Project Description: The aim of the Peacekeeping English Project is to reduce, resolve and prevent conflict worldwide through improved English language communication. Learning Point: The success of Peacekeeping English is in identifying a specific contribution which the programme can make as part of a broad national and international security agenda. Organisation: British Council Full case study Peacekeeping English

Project Description: In August 1952, the United States seized an opportunity to make ‘friends’ in the Middle East by airlifting the 3,700 stranded Muslim pilgrims from Beirut to the holy city of Mecca. (This number varies depending on the source. The Associated Press reports this number to be 9000 and the Air Power History reports it to be [...]

Project Description: Provide an opportunity for engagement between representatives of the culturally diverse populations in Sudan while teaching participants lifesaving skills to attempt to reduce the number of people drowned in the Nile. Learning Point: The engagement of individuals in previous projects to identify participants for Nile Swimmers provided efficient means to attract individuals to the programme. Nile Swimmers [...]

Project Description: The goal of the bed-ins was to use John Lennon’s celebrity and access to media outlets as a means of promoting world peace, and more specifically to end the Vietnam War, by appealing to the citizens and governments of aggressor states. Learning Point: International broadcasts of songs and images can be effective in inspiring a [...]

Project Description: To help promote Japanese humanitarian assistance and national image of pacifism while strengthening goodwill with the Iraqi people via the Japanese anime Captain Tsubasa. Learning Point: Nations constrained by societal norms, constitutions, or size can learn from Japan’s interesting approach to achieve greater international prestige via cultural exports without large combat deployment and the use of force [...]

Project Description: Bolstering human potential for a new style of leadership for social positive change in Africa and the world. Learning Point: To influence is at times involves letting go of the reins – to participate and not lead – to be the learner and the teacher, to be able to reassess ones position and be vulnerable in [...]

Project Description: To provide medical care to the victims of the Kashmir earthquake and to promote Cuba by demonstrating altruism. Learning Point: Such projects seem, on the surface, to have little to do with foreign policy. Yet Cuba was able to gain a strategic ally simply by providing a much-needed service. Organisation: Cuba Full Case Study: Cuban Medical [...]

Project Description: To get the United States “to reinstate Colombia’s ‘certified’ status, to lower the risk of economic sanctions and to correct the impression that Colombia was not doing enough.” Learning Point: A country can successfully change the opinions of foreign publics and governments with a strategic campaign to influence the foreign media surrounding the issue. Organisation: Sawyer/Miller [...]

Project Description: To improve the wartime image of Great Britain by moulding the evacuation at Dunkirk not as a defeat, but as a triumph of the British spirit in its fight against Nazi Germany. Learning Point: The effort to positively frame Operation Dynamo serves as a prime example of how to improve a nation’s image and national [...]

Project Description: To use an online publication to identify Austria as a country with awareness and a self-critical view of its National Socialist past. Learning Point: Reconciliation is a long-term matter, where success cannot be measured easily, due to the involvement of complex psychological patterns; attempts to counter stereotypes directly are nearly always fruitless. Building credibility through dialogue [...]