The following two blog stories came out directly after the September
25 Roll Call op ed. The first is from the Huffington Post
and the second is from "Heading Right." The author
of the Roll Call op ed (the Executive Director of this Institute)
supplied a comment which is at the end of the Heading Right item
below:
Chris Weigant
"A Truly Original Foreign Policy Idea: Public Talks"(read
article)
Posted September 26, 2007 | 05:56 AM (EST)
If two groups of peoples in violent disagreement with each other
on the world's stage (be they different countries, dispossessed
groups, or factions within a country) have exhausted all diplomatic
options, is the inevitable result war? Or is there another way
to address their vastly different viewpoints of history (and the
conflict at hand) which could have a better outcome?
An opinion piece ran in yesterday's Roll
Call which proposes a truly innovative and original concept:
Instead of closed-door diplomatic meetings, why not try working
out differences in the public arena? More properly stated: When
diplomatic measures have already failed, why not try something
new -- since there's nothing left to lose at that point?
The author of this extraordinary proposal is John Connolly, Executive
Director of the Institute for Public Dialogue. The idea (in a
nutshell) is: when all other diplomatic methods of resolving a
disagreement have already failed, why not try something different?
Have both sides publish their views of the history of the conflict
to the world's audience, in publicly available media -- and let
the chips fall where they may. Each side would make its case to
the world, for all to see. As charges and counter-charges are
published in a continuing process (over a period of months), each
side could rebut legitimate points made by the other in subsequent
releases -- in an attempt to sway world opinion to their relative
perspectives.
Since Roll Call is a subscription site, the IFPDialogue website
has posted a copy of the article. [I have
reproduced this text below -- also, see Full Disclosure statement
below]. The article explains the concept in detail, and the Institute's
website has even more extensive documentation, if you're interested.
The Institute even has a
video currently up at YouTube where John Connolly tries to
lobby Congress through the power of the web.
I admit that this is a radical idea, and an honestly singular
new way of thinking. Connolly knows this as well, and has prepared
for skepticism. The Institute's site has a list of common objections
to the Public Talks concept, complete with plausible answers for
each. He makes a convincing case that he's not just tilting at
windmills, but that his idea could actually and effectively work.
The biggest argument he's got going for him is that the whole
idea wouldn't even begin until after normal diplomatic negotiations
had collapsed. At that point, what is there really left to lose
for either side?
John Connolly is putting this idea into the vaunted "marketplace
of ideas" for consideration by one and all. While this marketplace
can be brutal to those espousing abhorrent ideas (like President
Ahmadinejad of Iran recently), it should also remain open to creative
original thinking when it (so rarely) happens.
The public -- the "shoppers" in the marketplace --
are the ones who ultimately will decide the merits of the idea.
But they can't decide if they don't even hear it in the first
place. Which is why I present it here, to give it the wider audience
I think it deserves.
[Full Disclosure: I have done minor web editing work for John
Connolly in the past. I was paid less than $500 for this editorial
work, which I did for him last year. He did not solicit me to
write this article. I was not paid to write this article. I wrote
it on my own initiative, not in order to fully endorse the idea,
but (as I say) to present it to a wider audience.]
When All Else Fails, Consider 'Public Talks'
"All diplomatic options have been exhausted" is a statement
frequently made by officials in response to a wide range of unresolved
international disputes. Almost without exception, this means that
all forms of negotiations have collapsed.
It is in the long-term interests of the United States for leaders
in both the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs
committees to collaborate on establishing a large-scale conflict
resolution process that could be briefly summarized as "negotiating
in public -- the diplomatic option of last resort."
To that end, the Institute for Public Dialogue proposes "Public
Talks," a new form of international dialogue that would only
come into play after all other forms of negotiations have failed.
The centerpiece of this worldwide communication process is a series
of "Challenge Documents," small, magazine-size documents
that would be distributed through the media and made available
online.
The Challenge Document would feature each side's interpretation
of history. It would contain questions to one's adversary, negotiating
positions and other content inherent to international conflicts.
Successive rounds of Challenge Documents would allow for a full
exposition of the competing views of these adversaries and also
would allow for a clearer focus of obstacles to an agreement.
The two international Congressional committees would determine
the most appropriate organizational structure to oversee the necessary
rules and terms for this highly structured process.
The underlying motive for adversaries to engage in this process
is not an idealistic notion of goodwill, but rather recognition
of the growing importance of public opinion. Once established,
either side could unilaterally present its Challenge Document
before a worldwide audience without any guarantee of a response
in kind. An adversary rejecting that challenge would risk international
acceptance of the other side's historical narrative of that conflict.
Thus, the motive to engage in this public dialogue would be to
head off erosion of support worldwide.
