The ‘Logics’ of Public Diplomacy: In Search of What Unites a Multidisciplinary Research Field

Journal of Diplomacy


Summary
A decade ago, Matt Armstrong noted that the War on Terror set the scene for US public diplomacy (PD) to be heavily focused on security. Other countries have focused their PD on image promotion, relationship-building or cultural relations. As digital media practices have slowly been adopted by the majority of foreign ministries, the logics governing social and digital media have also been increasingly internalised into diplomatic practice. Lacking in current PD research is a theory of the 'logics' that drive and motivate public diplomacy. This article explores the application of 'PD logics' as a theoretical framework for interpreting the ways in which foreign policy priorities, such as securitisation, trade promotion and strategic partnerships, shape PD practices. With a particular focus on the most recent wave of social and digital media adoption practices, this article establishes a theory of 'PD logics' that could provide new avenues for developing theories of public diplomacy.

Introduction1
Matt Armstrong once wrote that American public diplomacy (PD) 'wears combat boots' .2 By this, he meant that 9/11 and the subsequent War on Terror had set the scene for PD driven by international security concerns such as counter-extremism and moving the public opinion needle on unpopular, drawn-out wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. War provided the dominant logic driving US PD engagement.3 In subsequent years, countries such as the United Kingdom twisted their PD apparatus in support of trade promotion, while Germany continued to invest in its traditional approach to relationship-building and cultural relations through so-called Mittlerorganisationen. Russia and China developed cagey, assertive PD that contests the information space using troll factories and paid influencers. Countless other countries have prioritised digital innovation and engagement through a long-standing process of digitalisation of public diplomacy. While all of this is undoubtedly public diplomacy, what unites such different activities under the same concept?
It may be said of Armstrong's claim about combat boots that, depending on where and when one looks, PD equally wears a pin-striped business suit, a shaggy hipster beard and beads, dons a virtual reality headset, and carries a megaphone in one hand and a big stick in the other. The image is confused and contradictory, creating the impression that PD is a fuzzy concept poorly defined and inconsistently used.
So why is it that so many scholars seem to be clear that they are all studying the same, single concept of PD? This article builds on existing scholarship in the field of diplomatic studies and draws inspiration from institutionalism to develop a theory of the logics that drive and motivate public diplomacy practices. Beginning with an assessment of whether public diplomacy is a fuzzy concept, the article argues that a focus on functions and components has dominated the research field at the expense of better understanding the pressures that drive disruption in PD policy and practice. We call these pressures logics on the understanding that they provide simple heuristics for expressing complex changes in political priorities, resources, tasks, working processes and technologies.
The article proceeds by conducting a meta-review of the past six years of research articles from two of the leading journals in the field to show the ways in which researchers implicitly engage with public diplomacy according to clusters of logics. In this analysis we identity seven such groupings, though this is not intended to be exhaustive. We do not, for example, include a digital grouping on the grounds that, for the period of the sample, the distinction between digital and public diplomacy has blurred to a point that it makes more sense to speak of a digitalisation of public diplomacy than digital diplomacy per se.4 Rather, we note that multiple logics overlap and combine in different cases.
The aim of this approach is not to define the logics of public diplomacy once and for all, but more importantly to identify clear principles and trends that set boundaries around the concept. We believe this approach can help to map where different researchers and studies position themselves in relation to the wider field and provide a vocabulary that can accurately represent foundational principles of the research field. In other words, we consider the value of our approach to be in consolidating a research field. This allows for studies of change and disruption in public diplomacy to shift focus away from questions of function and components and to relocate them within their broader subsets of existing research. In doing so, this article establishes a theoretical stance that can support consilience in a multidisciplinary field to more consistently research a subject that is often fuzzy and elusive.

