A Contextualized Interpretation of PD Evaluation

While the term public diplomacy (PD) has undergone a major revival in the early 21st century, the evaluation of PD programs has not been given anywhere near the same level of attention. The number of studies which consider either the methods used for the evaluation of PD campaigns or the theoretical grounds of PD evaluation methodologies remain few compared to the number which discuss PD policy or campaign outputs (see Banks, 2011 for an extensive overview). When describing what PD programs do, scholars quite understandably tend to make assumptions based on the goals or outputs of the program rather than on the basis of reliable, empirical data on its results. Yet, clearly it is only once the effects of a campaign have been measured and the results compared and analysed that we can say with any certainty what a campaign has done.