DIPLOMACY DEVELOPMENT and SECURITY in the INFORMATION AGE Shanthi Kalathil EDITOR Séverine Arsène David Faris Sarah Granger Craig Hayden georgetown university school of foreign service school of foreign university georgetown James Herlong Gerald Hyman Lorelei Kelly Andrew Puddephat Joseph Siegle James Valentine institute for the study of diplomacy ABOUT THE INSTITUTE The richness of Georgetown University and its close tive—now play increasingly important roles in the relationship to Washington’s politics and diplo- conduct of international politics and finance and are macy offer boundless opportunities for an institute leading us to think differently about global finance like ours. ISD’s presence at Georgetown reflects the and development, conflict and reconciliation. university’s dedication to study and action and to These new issues, conditions, and actors are help- social justice and global engagement. ing to refine, and perhaps redefine, what diplomacy The contours of diplomatic engagement are means and how it is conducted. They set the context changing rapidly, as are the environments in which for ISD’s work as we identify issues that are global in diplomacy is crafted, honed, and practiced. New origin and diplomatic reach, and examine carefully media have changed the pace and content of politi- the ways that states and nonstate actors respond to cal awareness and provided new tools for diploma- them and to one another. cy. Porous borders challenge national sovereignty, This agenda infuses our studies, teaching, train- the conduct of war, and the ways in which peace can ing, and outreach. Our associates and colleagues join be pursued. The capacities of states and multilateral with the many communities that engage the impor- institutions to prevent and fix problems are chal- tant, hard, enduring, and often unanswered issues lenged daily by the enormous agendas that global that define our global polity. Together, we study the issues like health and the environment pose for the ways that diplomacy can shape global action and international community. serve our complex global societies. And as we have Each of these global issues tests the assumptions for three decades, we continue to take our cues from and practices of traditional diplomacy. Perhaps the worlds of politics and education and from the most important for our work, nonstate actors— university’s generous and abiding commitments to whether benign or malign, constructive or disrup- the worlds of words and deeds. Institute for the Study of Diplomacy Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057–1025 Copyright 2013 by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. You are permitted to copy, distribute, and transmit this work, provided you attribute the work to the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, do not use this work for commercial purposes, and that you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. CONTENTS Acknowledgments v Introduction Transparency and Volatility: International Relations in the Information Age 3 Shanthi Kalathil Diplomacy in the Information Age Social Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy, and Network Power 17 Craig Hayden From the Age of Secrecy to the Age of Sharing: Social Media, Diplomacy, and Statecraft in the 21st Century 35 David M. Faris Development in the Information Age The Chinese ICT Development Strategy in Africa: Transparency, Sovereignty, and Soft Power 51 Séverine Arsène Complicating the Already Complicated: Diplomacy, Development, and the New Media 63 Gerald F. Hyman iii iv Contents Transparency in Aid Programs 79 Andrew Puddephatt Security in the Information Age Cybersecurity and Modern Grand Strategy 99 Sarah Granger & Lorelei Kelly Managing Volatility with the Expanded Access to Information in Fragile States 113 Joseph Siegle If You Are Seeking an Advantage, Information Does Not Matter 125 James Valentine & James Herlong About the Authors 139 Acknowledgments This volume began as a series of discussions with volume, somehow eliciting order from chaos. Char- Paula Newberg, then the head of the Institute for lie’s thoughtful comments, and his patient shep- the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) at Georgetown, who herding of the papers through publication, proved was particularly interested in exploring the com- invaluable. plexities of international affairs in the information The funding for my work on this project was pro- age. Her encouragement and insight helped shape vided by the Yahoo! Business and Human Rights the themes that have emerged here. I owe her and Program. I am thankful to them for making this pos- the Institute a debt of gratitude for providing a wel- sible. The Institute also wants to thank the Joseph coming platform to test and argue new ideas. J. Schott Foundation for its support of the author Additional food for thought was provided working group and the printing of the publication. through the lively lunch meetings of the Institute’s Finally, my deep appreciation goes to this vol- I-Diplomacy group, which met on a quarterly basis ume’s stellar lineup of authors, who have together to hash over issues ranging from Chinese soft power created an invaluable cache of knowledge. Their to the changing role of diplomats. dedication to this task has helped provide a build- Special acknowledgement and thanks are due ing block for future research and understanding of a to Katie Seckman and Charlie Dolgas at ISD. Katie crucially important, yet still emerging, area. skillfully managed the processes leading up to this Shanthi Kalathil v Introduction Transparency and Volatility: International Relations in the Information Age Shanthi Kalathil The information revolution is permanently chang- threats (cyber and otherwise), networked forms of ing the face of international relations. Wired, net- organization, asymmetrical conflict, decentraliza- worked protestors help power and publicize the tion, recentralization, altered global governance Arab Spring, leading to the downfall of authoritar- structures, multicentrism, information asymmetry, ian regimes long believed unshakable. Secret cables new development models, contested global norms, published by Wikileaks expose the mechanics of and much more. All of these present challenges and U.S. foreign policy decisionmaking to a global pub- opportunities for states and nonstate actors and re- lic. Chinese Internet users spread photo evidence to quire a substantial rethink of the lens through which expose corrupt local officials. Israelis and Palestin- we view international affairs. ians use video and social media to add another di- Yet fresh thinking on these issues, while taken up mension to real-time conflict. by specialized academics, rarely makes it onto the But what do these disparate events really tell us? public agenda. Such research tends to get tucked The popular narrative generally holds that time and away into the vibrant but often impenetrable (to distance are collapsing, everything and everyone outsiders) fiefdom of communications research, is scrutinized, filters are nonexistent, and nonstate such that followers of international affairs do not actors hold disproportionate and ever-increasing tend to encounter it on a regular basis, if at all. Thus, power. While powerful, and containing some ele- the initial analysis of events hardens into an ac- ments of truth, this narrative is rarely re-examined cepted truth, and it becomes increasingly difficult in the context of policy discourse or the decisions to pose alternate narratives or even further explore that arise from it. the dominant one. There is far more to understand about interna- This working paper series intends to illuminate tional relations in what is commonly termed the in- this narrative by delving further into the trends in formation age. Changes in the speed, volume diver- international affairs that have been accelerated or sity, nature and accessibility of information, as well otherwise augmented by the information revolu- as the ways in which it is exchanged, have contribut- tion. Because this task could easily prove unman- ed to a variety of emerging and evolving phenome- ageable, the series will examine in particular two na. These include the rise of nontraditional security separate but linked phenomena enhanced by the 3 4 Shanthi Kalathil INTRODUCTION information age: heightened transparency and in- than they deserve. creased volatility. This series thus proposes to unpack the concepts As Craig Hayden notes in his paper for this se- of transparency and volatility across three major are- ries, both transparency and volatility have come to nas of international affairs: security, diplomacy, and define the practice of contemporary diplomacy and development. Each issue-area features two essays, international relations. While separate, they are in- each focusing on different aspects of transparency creasingly inextricable, he argues—in that transpar- and/or volatility. Two additional essays (by Gerald ency is facilitated by the same information and com- Hyman and Joseph Siegle) examine the ramifica- munication technologies (ICT) that also promote tions of the growing interplay between issue-areas instability, risk, and uncertainty in international in the information age. Some authors situate their affairs. Civil society actors—including nongov- research within the context of academic literature, ernmental organizations (NGOs), citizen journal- while others are more focused on policy and/or ists, and the broad public—have been most visibly operational contexts. Taken together, the