Mapping the Undefinable: Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Exchange Programs within International Relations Theory

Abstract

This article examines the importance of exchange programs as channels of political influence and the value that can be gained from examining their impact via various theoretical positions in international relations (IR). Although there are clear possibilities for linking the study of public diplomacy with IR theory, so far this has not occurred to any real extent. Following World War II, a whole swathe of social scientific and behavioralist research, mainly in the fields of communications and psychology, laid the basis for understanding the political implications of public diplomacy and exchanges. Using these studies as a springboard, the article moves on first to consider their continuing relevance and then to insert exchanges within reflections on IR fields such as regime theory, Gramscian-based critical theory, constructivism, epistemic communities, and transnational networks. The article concludes with some observations on the relevance of exchanges as forms of cultural-political interchange and the use of case studies for confirming their importance as an object of study for IR.

The Paradox of Public Diplomacy on the Web: An Empirical Analysis on Interactivity and Narratives of Nation-States' Ministry of Foreign Affairs Web Sites

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Branding Korea as My Friend s Country : The Case of VANK s Cyber Public Diplomats

“…While state-centric perspectives regard the realm of public diplomacy as exclusive to state agencies (Golan 2015;McDowell 2008), some recent articles tend to define (public) diplomacy based on practices (Henders and Young 2016;Henrikson 2013;Kelley 2014;Scott-Smith 2014) or objectives (Gregory 2008b;La Porte 2012). Ayhan (in press) brings together the latter two approaches and argues that non-state actors can be regarded as actors in public diplomacy if they are institutionalized at least to some extent (La Porte 2012); the initiative has intentional (Gregory 2016;Scott-Smith 2008) and political (Hayden 2009; La Porte 2012) public diplomacy objectives that are connected to foreign policies (Byrne 2016;Cull 2013; Rasmussen 2010) for public interests rather than private interests (Castells 2008;Gregory 2016;Ronfeldt and Arquilla 2007); they employ communication with estranged publics (Der Derian 1987;see also Constantinou 1996) as a primary tool (Jönsson and Hall 2003;Rasmussen 2009…”

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