Understanding Public Diplomacy in East Asia ― Middle Powers in a Troubled Region

Set against the backdrop of tensions in East Asia, this book analyzes how East Asia's "new middle powers" and emerging powers employ public diplomacy as a key element of their foreign policy strategy and in so doing influence regional power dynamics. The volume brings together contributions from an international and influential group of scholars, who are leading debates on public diplomacy within East Asia. Where the study of public diplomacy has so far focused primarily on the West, the essays in this book highlight the distinct strategies of East Asian powers and demonstrate that understanding public diplomacy requires studying its strategies and practices outside as much as within the Western world. A focus on public diplomacy likewise gives us a more varied picture of state-to-state relations in East Asia.

Jan Melissen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations 'Clingendael' in The Hague and Professor of Diplomacy at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. After joining the Clingendael Institute, he held several management positions in research and training. He is doing projects with various governments on MFA networking, digital diplomacy and public diplomacy, as well as research on consular diplomacy, and diplomacy in East Asia. His co-edited books with Palgrave are Innovation in Diplomatic Practice (1999), The New Public Diplomacy (2005), Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia (2011), and Public Diplomacy in Europe (2013). He is founding co-editor of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy and editor of the Brill Diplomatic Studies series.

Yul Sohn is a Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University, Korea. He also serves as chairman of the Global Net and director of the Japan Research Center at the East Asia Institute, a leading foreign policy think-tank in South Korea. Sohn has written extensively on Japanese and East Asian political economy, East Asian regionalism, and public diplomacy. His most recent publications includeAttracting the Neighbors: Soft Power Competition in East Asia, Securitizing Trade: The Case of US-Korea FTA, andJapan's New Regionalism. Sohn has written Asian Survey's year-end articles for South Korea in 2012 and 2013. Sohn received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, USA.