[Clingendael Paper no:3] Beyond the New public Diplomacy

Ten years into the 21st century, this short survey of current developments and trends in public diplomacy gives evidence of a growing recognition of the importance of diplomatic engagement with people. Governments realize that their country's overseas attractiveness requires reaching out to transnational civil society, and think tanks and universities quickly understood that they could have a say in this. More than five years after publication of the The New Public Diplomacy (2005), Jan Melissen takes a fresh look at public diplomacy's evolution, in the Western world and beyond. His reflections on the subject recognize the potential and the limitations of public diplomacy, and the author places its practice in the context of fundamental change in the wider process of diplomacy. This paper helps governments to think critically about a key aspect of today's diplomatic practice and it summarizes lessons learned during the past decade.