May 5 - Canada and Mexico: Public Diplomacy to the US and the World in the Trump 2.0 moment
PDCA's First Monday Forum for May will focus on the public diplomacy responses of the immediate neighbors of the United States – Mexico and Canada – at a time when their bilateral relationship with the US is a major political topic. It will consider both Mexican and Canadian public diplomacy to the US and their engagement with the rest of the world. Our speakers are the leading scholars of public diplomacy in their respective countries.
- César Villanueva is Professor of International Relations at IberoAmericana University in México City and a widely published author whose work has focused especially on cultural diplomacy and issues of international image. His most recent book is Sombreros, Frida y Boom, IberoAmericana, 2024, a study of Mexico’s image.
- Evan Potter is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Ottawa. He has published multiple studies of Canadian public diplomacy including pioneering work on e-diplomacy. His current work includes application of his own concept of cultural statecraft to Canada and incorporates attention to art, architecture, and literature.
Nick Cull (University of Southern California) will chair the session, which will be available exclusively via Zoom.
The First Monday Forum is sponsored by PDCA, the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, and the GWU Institute for Public Diplomacy & Global Communication. Click here to register.
César Villanueva is Professor of International Relations and Public/Cultural Diplomacy at Iberoamericana Universidad in Mexico City. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from Linnaeus University in Sweden, with a specialization in diplomatic studies (2007). He also holds two Master’s degrees, one in International Public Policy from the University of Washington, Seattle, and a second in Fine Arts, from San Carlos Academy of Arts (ENAP-UNAM), in Mexico. He is a frequent lecturer on soft power, international images, and cultural/public diplomacy at universities and cultural centers in the Americas and Europe. He is the author of four books on the field of soft power, public diplomacy, and international images, and has also published dozens of articles in journals around the world. He is also, the co-editor of the series Governance, Development, and Social Inclusion in Latin America, published by Palgrave-MacMillan. He translated Joseph Nye’s book Soft Power into Spanish (Poder Suave, la clave del éxito en la política internacional, Universidad Iberoamericana Press), and wrote the foreword for the Spanish-speaking audiences (2016). César Villanueva has been Coordinator and Director of the Department of International Studies at Universidad Iberoamericana (2016-2020). He also coordinates activities for the research project on national stereotypes and images, using data science techniques. The Report on the Image of Mexico Abroad (2013-2018) was published in 2021 and his latest book, Sombreros, Frida and Boom: Alterities of Mexico and the Mexicans Abroad, also appeared in 2021 (Universidad Iberoamericana Press).
Evan Potter is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Canada: Projecting Canada’s Soft Power through Public Diplomacy (2009).His research focuses on how Canada uses the instruments of public diplomacy - cultural programs, international education, international broadcasting, trade, and investment promotion - to exercise Canada's soft power internationally.