Every one or two weeks, one side would distribute a Challenge
Document. If accepted, this dialogue would unfold over two or
three months and would engage the international community as never
before in the central details of that conflict.
This form of communication, part of the Institute for Public
Dialogue's Public Talks, would not replace private or back-channel
negotiations, nor will it work in all situations. The widespread
acceptance of this platform will make it increasingly difficult
for parties of a conflict to reject participation in Public Talks.
Shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a Pew Research
poll indicated that 73 percent of Americans favored hearing both
sides of issues, even if it meant hearing directly from enemies.
Nevertheless, some will oppose this approach. Yet those who call
for the spread of democracy while opposing a greater public understanding
of conflicts will be creating an edifice of unsustainable hypocrisy.
Public Talks depends less on personal trust between leaders than
private talks. At the culmination of the process, the final signed
agreement delivered into the hands of citizens on both sides will
increase confidence that the terms will not be reinterpreted in
divergent ways. Consider the following objections:
• Public Talks conflict with the secrecy that advocates
of realpolitik insist on.
Public Talks commences only after secret talks have failed. Secret
talks also suffer from intrinsic problems as leaders have frequently
reinterpreted agreements to sell them to their constituencies,
thereby sowing the seeds of a future conflict.
• Encouraging public opinion to dictate U.S. foreign
policy is a bad idea.
Public Talks will most frequently involve the U.S. only as a witness
to a dialogue between other nations and societies. When the U.S.
chooses to engage in Public Talks, leaders will explain their
positions clearly and emphatically. The emerging difference with
Public Talks is that we would all experience this direct clash
of opinions leading to a greater sense of historical truth behind
a given conflict.
• This proposal is divorced from reality because governments
don't care about advertisements or messages, only interests and
power.
This ignores the growing importance of public opinion in the calculus
of political leaders worldwide. The rise of democracy and the
increased access to information is advancing this phenomenon.
• The public will not be interested in a Challenge
Document when they have access to enormous quantities of information
from many media outlets.
Predicting what interests the public, as the many publishers who
rejected Harry Potter will attest, is not simple. The Challenge
Document would be the centerpiece of a worldwide communication
process that the public would be anticipating in advance of it
becoming available. Millions would see these competing historical
narratives, with the leaders of the adversarial party aware that
the entire world would be focusing on that same conflict.
• Nations could censor Public Talks by simply preventing
the distribution of a challenge document.
Yes, they could in areas under their control. However, attempts
to block this process internally may backfire, as the rest of
the world would pay close attention to any banned information.
• Negotiations could not really take place through
documents designed for the public.
Unlike private talks that often begin with small confidence-building
agreements, Public Talks would start with the large issues that
truly separate adversaries. The contrasting historical narratives
surrounding such conflicts are easily understood and if agreement
is reached, lesser issues could be negotiated privately. Moreover,
a formal Web site could feature relevant details.
Perhaps the most significant characteristic of Public Talks is
that it will focus world attention on the compromises and trade-offs
required for agreement. In this way, public opinion could become
a powerful force in moving parties to agreement.
Amid the "battle of ideas" taking shape today, U.S.
support for Public Talks would show the world community that Americans
are interested in not just symptoms of international conflicts,
but also in underlying causes. An America that does not fear open
discussion of these issues is more likely to see its principles
embraced around the world.
[John Connolly is the executive director of the Institute for
Public Dialogue.]
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Harry Potter And The Challenge Documents
A guest editorial in Roll Call proposes a new
mechanism in diplomacy that evokes the idealism of Woodrow
Wilson, along with a healthy dose of his naiveté. John
Connolly, the Executive Director of the Institute
for Public Dialogue, wants nations to establish a series of
white papers in order to conduct public diplomacy, especially
when traditional diplomacy has failed. Called “challenge
documents”, these position papers would somehow transcend
national interests and bring a new era of peaceful resolution
to real conflict:
To that end, the Institute for Public Dialogue proposes “Public
Talks,” a new form of international dialogue that would
only come into play after all other forms of negotiations have
failed. The centerpiece of this worldwide communication process
is a series of “Challenge Documents,” small, magazine-size
documents that would be distributed through the media and made
available online.
The Challenge Document would feature each side’s interpretation
of history. It would contain questions to one’s adversary,
negotiating positions and other content inherent to international
conflicts. Successive rounds of Challenge Documents would allow
for a full exposition of the competing views of these adversaries
and also would allow for a clearer focus of obstacles to an
agreement. The two international Congressional committees would
determine the most appropriate organizational structure to oversee
the necessary rules and terms for this highly structured process.
The underlying motive for adversaries to engage in this process
is not an idealistic notion of goodwill, but rather recognition
of the growing importance of public opinion. Once established,
either side could unilaterally present its Challenge Document
before a worldwide audience without any guarantee of a response
in kind. An adversary rejecting that challenge would risk international
acceptance of the other side’s historical narrative of
that conflict. Thus, the motive to engage in this public dialogue
would be to head off erosion of support worldwide.
