Public Diplomacy in Vietnam: National Interests and Identities in the Public Sphere

Although such leadership has lessened over time, the representation of a need for more diversity in case-making to reflect the global use of public examining the conceptualisation and implementation of public diplomacy in Vietnam is welcome. The country is an understudied peripheral Asian state that has undergone recent significant socio-political and economic development and where there is a growing interest in public diplomacy. Public Diplomacy in Vietnam: National Interests and Identities in the Public Sphere is an exploratory study primarily seeking to understand how cultural nationalism, national interests and information communication technology (ICT) have shaped public diplomacy in Vietnam. In response to this research objective, Vu Lam has generated a three-dimensional analytical framework built on social constructivism and a Western understanding of public diplomacy (with `Western' little elaborated by the author) to analyse the public diplomacy strategies of post-1986 Vietnam. The book is thus an attempt to apply the Western theoretical outlook to a non-Western empirical case, rather than suggest an alternative interpretation of public diplomacy learned from Employing a mixed-method approach to Vietnam, the author characterises the country's contemporary public diplomacy as (1) well-practised yet not strongly conceptualised; (2) driven by redefined national interests and national identities embedded in cultural nationalism; (3) intermestic (targeting both an international and a domestic public); and (4) facilitated by ICT, building links between international and domestic politics. The first two chapters lay the foundation for the central analysis by, first, showing the dearth of academic investigations of Vietnam and, second, high