Comparison of Public Diplomacy of the United States during the Presidency of "Donald Trump" and "Joe Biden"

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

M.A. in Regional Studies, Researcher, Imam Hossein Comprehensive University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Public diplomacy, unlike its formal type, aims to influence the general public and audiences who apparently have no responsibility in the field of foreign policy but constitute the body of society. This type of diplomacy has become very prevalent in recent years and forms the basis of long and stable relations to secure interests for countries. The United States is one of the countries that has incurred a lot of costs in this area, striving to use all the tools of public diplomacy to achieve its foreign policy goals and has even established a separate division within the Department of State for this purpose. As the Biden administration has declared repairing the international image of America as one of its primary foreign policy objectives, one of their most important tools to achieve this goal is public diplomacy. The important question that arises is what changes has the public diplomacy of the United States undergone during the Biden administration compared to the Trump administration? In order to answer this question, a method of scholarly study has been used, based on a descriptive-analytical approach, and the necessary information has been collected from library resources. The result of comparing these two periods shows that the U.S. government in the Biden administration seeks to use past tools and the mainstream of international media to portray the past events as an exception to Donald Trump and to work on repairing America's image in the world.

Keywords

Smiley face

References

  1. Bergman, M. (2006). U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Middle East A Critical Cultural Approach, Journal of Communication Inquiry, 30, pp102-124.

    Biden, J. (2006). Hearing Before The Committee on Foreign Relations United States Senate One Hundred Ninth Congress. Responding to Iran’s nuclear ambitions: Next steps. Available online at https:// www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-109shrg30620/html/CHRG-109shrg30620.htm.

    Biden, J. (2020). THE POWER OF AMERICA’S EXAMPLE, Biden  campaign site, from: https://joebiden.com/americanleadership/,  retrieved at: 2021/11/20.

    Biden, J. (2020). Joe Biden’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) speech. Available online at https://joebiden.com/2020/08/25/ watch-highlights-of-joe-bidens-dnc-speech/, updated on August 21.

    Biden, J. (2020). Why America Must Lead Again. In Foreign Affairs Magazine, 2020. Available online at https://www.foreignaffairs.

    com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-leadagain, checked on 11/6/2020.

    Biden, J. )2020 (. There’s a smarter way to be tough on Iran. Opinion by Joe Biden. CNN. USA. Available online at https://edition.cnn.

    Churella, M. & others. (2021). Upgrading US public diplomacy: A new approach for the age of memes and disinformation, Atlantic Council, from: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/upgrading-us-public-diplomacy/, retrieved at: 2021/11/20.

    Cull, Nicholas J. (2022). BIDEN’S FIRST YEAR: SAVING AMERICA’S IMAGE?, Clingendael Spectator, from: https://spectator.clingendael.org/en/publication/bidens-first-year-saving-americas-image, retrieved at: 2022/1/20.

    Daghrir, W. (2020). Trump’s Foreign Policy Doctrine of Uncertainty, E-International Relations, from: https://www.e-ir.info/2020/06/29/trumps-foreign-policy-doctrine-of-uncertainty, retrieved at: 2021/9/12.

    Demczuk, A. (2022). Biden’s Soft Power vs. Coercive Diplomacy and Responding to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. Teka of Political Science and International Relations, 17/1, 7–21

    Dimitrova, A. (2018). Trump’s “America First” Foreign Policy: The Resurgence of the Jacksonian Tradition?, L'Europe en Formation, no.382. from: https://www.cairn.info/revue-l-europe-en-formation-2017-1-page-33.htm, retrieved at: 2021/9/12.

    Galston, W. (2022). The American people’s message to President Biden about Ukraine—get tougher but don’t risk war with Russia. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-american-peoples-message-to-president-biden-about-ukraine-get-tougher-but-dont-risk-war-with-russia/

    Gerth, J., Shane, S. (2005). U.S Is Said to Pay to Plant Articles in Iraq, London, Papers.

    Habermas, J. (1979). Communication and the evolution of society. Boston: Beacon.

    Jacobson, L. (2003). Participatory communication for social change: The relevance of the theory of communicative action. In P. Kalbfleisch (Ed.), Communication yearbook 27 (pp. 87-124). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

    Washington D.C. (1949). The North Atlantic Treaty. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm

    1. Jones, M. (2009). A Survey and Analysis of American Public Diplomacy: 1942-2007. Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange (TRACE, pp 1-45.

    Wright, T. (2016). The 2016 presidential campaign and the crisis of US foreign policy. https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep10124#metadata_info_tab_contents

    C.F.R. (2021). Trump’s Foreign Policy Moments, Council on Foreign Relations, from: https://www.cfr.org/timeline/trumps-foreign-policy-moments, retrieved at: 2021/9/12.

    N,n. (2021). U.S foreign policy under Biden, World Politics Review, from: https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/insights/29534/with-biden-s-foreign-policy-us-seeks-to-reclaim-its-global-standing, retrieved at: 2021/9/20.

    Nye, j. (2019). The rise and fall of American hegemony from Wilson to Trump, International Affairs, 95(1).

    Pirani, S., SaeediRad, A. (2022). United States Political Decline; Backgrounds and Reasons. American Strategic Studies, 1(4), 149-167.

    Rugh, William; Shapiro, Zachary (2021) RESTORING U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, USC Center on Public Diplomacy, from:

    https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/restoring-us-public-diplomacy, retrieved at: 2021/5/20.

    Stepansky, Joseph. (2021). How Donald Trump shook up US foreign policy, Aljazeera, from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/20/key-moments-in-trumps-foreign-policy, retrieved at 2021/9/12.

    Shelby, D. (2009). Satellite scheduled to be launched in late December. Washington dc.

    https://brandfinance.com/press-releases/gulf-nations-on-the-rise-in-global-soft-power-index-2023-uae-saudi-arabia-qatar-climb-in-new-rankings#:~:text=USA%20unrivalled%20as%20the%20soft,all%2Dtime%20high%20of%2074.8.

     

American Strategic Studies
Volume 3, Issue 1 - Serial Number 9
January 2024
Pages 47-68

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 07 August 2022
  • Revise Date: 21 March 2023
  • Accept Date: 31 December 2023

Share

How to cite

Statistics