This book presents a comprehensive framework, six pathways of connection, which explains the impact of public diplomacy on achieving foreign policy goals. The comparative study of three important public diplomacy practitioners with distinctive challenges and approaches shows the necessity to move beyond soft power to appreciate the role of public diplomacy in global politics. Through theoretical discussions and case studies, six pathways of connection is presented as a framework to design new public diplomacy projects and measure their impact on foreign policy.

Chinese Television and Soft Power Communication in Australia discusses China’s soft power communication approach and investigates information handling between China and its targeted audiences in the eyes of key influencers – intermediate elites (public diplomacy policy elites in particular) in China and Australia. It explores CGTN (with staff from several professional cultures) and conducts a systemic test of how successful/unsuccessful China’s soft power message projection is in terms of congruence between projected and received frames as a pivotal factor of its power status. The analysis is based on a case study of frames in the messaging on Chinese international TV about China’s Belt and Road Initiative and in the minds of Australian public diplomacy policy elites. The question raised is whether and how Australia is listening.

In Plural Diplomacies: Normative Predicaments and Functional Imperatives, Noé Cornago asserts the need to restore the long-interrupted continuity between the relevance of diplomacy as raison de système - in a world which is much more than a world of States - and its unique value as a way to mediate the many alienations experienced by individuals and social groups.

This original, systematic theory of cultural diplomacy opens a new way of thinking about diplomacy, politics and culture. Dr. Laos methodically investigates the relationship between culture and politics and between the reality of the world and the reality of consciousness. In so doing, he articulates a new approach to international relations theory and the concept of power, one based on philosophical arguments about reality, history and freedom.Dr. Laos takes a stark and realistic look at the interplay between culture and politics and makes an intellectually challenging contribution to normative international relations theory. The author proposes a new way of defining 'critical' political theory (substantially different from the Frankfurt School's approach) which leads to a new, dynamic understanding of history, and he argues that the chessboard of power is not so much on the surface of the earth as in the mental network formed by the communication between consciousnesses.He presents an original explanation of the inherent inability of Realpolitik to account for reality, throwing light on deep and controversial questions of identity for Europe and the West in general.