CCWA Guest Expert

Peter Schramm of Ashbrook Center Reflects on Public Diplomacy

2008-08-15T15:14:30Z

Following a June 10, 2008 symposium, we asked our three panelists to draft policy memos and/or reflections on the topics about which they presented. The events was called "Global Challenges Facing the Next U.S. President." For your comments, we present the submission from Peter Schramm of the Ashbrook Center:

Diplomacy is private, undercover, often made up of lies, and it applies only to governments and their formal representative. Public diplomacy is rather the forming of the opinion of a foreign public by telling them the truth about how this country understands itself and its actions. It smells like propaganda, but it is not. Nor is it tactical spinning of information.

The United States has always conducted public diplomacy. Even in the Declaration of Independence we explain to the world our actions and the reasons for those actions because a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation”. We have a respect for mankind, for ordinary human beings, their minds, and their capacities—even though they all live under tyranny in 1776—because we have respect for ourselves, because in an essential way, we are equal to them. Even in 1776 we had more respect for the average Frenchmen then their kind had for his own people. We have always thought that ordinary folks were more capable of both ruling themselves and understanding their interests and justice, then were their unworthy rulers.

We hold as a self-evident truth that all men are created equal and not only should men govern themselves through consent, but they should also be talked with, have conversations with, because they are capable of rising to the level of equality, as we have done. We do this out of respect for others, not out of arrogance or hubris. It is kind of like civic education, but aimed for foreigners, rather than for citizens. This is the heart of public diplomacy.

Whether it is FDR’s four freedoms, or JFK’s inaugural address, or Reagan’s Westminster speech—or a television program or a radio program or an internet blogger—we conduct public diplomacy because it is part of the things for which we stand as a people. We explain to ourselves and to others who we are and what we are doing. We call it freedom.

The only question is how to do it. We must—speaking as officials or as citizens, in public or private capacities—always be honest, forthright, and clear. We should also try to be eloquent. We must reveal who we are as a people, and talk about our actions and interests, yet never forgetting the things for which we stand, and why we may think the Union, and self-government, is worthy of the keeping. As we think out loud in our civic mode as citizens, we cannot but help to do the same with all other peoples of the world, regardless of the kind of government they may be living under. Public diplomacy cannot be denied.

Peter W. Schramm
Ashbrook Center

On Venezuela's referendum this Sunday

2007-11-27T22:37:36Z

Polarized Politics Again in Venezuela

Daniel Hellinger

President Hugo Chávez has called Venezuelans to the polls in support of his quest to construct “21^st century socialism.” On December 2 they will vote on two packages of amendments to the 1999 Constitution, which already lays out an innovative blueprint for government, mixing principles of representative government with participatory democracy.

Most of the media has focused on revisions that would expand presidential powers to limit speech and detain individuals during states of emergency and would extend the presidential term from six to seven years, permitting indefinite re-election as well. Mayors and governors would still be subjected to term limits, and critics ask why the national executive should operate under different rules. Although the bar would be raised modestly, Venezuelans would still have the right to petition and force a recall election after the midpoint of a presidential term is reached.

The emergency provisions are not radically different from those found in many other constitutions and were added by the chavista-controlled National Assembly because of the complicity of the media in the short-lived coup of April 2002. Some chavistas worry that the broader emergency powers might be turned against them someday.

Political violence is rising, with the international media too quickly believing accounts laying blame on government supporters and failing to report attacks on pro-Chávez demonstrators. In this polarized climate the contest once again becomes revolves around Chávez and less on the issues. A large block of voters (roughly 40 percent) identify with neither side, but their votes have usually broken favorably for the president. More likely enough Venezuelans will feel compelled once again to support Chávez, but his margin of victory may be narrower than in recent years. Rejection of one or both sets of reforms cannot be ruled out, however, especially since retired General Raul Baduel, a hero to chavistas for his actions to defeat the coup of April 2002, has spoken out strongly against the reforms, equating them to a coup.

The referendum comes at a time when neo-cons and anti-Castro figures entrusted with Washington’s Latin America policy are seizing on Venezuela’s economic and diplomatic accords with Iran as pretexts for intervention. These militarists darkly warn of Iranian “terrorists” using Venezuelan territory for safe haven. Increasingly, they feed a compliant media “analyses” painting Chávez as “crazy” or, worse, a bloody tyrant. As the end of Bush’s term nears, we can expect them to ratchet up the propaganda machine against Venezuela.

Provisions ensuring equal representation of women on party ballots, outlawing discrimination, and giving the vote to young people have attracted scant attention in the media compared to coverage of changes to the presidential term, emergency powers, and new articles dealing with forms of property.

