apply it to an actor that has a motive of gaining influence via the "Power With" model, whether its up front or not.
In my opinion, both of these models can be employed by any actor at the same time, but it could come at a high cost to the actor's credibility and also depends upon certain factors such as the level of visibility and importance the strategy to international relations.
Certain public diplomacy initiatives like creating an open-source website, user-focused content production, virtual exchange and other such ventures lend themselves more to collaborative power because they are easily completed by a group of distributed participants and may not have as high of visibility, but in order for it to jive with the "Power With" model there needs to be a willingness on all sides to have their contributions or goals altered for the good of the group.
The only way I can conceive of both models working together is if an actor presents themselves as extremely eager to begin the process of collaborative power with other actors and sticks to that strategy. If one actor initiates the discussion or conversation or inclusion of other actors and emphasizes the collaborative aspect of the work, I think the other actors may come to their own view of the initiator as influential. Of course, I frame this against the backdrop of timing of soft power in public diplomacy, which focuses on lasting relationships, and so this process of letting other actors eventually come to their own conclusions about who to look to for influence may take a very long time.
Overall, I think that striking a balance between "Power Over" and "Power With" depends upon the level of importance of the strategy, which could also be muddled with political and economic factors. My suggestion for putting these together would be to institute collaborative power strategies when you can (most likely smaller, micro-level public diplomacy) and exert influence more directly for larger foreign policy objectives. This could have drawbacks, such as foreign and domestic publics easily recognizing the vacillation between the two, but they are difficult concepts to combine without showing some cracks.
In "Power Over," the primary actor implements the public diplomacy strategy with the intent to exert influence over other actors from a centralized effort, excluding influence or suggestion from the target audience prior to implementation. In addition, there is a motive of controlling or at least directly influencing the behaviors/outcomes of the strategy over the target audience.
In "Power With," all the actors are of equal standing in the public diplomacy strategy. In this model, there is no actor that reserves authoritative control or influence, rather, each actor contributes to the strategy and all parties are expected to let other opinions influence their own goals as well as have their goals influence others'. Results or outcomes of the strategy are of equal credit.
Ali Fischer conceived of these two models as a choice between leadership or empowerment, and noted that the classification of intent be seriously considered prior to the implementation of any public diplomacy strategy because mixed messages lead to communication failure between actors.
Finally, Anne Marie Slaughter, in response to Nye's preference of "Power Over" suggested a comprehensive move in public diplomacy towards what she deemed "collaborative power" more along the lines of the "Power With" model.
Now, the problem lies in how to put these approaches together, if at all.
Slaughter mentioned an Egyptian-American blogger being arrested in Cairo, and being released shortly after because she tweeted her situation her followers, who used their various network associations to create a call to action. This isn't the only instance of Twitter working towards the benefit of collaborative power, as a similar situation occurred in Kyrgyzstan. Personally, I'm very thankful for and impressed by this form of collaborative power, but the fact that it occurred organically makes it extremely difficult to apply it to an actor that has a motive of gaining influence via the "Power With" model, whether its up front or not.
In my opinion, both of these models can be employed by any actor at the same time, but it could come at a high cost to the actor's credibility and also depends upon certain factors such as the level of visibility and importance the strategy to international relations.
Certain public diplomacy initiatives like creating an open-source website, user-focused content production, virtual exchange and other such ventures lend themselves more to collaborative power because they are easily completed by a group of distributed participants and may not have as high of visibility, but in order for it to jive with the "Power With" model there needs to be a willingness on all sides to have their contributions or goals altered for the good of the group.
The only way I can conceive of both models working together is if an actor presents themselves as extremely eager to begin the process of collaborative power with other actors and sticks to that strategy. If one actor initiates the discussion or conversation or inclusion of other actors and emphasizes the collaborative aspect of the work, I think the other actors may come to their own view of the initiator as influential. Of course, I frame this against the backdrop of timing of soft power in public diplomacy, which focuses on lasting relationships, and so this process of letting other actors eventually come to their own conclusions about who to look to for influence may take a very long time.
Overall, I think that striking a balance between "Power Over" and "Power With" depends upon the level of importance of the strategy, which could also be muddled with political and economic factors. My suggestion for putting these together would be to institute collaborative power strategies when you can (most likely smaller, micro-level public diplomacy) and exert influence more directly for larger foreign policy objectives. This could have drawbacks, such as foreign and domestic publics easily recognizing the vacillation between the two, but they are difficult concepts to combine without showing some cracks.
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