The Fuzzy Concept of Public Diplomacy
A fuzzy concept is a concept which is widely used but possesses at least two alternative meanings. The concept is unreliable -fuzzy -since it is often unclear which of the possible meanings authors and readers anticipate. Conceptual fuzziness contributes to a sense in which those who use the concept are talking about slightly different things, whether as researchers, practitioners or policy-makers. In a classic (and scathing) article about declining standards of scholarship within a subfield of political geography, Markusen outlines some key characteristics of a research field dependent on fuzzy concepts.5 Such research fields: The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 19 (2023) 1-35 -use concepts that mean different things to different people; -rely on selective evidence such as case studies and anecdotes; -situate causality within processes rather than actors; -discuss methodology insufficiently; and -are associated with lower standards of evidence and theory-building. Surprisingly, only a handful of publications have alluded to the possibility that public diplomacy may be a fuzzy concept.6 Many more studies have, however, observed or attempted to remedy characteristics, as defined previously, of a research field pervaded by conceptual fuzziness. A common characteristic of the field is to contrast the idea of public diplomacy with traditional diplomacy conducted behind closed doors -a dichotomy which has been challenged.7 Emphasis is also placed on foreign publics to indirectly influence foreign governments and their policies, as PD targets public opinion abroad8 -while PD studies also cover practices targeting domestic actors, as in campaigns aiming to build national identity or domestic legitimacy for foreign policies and organisations. Another common signifier among definitions is the ethical emphasis in which PD is a 'good' practice which moves from one-way propaganda towards a dialogical approach.9 However, others have questioned the realisation of such dialogue in practice,10 and the ethical PD tool of listening has become the subject of critical discussions about surveillance.11 There are also questions about exactly what public diplomacy is and is not. In their meta-review of publications in the field, Sevin et al. found that the topics covered by peer-reviewed articles about PD are skewed by the geographical contexts on which they focus.12 The authors find that PD research involves slightly different content matter depending on which countries are analysed and the academic traditions to which the authors belong. Ayhan found limited consensus over whether PD is conducted by state actors only or also by non-state actors,13 something that may be considered a defining principle of the term. Pike and Kinsey surveyed US PD practitioners on the attributes that make for a good diplomatic communicator and found that the results landed in two distinct groups with quite different expectations.14 6 E.g., Seib 2009;Ayhan 2019, 32;Brown 2002;Ninkovich 1996. 7 Pamment 2016a, 2016b See Problems of conceptualisation also draw from how PD relates to near-lying terms. Hayden attempts to unravel the 'practical reasoning' that links PD to the 'vague concept' of soft power.15 In his PhD dissertation, Arceneaux interviewed academic experts to establish consensus around the conceptual boundaries between public diplomacy, public affairs, propaganda and psychological operations.16 While a 2014 overview identified at least eight credible taxonomies designed to explain how PD's moving parts fit together,17 Arceneaux's contribution sits alongside several further efforts since then which cumulatively demonstrate that the problem still stands today.18 Cull probably remains the most widely adopted taxonomy, though it mixes best practice (listening to improve decision-making) and goal-oriented behaviour (advocacy of a policy position) with different forms of engagement (culture, exchanges and broadcasting) and is biased towards most closely interpreting the US Information Agency's (USIA) Cold War best practice.19 The problem of data availability is certainly endemic to the field. Public diplomats in many cases get to define their own stories. Fitzpatrick features survey answers from some 200 USIA alumni,20 while Pike and Kinsey engaged 37 active foreign service officers.21 Ethnographic methods and interviews are reasonably prevalent, the latter certainly in greater number than some suggest.22 Indeed, a recurring problem with many case studies and historical overviews is their dependence on interviews with (often, former) practitioners supported by sometimes sketchy documentation. Hayden identifies a disjuncture between claims of how PD is supposed to influence others and its everyday practice.23 Studies that tell the story of a country's PD over time tend to rely on simplified cases that exemplify a particular period and preserve practitioners' legacies.24 Attempts to compare countries are equally selective,25 and less coherently so when each chapter has a different author.26 PD research does not seem to have an issue with causality and the roles of different actors. While Ayhan demonstrates a lack of conceptual consensus 15 Hayden 2017 over who does PD,27 reflections over 'actorness' are frequent, particularly from a diplomatic studies perspective.28 Studies of framing and agenda-setting in PD are also clear on actors, roles and capabilities.29 The power dimension is well covered, arguably because questions of (soft) power are at the very core of the PD endeavour.
That methodology is treated insufficiently in the field is the point of departure for Sevin and Ayhan's special issue of the journal Place Branding & Public Diplomacy (PB&PD).30 Although not the first publication in the field to consider methodological concerns,31 it is certainly the most ambitious and comprehensive. The comparative studies mentioned previously have considered methodological issues but use relatively conservative approaches such as case studies. The need for a dedicated special issue in 2022 supports the view that methodology has not been a priority for the PD research field.
Likewise, it has long been a cliché that PD lacks theoretical grounding. In their seminal articles, Gregory and Gilboa argue that PD draws its theories from many academic disciplines,32 which means there is a rich variety of theoretical standpoints but no single theory of PD as such. Much PD theory is deferred to similarly fuzzy concepts such as soft power or digital diplomacy. Where theory-building has been most prominent, such as in the idea of a 'new' PD using relational communication models, theory has been normative and derived from other fields.33 Alexander,34 Surowiec and Manor,35 and Kaneva and Cassinger36 are recent collections that expand the relatively limited literature that engages with theory more rigorously.37 However, overall, few would maintain that PD has traditionally been a concept supported by strong theoretical insights and sophisticated theoretical development.
This brief overview suggests that PD as a field demonstrates many qualities of a fuzzy concept, although there have been significant recent efforts to further develop the quality and rigour of research. It therefore seems appropriate to conduct a meta-review with a special focus on some of the more recent, progressive research by emerging scholars. It is in this context of concept fuzziness -and in recent efforts to develop fundamental principles of the field -that this article identifies the need for a new approach to conceptualising PD, one which marks a break from the traditional 'toolbox' and 'new public diplomacy' approaches, and which encourages a clearer and more comprehensive interpretation of the logics underlying PD research and practice.

