Antonio Lambino's blog

I was recently in a fascinating conversation with Yenny Wahid, peace advocate and former special adviser on political communication to two Indonesian Presidents.  We were attending the closing dinner of BMW Foundation’s 10th Europe-Asia Young Leaders Forum in Jakarta, Indonesia a few days ago.  Over an eclectic spread of local and foreign delicacies, we had a wide ranging discussion on what Southeast Asian countries can learn from each other in areas such as governance and anti-corruption, interreligious dialogue, and the role of political communication in engaging citizens and cultivating informed public opinion on issues of public consequence.  We also talked about the broader challenges of cultivating social and political norms in sustaining support for public policies that tend to be contentious and controversial.

Yesterday, I received an e-mail from an old friend in the diplomatic community.   He asked for my “thoughts on a public communications approach to countering terrorism and radicalism” since, he continued, this has been identified as a "gap in the global counter terrorism" arena.  My mind immediately went to an area of applied and scholarly interest that the international affairs community calls “public diplomacy.”  While conceptually contested, there seems to be broad enough agreement on the types of initiatives it encompasses, such as international broadcasting (BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe/Liberty, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, to name a few), scholarships (Fulbright, British Chevening, etc.), international study tours, and other types of academic, cultural, and political exchanges.

Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye argues in a Washington Post op-ed that at the heart of these initiatives is the desire of governments to enhance their “soft power”, defined as “the ability to use attraction and persuasion to get what you want without force or payment.”  Nye's definition suggests that the soft power that undergirds public diplomacy is not limited to enhancing security and defense; it is also relevant to international development.  This type of thinking is particularly critical in projects that seek to influence attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of multiple stakeholders in developing countries.  In this broader sense, cross-national influence is not limited to coercing people, nor is it about manipulating incentives.  It’s largely about appealing to hearts and minds through persuasion, which is only credible when what one says is consistent with what one does.

“Even in the most authoritarian regimes around the world, people are listening to the opinions of their publics -- because those publics now have many more ways of expressing that opinion.  And so there’s  a growing effort to make sure that your views and your actions at home and abroad are aligned with what public opinion is.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, on Charlie Rose, aired on April 20, 2011

A little over a year ago, I wrote on this blog that communicative norms on the use of social media were shifting around, but would eventually settle down.  This would happen, I argued rather naïvely, as patterns and preferences of user communities determined the contours and content of fast changing information and communication ecologies.  I should also have said that vested interests –both good and bad--would attempt to exert influence on this process. 

We’ve all probably come across stories of the ways in which news and media organizations, businesses, schools, and international donors have been struggling to remain relevant within shifting information environments around the world.  So have governments, parliaments, and bureaucracies.  Much has been written about these struggles for relevance, and a dominant theme in much of this writing has been the need to provide users with tools to manage unrelenting information gluts. 

What relevance, if any, does the 2008 Obama campaign have in the political processes of developing countries?  How, if at all, can modern media production techniques used by global leaders, like the BBC, be made useful to their counterparts in poor countries?  There are obvious limits to transplanting knowledge and practices from one place to another, given all the differences.  However, when it comes to insights regarding the potential influence of political communication on individual and social behavior, it is also possible to graft some of what’s been learned globally to homegrown ways of doing things.  But those who know these environments best should do the grafting.

"Reforms need to be judged, not on reformers' intentions, but by the changes they actually produce."

- Marc J. Roberts, William Hsiao, Peter Berman, & Michael R. Reich (2004, p. 4)
Getting Health Reform Right: A Guide to Improving Performance and Equity

Cruelty is always senseless; selflessness, inspiring.  I have been deeply moved for the past few weeks by story after story of individuals, maimed and mutilated by those who should be serving them, heading back out into the public arena and risking it all to fight tyranny.  A way to make sense of individual sacrifice is by reflecting on what it might gain for the larger community.  I find comfort in the idea that human suffering could eventually lead to the opening up of inclusive public spheres wherein considered public opinion keeps power in check. 

Our fascination with information and communication technologies (ICTs) crosses many borders.  The public, private, and nonprofit sectors are all atwitter about it.  The same goes for young and old, rich and poor, and the many groups in between.  For the more affluent, it’s partly about aesthetic coolness and conspicuous consumption.  For geeks, it’s partly about what the newest gadgets can do that previous versions could not.  From a development perspective, it’s partly about more effective and efficient delivery of public and private goods and services.  And for all, it probably has something to do with enhanced opportunities for connections among people who might not have known of each other’s existence otherwise.  So, indeed, our fascination with ICTs crosses many borders.

It was this insight that I took away from a lunchtime seminar jointly organized by CommGAP, infoDev, and the Africa Governance and Anti-Corruption (GAC)-in-Projects Team at the World Bank.  At the event, Prof. Steven Livingston presented findings from his new study published by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies entitled Africa’s Evolving Infosystems: A Pathway to Stability and Development.  Summarizing field research from at least six countries in the region, Livingston reasons that

It is obvious that the news media are a formidable force for change in the Arab World.  More specifically, it seems like media whose coverage is inspired by a pan-Arab point-of-view are the most potent agents of change -- as protagonists or antagonists, depending on one’s own perspective. 

Listening to at least two sides of an argument is usually a good thing.  But when it comes to sustaining mass public action, this may not be the case.  For most people, the willingness to take a stand in the public arena, despite the risk of injury or death, requires clarity, courage, and the dogged pursuit of a vision shared with like-minded others.  If saddled with the weight of competing considerations, people might just decide to stay home.