The idea has a certain charm, but one that runs threadbare by
the end of the proposal. It doesn’t help that it attempts
to use Harry Potter as an argument. In response to a predicted
question as to why people would pay attention to government-produced
white papers rather than just find the information on their own,
Connolly argues that publishers turned down J.K. Rowling when
she shopped the first Harry Potter book, too. That’s a pretty
glaring non-sequitur, and it points to one of the fundamental
flaws in this proposal.
Here in the US, we take unfettered access to information for
granted. If the Bush administration put out a white paper on North
Korea, for instance, it would get dissected almost instantly by
bloggers, academics, and the media. The free world would have
access to our debate. More than likely, it would not find anything
close to unanimous support. That’s the process on which
Connolly relies for these challenge documents’ promulgation
and credibility on the world stage.
The problem comes when oppressive, totalitarian regimes play
this game. Unlike the West, most of them tightly control the information
to which their populations have access. Kim Jong-Il would have
no motivation to publish the American “challenge paper”
for public consumption, nor any reason to tell the truth in response.
In fact, the challenge documents would simply reiterate what foreign
ministries and State departments already do for a living.
Connolly attempts to address that by arguing that other nations
would notice the banning of information. Really? We’ve noticed
the banning of information to North Koreans for decades. What
are we doing about it? Nothing. Short of war, we can’t force
Kim to allow a free press or access to international news agencies.
With Iran, we not only have done nothing about the lack of openness
for Iranians, our academics offer the theocracy propaganda opportunities
on our campuses.
Connolly wants to argue that a failure to respond properly would
mean that the diplomatic world would have to accept the version
of history given by the winner. That’s about as naive as
one could possibly get. Does that mean if Saddam Hussein had failed
to produce a white paper that the world would have joined in the
invasion of Iraq? Saddam ignored sixteen UN resolutions and defied
the cease-fire Iraq had ratified to end the 1991 Gulf War. Why
would he have cared about a debating game even sillier than the
UN?
Nations act in their own interest, regardless of whether they
are free nations or tyrannies. Free nations tend to reflect the
will of the citizenry, while tyrannies reflect the will of the
tyrant. White papers will not change that dynamic. There’s
nothing inherenty dangerous about the proposal except for the
reliance on it to solve conflicts. It doesn’t take much
of a leap to go from a challenge document to a Neville Chamberlain
piece of paper promising peace in our time.
One Response to “Harry Potter And The
Challenge Documents”
1 John Connolly, author, Roll Call op ed 27 September 2007 @
8:12 am
Dear Heading Right
As the author of the September 25 op ed in Roll Call, I do appreciate
the opportunity to comment on your blog posting that refers to
Public Talks.
To our minds there is nothing idealistic about a process sets
up a clash of views where two sides are motivated by the effect
these Public Talks will have on American and world opinion. But
I do agree that it is idealistic in the sense that this type of
dialogue is preferable to no dialogue,
You refer to the “Challenge Documents” as white
papers. These Challenge Documents, whose content will be distributed
in al least one major print media and the Internet, will be very
different than white papers. Space in that op ed did not allow
for this exposition but the terms section on our web site rules_terms.php
describe multifacted documents that will have photos, maps and
perhaps short articles from news stories to make various points
that each side chooses to make.
Your reference that Public Talks would transcend national interests
is certainly not part of that op ed or anything on our web site.
Quite to the contrary, we expect that this whole process is driven
by national interests.
The reference to Harry Potter was to make a simple point in
answering an objection. Your criticism would be better grounded
if that short point if ours was quoted in context, so here it
is: “The public will not be interested in a Challenge Document
when they have access to enormous quantities of information from
many media outlets. Predicting what interests the public, as the
many publishers who rejected Harry Potter will attest, is not
simple. “
Let me address the heart of your argument. Allow me to quote
you here: “The problem comes when oppressive, totalitarian
regimes play this game. “
Yes they will play this game and that is precsiely what is in
the US interests as we, the public, will witness a clash of opinons
and this is wahtwill lead to a greatwr recognition of historical
truth.
And frankly, suggesting that North Korea is somehow a key example
not the case at all and if you delve into the Q and A section
of our web site, you will see that we dismiss such ideas: qanda.php
The fundamental basis of this new form of international dialogue
is predicated on a simple principle: After all other forms of
secret talks have failed try Public Talks.
There can never be assumptions of success. But trying a new
form of dialogue that engages both the American public and the
world public may create a new dynamic that will change the nature
of negotiations in fundamental ways. And it is this characteristic
that may lead to adversaries taking steps towards one another.
john connolly
john@ifpdiaogue.com
|
