The Societist Approach to Redefining Public Diplomacy -A Formulation, a Critique, and Further ThoughtsSeong-

Abstract

It is perhaps over the actor issue — arguably the societist approach to non-states as actors of public diplomacy — that scholars have long and most diverged in their redefinitions of the practice. Yet, there has rarely been a critical look at the approach, and still less, a formulation of it as a coherent perspective. To fill these gaps, this study pursues two goals at once: first, to construct the whole edifice of the approach by mapping out a genealogy of its evolutionary development; second, to appraise it against the hallmark of definitional holism — the quality of a definition in representing all existing particulars of public diplomacy practice. This study finds societist redefinitions lacking holism, over-representing post-modern practices while under-representing modern ones. Then, it presents further thoughts on the challenges to the societist approach: the vicissitudes in the world of contemporary public diplomacy, and the prospect for the most abstract and the least analytical redefinition.