The Boundaries of Public Diplomacy: Public Turn while Maintaining the Diplomatic Ground

Abstract

The first step in delineating the boundaries of public diplomacy is to ground it firmly as a diplomatic practice. In this chapter, I suggest that, for the sake of analytical coherence, public diplomacy activities must satisfy the following conditions: communication must take place between groups separated by geopolitical boundaries; the political agenda must be for public or collective interests represented by institutionalized actors with intentionality, ultimately to influence or support foreign policies. I explain these conditions to distinguish public diplomacy from other forms of human interactions.

---

BibTeX citation

@incollection{Ayhan2026_boundaries,
author="Ayhan, Kadir Jun",
editor="Fitzpatrick, Kathy R.
and Gregory, Bruce",
title="The Boundaries of Public Diplomacy: Public Turn while Maintaining the Diplomatic Ground",
bookTitle="Diplomacy's Public Turn: Prospects for Theory and Practice ",
year="2026",
publisher="Springer Nature Switzerland",
address="Cham",
pages="53--62",
abstract="The first step in delineating the boundaries of public diplomacy is to ground it firmly as a diplomatic practice. In this chapter, I suggest that, for the sake of analytical coherence, public diplomacy activities must satisfy the following conditions: communication must take place between groups separated by geopolitical boundaries; the political agenda must be for public or collective interests represented by institutionalized actors with intentionality, ultimately to influence or support foreign policies. I explain these conditions to distinguish public diplomacy from other forms of human interactions.",
isbn="978-3-032-12857-7",
doi="10.1007/978-3-032-12857-7_6",
url="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-12857-7_6"
}