Professor Paul Cornish contributes to report on Strategic Communications and National Strategy

5 October 2011

Professor Paul Cornish (from the Department of Politics, Languages & International Studies) together with Professor Julian Lindley French and Claire Yorke, have published a report titled Strategic Communications and National Strategy.

Summary of report

Good communication is both a function and a test of good governance: in a democracy informative and transparent communication is essential to the maintenance of a productive and enduring relationship between the executive, the legislature, the judiciary and the electorate. Communication therefore has a constitutional significance, in other words, and the democratic process can be damaged when communication is insincere, inadequate or incomplete. But what is meant by strategic communications?

Strategic Communications and National Strategy provides a concise analysis of an emergent public policy debate. The report assesses the potential of strategic communications as a component of national strategy and asks whether that potential is being under-estimated or exaggerated. Should strategic communications be associated rather narrowly with traditional strategic activities such as military or police activity, with the purpose of explaining intent to allies and adversaries alike, and to the domestic electorate and media? Or is there more to be expected, to be done and to be invested? Has the full potential of strategic communications so far been overlooked? Are they better understood as a more complex, cross-governmental activity; as the means for presenting and explaining ‘comprehensive’ or ‘integrated’ policies? Is it conceivable, even, that strategic communications might be granted equal status with other levers of governmental power and influence such as diplomacy, economic and trade relations and the threat or use of military force? 

Further information

The report is published by Chatham House and is available to read online.