Echoing opposition voices, the international media wrongly presume that the amended constitution threatens private property. Private property in fact is given equal status to forms of state or collective ownership of the national oil company, cooperatives, micro-enterprises, co-managed or worker managed firms, etc.

The most ambitious parts of the reform are those attempting to redesign the “geometry of the state.” These articles create a new branch of “popular power” consisting of councils composed of representatives (voceros, or spokespersons, is the preferred chavista term) of local, grassroots community organizations that will directly allocate funds for projects. These councils will be organized on the level of “communes” within municipalities; their funds will come directly from the executive, bypassing mayors, governors, and state and municipal legislatures.

Why this change? President Chávez hopes through this mechanism, and through the re-organization of his supporters in the new Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) to strengthen direct, “protagonistic” democracy, which in his view and that of many of his supporters has been repeatedly co-opted by opportunists and professional politicians. The communal councils and grassroots alternative economic structures will have to co-exist with capitalism and the political institutions of representative democracy, but over time they are to expand their presence and influence, flowering eventually into “twenty-first century socialism.”

Observers of Venezuela can easily find reason to be optimistic or pessimistic about this project. Several of the government “missions” in areas of health care, urban land reform, cooperatives, sanitation and water have produced inspiring examples of participatory democracy at the grassroots. However, corruption and cronyism continues to plague the cooperative movement, the subsidized "Mercal" markets, and the administration of community grants. Politicians with personal connections to the government can displace genuine grassroots councils merely by obtaining certification of themselves as “authentic” representatives. Venezuelan socialism will for the foreseeable future be less about democratizing control over the means of production than about democratically distributing a bounty that springs from the subsoil -- oil.

On Venezuela

2007-11-27T22:34:44Z

From Dan Hellinger

Greetings to everyone in Columbus. I've seen a couple comments on Venezuela, and thought I would respond and add a few more observations. (I had the privilege of speaking to the Council at the Oct. luncheon.)

Someone asked about comparing Chavez to Musharrif. Musharrif has declared marshal law and made it almost impossible for opponents to run against him in elections due early next year. Chavez was opposed by a candidate who campaign freely against him and had the support of almost all of Venezuelan's private media. The Constitutional amendments that go before Venezuelan voters on Dec. 2 do increase the president's powers to act in cases of emergency, but these are much more limited than anything that Musharrif has at his disposal, and in any event are not being put into effect. We do not even know whether voters will approve them.

Yee Hee Im, moderator of this blog, posted a summary of comments by Venezuelan lawyer Carlos Briceno who reportedly considers Chavez a dictator because he nationalized companies and has expelled some of his opponents. I hasten to point out that I am responding here, then, to a report of Mr. Briceno's remarks, and it may be unfair of me to do so, given that we do not have his exact words However, I'll make a few comments, with apologies to Mr. Briceno if I did not fully understand his views.

So far, Chavez has limited nationalizations to two kinds of companies. First, there are those, such as telecommunications, airlines, and metallurgy, that were privatized in the 1990s. These then are re-nationalizations. Second, some companies that closed during the 2003-2004 shutdown of the economy by owners were nationalized after workers took them over to keep them running (in a couple cases, the government has taken over companies that were shutting down for economic reasons). Overall, the private sector has actually increased in relative terms, not decreased since Chavez was elected in 1998. This fact has attracted criticism from some of the government's leftist supporters. It seems unlikely that major new nationalizations are in the offing, though that cannot be ruled out.

The oil shutdown (chavistas call it sabotage; opponents call it a strike) of Dec. 2003 was devastating to the economy. It was illegal because it was called to force the president's resignation, not for any economic reason. The conflict was bitter, and the government offered "striking" workers (most of whom were paid by company executives to stay home) several opportunities to return. The shutdown ended when workers who stayed on the job, retired employees, and oil workers from other countries got the industry going again. The government then laid off all those who refused to return to work. Undoubtedly, some people lost their jobs unfairly, but many of the complaints come from people who somehow expect that they are entitled to keep their jobs despite having tried to bring down the elected president of the country in this way.

There is another group of opponents who lost government jobs because they signed the petition that forced the recall election, won by Chavez, in August 2004. This, of course, is indefensible, but the practice was used by the private sector as well -- that is, many people who refused to sign the petition were fired. Since 2004, the situation has quited down. The economy has been growing, and unemployment has been falling, so one hears less about this kind of thing.

On Sunday, Venezuelans will vote on a package of reforms to the Constitution. This has polarized the country after several years of relative peace. IN a moment I'll post an analysis in advance of the date.