Throughout the six decades evolution of the public diplomacy concept, international relations approaches have remained at the margins of the field. An important international relations theory that has been virtually non-existent in the public diplomacy literature is the English School of international relations. This theory has been the centerpiece of literature in diplomatic studies, but curiously, has not been applied to public diplomacy. In this editorial, I outline a public diplomacy framework for global governance issues that builds on the English School and Pamment's framework on the intersection of international development and public diplomacy.

With globalization and new communication technologies, governments aim to cultivate relationships with their foreign publics. This goal represents the convergence of the public relations and public diplomacy domains. In this regard, this study aims to explore how foreign-born faculty members' attitudes and behaviors toward the U.S. are shaped by their relationships with their universities. Findings confirm a significant link between foreign-born faculty members' perceived relationships with their universities and their attitudes and behavioral intentions toward the U.S. The authors conclude that a positive relationship between universities and foreign faculty members can serve as a soft power resource in U.S. public diplomacy. This study contributes to governments' public diplomacy efforts by analyzing the roles of the foreign-born faculty members as strategic communication channels in cultivating relationships between a host country and their homelands.

The aim of this article is to rethink the role of international trade as a public diplomacy tool by considering the uncertainties that stem from political tensions. The main contribution made in this article is theoretical rather than statistical. However, we analyze trade and public opinion data to study the relationship between both factors. Using Latinobarometer, a cross-sectional survey that collects public opinion data from Latin America, this article analyses public opinion toward the United States and China. One of the main takeaways from this study is that, despite its potential to showcase political stability, public diplomacy undervalues 'unintended consequences' of international trade relations. This article takes up international trade as an unintended, but arguably effective, resource to be developed for the practice of public diplomacy. Findings presented in this article do not claim causation between trade and opinion, something that can be explored by further research, but rather introduce new questions for further research on the public diplomacy of trade relations.

Multiple modes of communication on social media can contribute to public diplomacy in informing, conversing, and networking with members of foreign publics. However, manipulative behaviours on social media, prevalent especially in high tension contexts, create disruptions to authentic communication in what could be grey/black propaganda or information warfare. This study reviews existing literature about models of public diplomacy to guide an empirical study of China's communication in the #SouthChinaSea conversation on Twitter. It uses computational methods to identify, record, and analyze one-way, two-way, and network communication of China's actors. It employs manual qualitative research to determine the nature of China's actors. On that basis, it assesses China's Twitter communication in the issue against various models of public diplomacy.

How does a public health crisis play into the digital rhetoric of states? As Covid-19 is presenting a situation in which countries need to manage the international environment in a relatively short period, their practices could signal how digitization is going to influence public diplomacy in the longer run. This paper explores state public diplomacy in the context of a public health crisis. It develops a theoretical framework of public diplomacy on social media through how and what states communicated during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through keyword and hashtag analyses, we identify two patterns. First, states usually regard social media as an instrument for domestic communication rather than public diplomacy. The international impact of messaging has not been prioritized or well-recognized. Social media platforms such as Twitter have global outreach and messaging can be seen by audiences all over the world. Messages intended for the domestic audience could have an international impact. Thus, any communication on digital platforms should consider their public diplomacy outcomes. Second, while social media platforms are claimed to be for networking at different levels, states tend to connect with other states rather than with international organizations during the pandemic. States do not like to mention international organizations like the WHO and the UN on Twitter. Instead, they were either busy dealing with internal problems or cooperating with another state to combat the virus.

What is the relationship between city diplomacy and public diplomacy in the United States? Whilst this question is often raised among scholars and practitioners of public diplomacy, a concrete and systematic response to it seems difficult to locate. This paper addresses the question by relying on earlier research based on empirical analysis of data from semi-structured interviews with city officials with international purview in the United States as well as with current and former officials at the U.S. Department of State who have worked on topics related to city diplomacy. The research and analysis that informs this paper and the diagrams it offers are hinged on design principles and adopt an architecture studio style approach to data analysis. Further, multidimensional scaling and correspondence analysis are used to visualize the convergence and divergence between the functions of public diplomacy, as introduced by Nicholas Cull, and the functions of city diplomacy that this paper introduces. This is done to first, provide a framework for understanding the dynamics between city diplomacy and public diplomacy; and second, uncover the policy intervention space that could guide policies for making U.S. city diplomacy and public diplomacy more strategically aligned.

Public diplomacy activities can benefit from social capital theory, when its social dynamics is elucidated in the investment of complex social networks and in the establishment and management of relationships with foreign publics. Social capital theory explains that actors can produce purposive actions to mobilize resources in social structures, which thus explains the dynamics of social interactions. In response to the lack of conceptual frameworks for understanding public diplomacy activities within social capital theory, we conducted a narrative literature review that intends to identify the means through which international actors, such as governments, engage with foreign publics through the dynamics of social networks and the resources embedded in them. In addition, we explored the multidimensional characteristics of social capital to enhance the comprehension of the manner in which actors access, share, and maintain resources in target communities, institutions, or organizations through public diplomacy activities. In summary, we highlight the importance of new theoretical explorations on the application of social capital theory to public diplomacy and the need for a research agenda in the field.