A World Perspective

A World Perspective
Although I agree with Maya Angelou about the inappropriate paraphrasing of the "drum major" quotation, this quotation makes sense to me.

Friday, November 1, 2013

The publics are coming! The publics are here! The corporations are coming! The corporations are here!

A variation on the 1966 film "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming" speaks to a steady pattern in international relations whose origins could be arguably be dated to the emergence of the nation-state but certainly is vivid today. Global publics are increasingly powerful, and we know that private firms are, too. This piece in The Atlantic - http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/the-real-reason-saudi-arabia-doesn-t-want-friendlier-us-iran-relations/281013/?utm_source=feedburner&&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#When:01:52:20Z (hat tip to the USC Public Diplomacy Center RSS) is only my most recent reminder of the commercial drive for profit in nascent or re-emerging markets, whether or not governments are ready for it. Where do the meanings of "public" and "governmental" and "private" begin and end? Ever boundary-spanning diplomats have to navigate and mediate between and across the overlapping interests and identities of civil society ethnic groups, co-religionists, unions and political activists (to mention just a few), their budget- and turf-conscious embassy and home ministry colleagues as well kick-start entrepreneurs and corporate giants. How? Public-private partnership -- a proliferating organizational patchwork with which scholars and government actors can barely keep up -- at our peril. In spite of the rise of independence-through-information and de- and self-regulation, these three dimensions of global society are interdependent and people still crave the rule of law and credible institutions. PPPs are coming! PPPs are here!  

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