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Updated: February 2007
| Author: | Craig Charney, President, Charney Research |
|---|
The issue of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world offers an ideal case study of the issue of “soft power.” This involves the aspects of international relations and foreign policy that focus on leadership through prestige, persuasion, and cultural and economic power, rather than hard power, the “bombs and rockets” that make up much of the traditional introductory international relations course or specialized course on US foreign policy.
What is a CFR Academic Module?
Academic Modules—featuring teaching notes by the authors of CFR publications—are designed to assist educators in creating or supplementing a course syllabus. The modules are customized packages built around a primary CFR text, such as a book or report, and include teaching notes; additional readings; video, audio, and transcripts of CFR meetings; Foreign Affairs articles; and other online resources. Use of these modules is free of charge. They may be used in part or in their entirety.
May 2005
Council Special Report No. 7
The United States can improve its image in the Muslim world. Focus group research in three key Islamic countries--Egypt, Morocco, and Indonesia--shows that the widely held view that nothing can be done about the spread of negative attitudes toward the United States among Muslims in the Middle East and Asia is incorrect. The key to a new dialogue with the Muslim world is a humbler American perspective, based on respectful partnership and agreeing to disagree when necessary.
By Craig Charney
The Council on Foreign Relations’ Special Report on U.S. public diplomacy in the Muslim world can be a useful resource for a variety of undergraduate or graduate courses. These notes offer some suggestions for using the report in four types of courses:
GENERAL COURSES ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
SPECIALIZED COURSES ON US FOREIGN POLICY OR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
The issue of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world offers an ideal case study of the issue of “soft power.” This involves the aspects of international relations and foreign policy that focus on leadership through prestige, persuasion, and cultural and economic power, rather than hard power, the “bombs and rockets” that make up much of the traditional introductory international relations course or specialized course on US foreign policy. On the one hand, the loss of American prestige and increased anti-Americanism in Muslim countries is increasingly regarded as a serious problem for U.S. international relations and foreign policy. On the other, a superpower which also uses the instruments of hard power, as America has in Iraq and Afghanistan, may face serious tensions between its uses of hard and soft power. These issues are well illustrated by the report and its analyses of focus group reactions of Muslims in Morocco, Egypt, and Indonesia to American policies and information about America.
Discussion Questions
SPECIALIZED AREA STUDIES COURSES ON THE MIDDLE EAST OR SOUTHEAST ASIA
SPECIALIZED COURSES ON ISLAM AND POLITICS
Discussion Questions
ASSIGNMENTS
Any of the discussion questions above could be used as an essay topic instead. Other possible assignments for students in any of the above types of classes would include:
1. Public Debate
Assign students to argue publicly the case for and against the United States from the perspective of citizens of one of the countries in the study and a representative of the United States government. To prepare they should draw both on the Council Special Report and other sources of information. To maximize learning you may wish to assign students to defend the opposite of the viewpoint they actually hold.
2. Content and/or Discourse Analysis
Assign students to take a week or month’s worth of a Muslim news medium and analyze all references to the United States. Content analysis would involve rating them as positive, negative, or neutral. Discourse analysis involves analysis of their meaning, tone, metaphors, and context.
English-speaking students can look at Al-Ahram English weekly, the English section of aljazeera.net, or the Jakarta Post. French-speakers can look at the Moroccan weeklies Le Journal and Telquel. Speakers of Arabic or Indonesian should be encouraged to look at major dailies in those languages. All these are available on the web.
An alternative way to set up the assignment would be to base it on a particular event rather than a time period and compare coverage in the Muslim medium and a major U.S. paper.
3. Public Opinion and Aspirations
Students should take one of the three countries in the Council Special Report (Egypt, Morocco, Indonesia) and review as much as possible of the other reports and information available on the opinions and aspirations of citizens there, reporting on their findings regarding the society in general or a particular aspect (economic development, women, democracy, Islam). Topline findings from the Pew surveys are available on the Pew website, in addition to the Pew reports. Numerate advanced students can also download and run the dataset from the large 2002 to 2003 Pew study.
4. Policy Memo
Students should take one or more of the countries in the Council Special Report as a basis and write a memo to Karen Hughes, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, on how the image of the United States could be improved there, drawing on the Council Special Report and other recommended readings and surveys.
August 2006
As nations around the world struggle with the threat of militant Islam, Vali Nasr, one of the leading scholars on the Middle East, provides us with the rare opportunity to understand the political and theological antagonisms within Islam itself.
June 2005
Task Force Report No. 54
A Council-sponsored Task Force argues that the United States should support the evolutionary development of democracy consistently throughout the Middle East. It points out that a strategy to promote democracy entails inherent risks, but that “the denial of freedom carries much more significant long-term dangers.” This report is also available in Arabic.
January 17, 2007
Watch Michael B. Oren, senior fellow at The Shalem Center, discuss his book Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East.
November 20, 2006
Watch the Council's Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies Vali Nasr discuss his book, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future.
July 31, 2006
Watch Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres discuss the current crisis with Hezbollah and the broader geopolitical environment in the Middle East.
January 17, 2007
Listen to Michael B. Oren, senior fellow at The Shalem Center, discuss his book Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East.
November 20, 2006
Listen to the Council's Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies Vali Nasr discuss his book, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future.
July 31, 2006
Listen to Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres discuss the current crisis with Hezbollah and the broader geopolitical environment in the Middle East.
June 5, 2006
Listen to experts discuss the origins of the Shia and the political and religious beliefs of the Shia.
July 31, 2006
Israeli Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres discuses the geopolitical environment in the Middle East and the conflict with Hezbollah.
March 23, 2006
Vali Nasr, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, discusses the role of Shiite power in the Persian Gulfregion.
2005
"Global Opinion: The Spread of Anti-Americanism," Trends 2005
Pew Research Center
July 2005
Islamic Extremism: Common Concern for Muslim and Western Publics: Support for | Terror Wanes Among Muslim Publics
Pew Research Center
June 2005
U.S. Image Up Slightly, But Still Negative: American Character Gets Mixed Reviews
Pew Research Center
January 7, 2005
Morocco: The Price of Anti-Americanism
by Craig Charney
February 2005
Revisiting the Arab Street: Research from Within
Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan
2004
Impressions of America, 2004
Arab American Institute
September 28, 2004
2004 Report of the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy
U.S. Department of State
February 2003
Indonesia: A Report on Public Opinion And the 2004 Elections
Asia Foundation
December 2006
The Program on International Policy Attitudes has released a survey on WorldPublicOpinion.org showing U.S. public opinion on various international issues involving U.S. presence in the Middle East.
September 15, 2006
At the Weinberg Founders Conference 2006, Philip Zelikow, counselor to the State Department, discusses "Building Security in the Broader Middle East".
March 1, 2006
This is a report on a Center for Strategic and International Studies tour of the Middle East, focussing on the potential for cooperation between the U.S. and Europe on supporting social and political reform in Morocco.
2006
This study from the East-West Center evaluates the state of military reform eight years after the end of authoritarian rule in Indonesia, pointing to both significant achievements and serious shortcomings.
August 2005
Believing that the Arab media played a critical role in shaping the information environment that was fomenting the “culture of death” that ennobled suicide bombers and the cult of terrorism, the United States Institute of Peace launched a systematic investigation into how the Arab media was informing and shaping the hearts and minds of Arab publics...
December 2006
Report
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