Foreign Policy Blogs

Track II Diplomacy Alive and Well

Last week I was thrilled to host a dinner for a delegation from Uganda in the US on a State Department International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) visit.   The conversation over dinner was an amazing mix of  informal chat and high politics.  The members of the delegation came to Albany, NY on the final leg of their multi-city tour and participated in an interesting set of meetings set up by the International Center of the Capital Region (ICCR) , the World Affairs Council chapter in the capital city of New York State.  As a member of the National Council of International Visitors,  ICCR has been hosting international delegations for over 50 years.  These delegations come from places including Argentina, Chad, Nigeria, Madagascar, Togo, France, Italy Kazakhstan, Brazil, Canada, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Jordan come to confer with professional counterparts on issues including agribusiness, public libraries, government, law, the environment and public health.  What is happening in Albany is replicated around the US.  The State Department notes:

The International Visitor Leadership Program annually brings to the United States approximately 5,000 foreign nationals from all over the world to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience America firsthand. The visitors, who are selected by American Foreign Service Officers overseas, are current or potential leaders in government, politics, the media, education, the arts, business and other fields. Among the thousands of distinguished individuals who have participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program since its inception almost seven decades ago are more than 290 current and former Chiefs of State and Heads of Government, 2,000 cabinet-level ministers, and many, many other distinguished leaders from the public and private sectors.

These visits are worth gold to US public diplomacy. Not only do they allow for visitors to meet their peers in the US (and hopefully remain touch with many of them) and gather important programmatic information they can take home, the IVLP is also an important way for Americans to meet people from parts of the world they are unlikely to visit themselves.   The US population remains woefully uniformed about international affairs and this has serious implications for foreign policy and funding for foreign assistance- as well as the ability of Americans to appreciate and participate in globalization.  The IVLP makes these issues less a matter for the New York Times and more a conversation over a dinner table, a small meeting in an office and a friendship begun that might last for decades.  Yes, high-level diplomacy has its place and it requires trained professionals to carry it out.  But it must be underscored by the engagement of non-professionals who can meet and exchange views in informal settings that defuse the intense politics that often dominate official meetings.  US foreign policy cannot live on Track II diplomacy alone, but it also can’t live without it. As the conversations over my dinner table last week proved, serious issues can be addressed in informal venues and all involved are the better for it.   Citizen diplomacy is good for diplomacy – and for the citizens who engage in it.   This is quiet and unheralded work but it deserves the continued (and increased) support of the US Government.

 

Author

James Ketterer

James Ketterer is Dean of International Studies at Bard College and Director of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs program. He previously served as Egypt Country Director for AMIDEAST, based in Cairo and before that as Vice Chancellor for Policy & Planning and Deputy Provost at the State University of New York (SUNY). In 2007-2008 he served on the staff of the Governor’s Commission on Higher Education. He previously served as Director of the SUNY Center for International Development.

Ketterer has extensive experience in technical assistance for democratization projects, international education, legislative development, elections, and policy analysis – with a focus on Africa and the Middle East. He has won and overseen projects funded by USAID, the Department for International Development (UK), the World Bank and the US State Department. He served on the National Security Council staff at the White House, as a policy analyst at the New York State Senate, a project officer with the Center for Legislative Development at the University at Albany, and as an international election specialist for the United Nations, the African-American Institute, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is currently a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Association and has also held teaching positions in international politics at the New School for Social Research, Bard College, State University of New York at New Paltz, the University at Albany, Russell Sage College, and the College of Saint Rose.

Ketterer has lectured and written extensively on various issues for publications including the Washington Post, Middle East Report, the Washington Times, the Albany Times Union, and the Journal of Legislative Studies. He was a Boren National Security Educational Program Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and in Morocco, an International Graduate Rotary Scholar at the Bourguiba School of Languages in Tunisia, and studied Arabic at the King Fahd Advanced School of Translation in Morocco. He received his education at Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Fordham University.

Areas of focus: Public Diplomacy; Middle East; Africa; US Foreign Policy

Contributor to: Global Engagement