Foreign Policy Blogs

Public Diplomacy

The European Plebiscite

A six-country poll conducted in November, 2007 by The Financial Times, France 24 and Harris Interactive explored various aspects of the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign. The poll found that publics in the U.S., Great Britain, Spain, France, Germany and Italy favored Hillary Clinton as the next U.S. president. Senator Clinton ranked first among the 10 candidates offered to respondents […]

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This isn't the Golden Globes

Journalists like to make fun of the Hollywood Foreign Press (I've done it, I admit), that handful of perk-hungry foreign reporters who decide the Golden Globe winners. They put on a good show but do they really affect the real voting? The Oscar voting? Well the political foreign press is showing they indeed have clout. […]

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Benjamin Barber on Why the Democrats Can't Level with Voters

Benjamin Barber, the author of the international bestseller Jihad vs. McWorld, was the latest guest speaker at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy's "Conversations in Public Diplomacy" series on Thursday March 6th. Barber, who teaches at the University of Maryland in addition to doing high-profile political consulting work for many governments, titled his talk "Obama […]

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The Media Turns to Foreign Policy Issues

The US media has given some much need attention to the US Presidential candidates’ foreign policy platforms this week.  On Sunday, the Washington Post hosted an online question and answer session with Senator Barack Obama. Some of the topics covered include democracy promotion, policy toward cuba, the Isreali Palestinian conflict, and US-Islamic world relations. On Monday, Public […]

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Obama Gets a Bollywood Makeover

Continuing the theme of Obama supporters and musical cultural hybrids, I couldn't help posting this Bollywood music video. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/sA-451XMsuY” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Enjoy!

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"The Whole World is Watching"

A new documentary film, “The Chicago Ten,” which recounts the stormy days of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, brings to mind the chant of the anti-(Vietnam) war protesters who clashed with police near the convention hall: “The Whole World is Watching.” Many of my generation watched the gavel-to-gavel coverage of that divisive gathering, certain […]

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Democratic Candidates to World: Se Habla Espanol

Yesterday Senator Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama's faced offover such foreign policy issues as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Iraq war at the MSNBC debate in Ohio last night. The NAFTA discussion must have tickled Senator Clinton's inner Latino, because on Monday her campaign released a “Hispanic campaign song.” I know you can't wait to hear it, […]

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American Idol

When does the growing popularity of Barack Obama , at home and overseas , begin to impact the terrible polling numbers that the United States has been getting in foreign opinion surveys? Lately we've been seeing more reports of negative foreign views of the U.S., such as yesterday's NPR report from Berlin. But these reports […]

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American Professor Interprets US Election to Turkey

American Professor Interprets US Election to Turkey

(Richard Falk) Yesterday Today's Zaman News, a Turkish English-language daily newspaper, published an opinion piece by Richard Falk, an American professor of international law at Princeton University. Titled “What to expect from the next American president in the Middle East,” the piece gives a well-rounded, in-depth summary of the current status of the US presidential […]

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Heritage discusses Public Diplomacy

Heritage discusses Public Diplomacy

Last week the Heritage Foundation, the conservative, Washington-based think tank, held a discussion titled “Public Diplomacy: Reinvigorating America's Strategic Communications Policy.” The panel included presentations by Colleen Graffy, the State Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) for Public Diplomacy (PD) for Europe and Eurasia, Michael Doran the Department of Defense's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for […]

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The 51st State

Today brought the news that Barack Obama had won the vote among registered overseas Democrats, beating Hillary Clinton 65% to 32%.  Some 22,000 overseas Americans in 164 countries took part in the week-long vote. However, following the Democrats’ usual rules that award convention delegates proportionately, Obama was awarded only 2.5 delegates to Clinton's 2.0. Another […]

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Obama Finds Supporters at Meeting in Doha, Qatar

Obama Finds Supporters at Meeting in Doha, Qatar

Over 300 Academics and policy-makers from all over the world gathered to attend the Brookings Institution-sponsored US-Islamic World Forum  in Doha, Qatar on Monday. (Karen Hughes at the 2006 US-Islamic World Forum) Agence France Presse reported that many of the Muslim delegates in attendance said they hoped to see Obama win the Democratic nomination and become the next […]

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The Luck of the Kenyan Irish

The Luck of the Kenyan Irish

We know a few things already about how foreign audiences regard the U.S. election race. In Ireland and Kenya, we know that there's newfound pride in the fact that Obama has roots that can be traced to these two countries. McCain and Hillary Clinton and even Mike Huckabee have their foreign admirers, but not generally […]

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An Endorsement for Obama from Across the Pond

Last week Anthony Barnett, the British social entrepreneur and political comentarist, recently authored an article on the webzine he founded, Open Democracy.net, exploring Senator Barak Obama's campaign. If you are not familiar with OpenDemocracy, I highly reccomend browsing through its pages. It is a London-based webzine/opinion forum that offers “stimulating, critical analysis, promoting dialogue and […]

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The US and the World According to John McCain

The US and the World According to John McCain

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain authored an article in the November/December 2007 edition of Foreign Affairs titled “An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom” that reveals his campaign's foreign policy platform. Here is a quick summary of his article: “America needs a president who can revitalize the country's purpose and standing in the world and defeat […]

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