From the PD Toolbox to Nascent Theories of PD Logics
Discussions about the PD toolbox have been important in the research field's development. They allowed for the rational conceptualisation of PD's functions and components derived from historically and culturally specific examples. They encouraged consideration of best practice and ideological positioning, for example in distinguishing between engagement approaches and propagandist communication.38 In our opinion, the toolbox approach to theorising PD remains necessary, but it has been insufficient to reduce conceptual fuzziness. Something is missing. Perhaps the most iconic example of the taxonomy approach is that of Fisher and Bröckerhoff, which outlines a range of seven 'options for influence' . Listening implies relationships based on equality and involving shared interests, whereas 'broadcasting' and 'telling' are asymmetrical and support hierarchical authority.39 While similar efforts have added the dimension of time frames to distinguish between media handling and long-term cultural engagement, the idea of the toolbox being sharper (or more transmissional and propagandist) at one end, and softer (or more inclusive and relational) at the other, has become a truism in the research field.40 However, the problem with these types of approaches is that they construct the public diplomat 'as an entirely rational being, divorced from organizational cultures and institutional realities' .41 Rather than making the concept clearer and better defined, such an approach risks obfuscating and idealising the hard choices that shape PD work. Furthermore, the strongly normative relational approach means that 'new' PD is defined against a strawman; nobody identifies themselves with propagandist approaches to communication, yet 38 Pamment 2014a listening and engagement can be carried out to support propagandist goals if one assumes even a slightly critical lens on the empirical evidence.42 The clearest counterpoint to conceptualisations of a PD toolbox is Brown. In an unpublished conference paper, Brown proposed four ideal types of PD derived from historical examples: as an 'extension of diplomacy' , as an 'instrument of cultural relations' , as an 'instrument of conflict' and as a 'tool of national image construction' .43 This differs from many other approaches to the field because it seeks to interrogate why PD is used in different circumstances, without any judgement imposed on each type. Viewed as an instrument or extension of an established practice such as diplomacy, war or cultural relations, the pragmatic -rather than normative or idealist -aspects of the concept are made integral to its theorisation. More recently, Cull revised his five components of PD to include nation branding and partnerships.44 In doing so, the approach more closely tracks the 'spirit' of different styles of PD, rather than simply categorising them.45 Inspired by Brown's approach, Pamment identifies seven unique articulations of PD as it was conceptualised in the UK context between 1995 and 2015,46 showing that, for example, cultural relations activities may not be about mutuality if they are articulated within and subordinate to an overall branding strategy, or if they are used as a means of gaining strategic access to international university campuses.47 A nascent theory of PD logics exists most prominently in work on the digitalisation of PD, as exemplified by Manor, from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, when digitalisation truly was disruptive.48 Drawing on a body of theory established within media sociology and adapted to diplomatic studies, mediatisation theory refers to the processes by which the logics of media have forced change upon the institution of diplomacy.49 It may be argued that much work on the digitalisation of PD draws implicitly upon mediatisation theory.50 Similarly, studies of PD that focus on agenda-setting explore (albeit often implicitly) how media logics permeate diplomatic activity.51 In mediatisation theory, media logic is a mode of thinking that sees diplomats and ministries of foreign Thus, the institution of diplomacy has adapted in fundamental terms to a proliferation of communication channels, languages and norms characterised by the 'logic' of (digital) media.53 In addition to media logic, other studies have touched upon the ways in which logics of things such as two-level diplomatic games,54 affect and emotion,55 strategy and leadership,56 and conflict impact on PD practice.57 However, they have not focused on logics as an approach to interpreting institutions, instead simply implying the existence of a guiding logic at the anecdotal level. Unifying these approaches is a sense in which taxonomies only tell part of the story. Creating categories of PD activity is all well and good, but it doesn't capture how these activities are articulated in specific circumstances, which may be further broken down into the logics that drive their use. Indeed, the obsessively normative aspects of some category-based characterisations may obfuscate practice and take us farther from an accurate representation of the empirical materials. Building on the studies just discussed, we contend that the concept of PD can be further developed by establishing a theory of PD logics that unpacks the underlying dynamics of the PD concept in different scenarios. Logics can help to identify what unifies PD research and reduce concept fuzziness, by showing how researchers approaching PD from different perspectives imply similar underlying principles.

