The Role of Public Diplomacy in Reconnecting Asia and the Middle East

This book considers how public diplomacy is employed as an instrument of statecraft by Middle Eastern and Asian governments to leverage soft power. Senior, mid-career, and junior scholars from academia and think tanks synthesise their expertise to deploy historical, geopolitical, and economic approaches in their analyses and observe how new practices of public diplomacy have been developed, tested, and applied in the two regions. Building and extending on the extant scholarship, which remains mostly focused on East Asia, it incorporates the Middle East not only as a recipient but also as a practitioner of public diplomacy. The thematic focus is underpinned by case studies of individual nation-states, enabling analysis of concrete examples that shed light on the evolution of Asia-Middle East ties.

This volume is an essential reference for scholars and policymakers in the fields of international relations, international political economy, and area studies who seek to explore relations between these two geographical areas beyond traditional diplomacy.

Francesca Frassineti is a Tenure-track Assistant Professor of History and Institutions of Asia at the University of Turin. Dr Frassineti has extensive experience working in the academia-policy-public engagement nexus in the fields of international diplomacy and security. Her research focuses thematically on the international history and politics of Northeast Asia with particular reference to the Korean Peninsula as well as in relation to Europe. Previously, she held teaching and research positions at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, University of Bologna, and Franklin University Switzerland. Moreover, she is a non-resident Research Fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies and the Italian Institute for Political Studies (ISPI). Dr Frassineti was also selected as an emerging leader for the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP), non-resident James A. Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum, and as a Fellow for the Korea Foundation Next Generation Policy Expert Network with Chatham House. She received her PhD in Global and International Studies from the University of Bologna.

Sook Jong Lee retired from her professorship in the Graduate School of Governance at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul. She served the East Asia Institute as President and is now Senior Fellow of the Institute. She created the Asian Democracy Research Network (www.adrnresearch.org) and has been working with the Network’s 23 research organisations across Asia to promote democracy studies. Dr Lee was Research Fellow at the Sejong Institute, Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Professorial Lecturer at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Visiting Scholar at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. Her recent publications include Populism in Asian Democracies: Features, Structures, and Impacts (eds. 2021), Collaborative Governance in East Asia: Evolution Towards Multi-stakeholder Partnerships (eds. 2020), Transforming Global Governance with Middle Power Diplomacy: South Korea’s Role in the 21st Century (ed. 2016), and Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia (eds. 2011). Dr Lee received her PhD in Sociology from Harvard University.

Chiara Lovotti is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Salerno. She holds a PhD in International History from the University of Bologna, with a research period as a Recognised Student (DPhil-level) at the University of Oxford’s Russian and Eastern European Studies (REES) centre. Dr Lovotti is also Teaching Fellow at The Europaeum, a network of leading European universities led by Oxford, and a member of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Network Plus, “Shifting Global Polarities: Russia, China, and Eurasia in Transition”, where she leads a research project on Russia’s strategic use of media in conflict management across the MENA region. Previously, she was Research Fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and served as the Scientific Coordinator of the “Rome MED–Mediterranean Dialogues”, the flagship annual conference organised by ISPI in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.