In recent times, Web-mediated communication has qualified as a powerful strategic resource in foreign policy. It is central to any country’s effort to reach foreign audiences pervasively, also in areas of the world which – for various reasons – are otherwise difficult to access for Western actors. This is why an effective exploitation of web resources is crucial in so-called public diplomacy, which is an extension of traditional diplomacy directly addressing foreign publics. This book examines the use of web-mediated multimodal resources in contemporary U.S. public diplomacy in an effort to understand the strategies enacted to exploit internet-mediated communication and its affordances for political purposes. Moreover, in the Middle East and North African region (MENA), some of the world’s most daunting resource and governance challenges meet. About 1% of the worlds freshwater are located in the MENA region but more than 5% of the population of the globe lives in that region. This book addresses the increasing complexity that confronts policy makers dealing with water management and the need for a water governance transformation in the region. The authors analyse the current use of water as a medium for diplomacy and co-operation and its future potential. Furthermore, disaster diplomacy examines how and why disaster-related activities do an do not reduce conflict and induce co-operation. This book explores the notion of ‘disaster diplomacy’ to provide further insights into particular aspects of the interconnectedness between disasters and foreign policy. In addition, a number of studies suggest that natural resources can have a negative impact on the developing prospects of countries, a phenomenon that has been labelled as the resource curse. This book reviews international initiatives to address the resource curse, with an emphasis on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and petroleum-related aid initiatives. Suggestions are made on policy and further research needed to improve the effectiveness of international foreign policy initiatives in terms of addressing institutional problems underlying the resource curse.