Identifying PD Logics
In building a framework that seeks to reduce conceptual fuzziness, this article uses a sample of recent research in the field. closely to similar efforts to inductively establish logics within other research fields.59 While some of the logics are suggestive of representing academic disciplines, it is important to note that relatively few examples exclusively belong to a single academic discipline as such. Rather, logics help to encapsulate how and why themes from different disciplines are expressed in studies of PD, out of needs identified in PD studies rather than imported as standard preoccupations from other disciplines.
The following sections introduce each logic separately. Each section starts by outlining the main principles of the logic. Second, we offer a brief overview of how the research literature has historically centred, explicitly or implicitly, on this logic. Third, we discuss the ways that the most recent literature uses and develops upon the logic. While based on a systematic review, our review is qualitative in style and attempts to capture wider trends or types derived from patterns of logics.

4.1
Diplomacy Logic PD can be seen as appearing in the intersection between political science and communication studies. When reviewing the articles published in the PB&PD and the HJD, a pattern emerges where a set of articles in the HJD lean more distinctively towards the side of diplomatic studies and another set of articles towards branding in PB&PD. The first emphasis draws attention to a clear logic identified in the sample, dealing with the understanding of PD becoming a more significant instrument of diplomacy and statecraft over time. As we will see in each logic, the digitalisation of PD is addressed in multiple papers. In the diplomacy logic, it is expressed in the discussion about how 'modern media and (digital) public diplomacy seem to have transformed' the practice of gift exchange,60 or it is raised implicitly through the study of audience engagement on social media to seek insight into the public's perception of diplomatic relations.61 The existence of this logic is well documented in research. Multiple studies have observed a proliferation of governmental, non-governmental, civil society, paradiplomatic, public and private representatives vying for recognition in WoS (N=131), a period of six years from 2016 to 2021). The first tier resulted in a codebook of seven ideal types, reviewed in relation to the wider sample. This second review confirmed the presence of the same ideal types in the wider sample and revealed a more nuanced understanding of each ideal type with distinct sub-themes. 59 Dijksterhuis From the literature review of research articles 2016-2021, we find articles discussing public diplomacy as an extension of diplomatic practice in the form of studies on first lady diplomacy,65 gift exchange,66 and the mediatisation of diplomatic incidents.67 A subset of articles focus on diplomatic events such as summits -either on the PD strategy and following media depiction,68 or through expressions of gastro-diplomacy at such events69 -and visits.70 Other articles emphasise rhetorical aspects of building bilateral relations,71 the promotion of foreign policies such as Sweden's gender equality,72 and the link to, for example, trade diplomacy.73 As with all logics, there are many papers that can be classified in multiple logics -that is, summits draw attention to the media logic as focused on mediatisation, or to the security logic in peace summits.

4.2
Media Logic In studies on media logic, the focus is on PD as a set of activities that involve advocacy, strategic communication, media production, public affairs, news management, international broadcasting and campaigns -including use of social media -as part of objective-driven PD. Recognisable characteristics are a focus on the mediated texts of public diplomacy, their contents, the ways in which they are organised and produced, and their impact on the information environment. We include digital diplomacy predominately under this logic and under the organisational logic for the period 2016-2021, when digital diplomacy was a widely adopted practice. However, we note that while some studies have dropped the label of 'digital' public diplomacy as now rather a matter of course, many studies continue to treat digital diplomacy as though it is a distinct logic rather than a ubiquitous reality that informs all logics -such as, for example, studies focusing on the sub-practice of 'Twiplomacy' and the use of hashtags as part of a promotional strategy by PD authorities to create engagement on social media.74 The existence of a media logic is one of the more well-documented in PD literature since it has been assessed from at least two disciplinary backgrounds. Public relations scholars since Signitzer and Coombs have identified the role of media planning in diplomatic activity,75 via work on media diplomacy,76 framing and agenda-setting, which together are sometimes referred to as mediated public diplomacy.77 Mediatisation theory has been applied from a media sociology perspective,78 while production of digital content has been widely discussed from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.79 Contextualised as a theme in the reviewed sample of PD research, there are two primary interpretations of this logic -one focused on studies of media's framing of PD activities, and the other on the strategic management of media. Many articles also deal with the 'new' public diplomacy emerging in conjunction with digital and social media -here emphasising the new arenas for communication80 or focusing on specific countries, MFAs or campaigns. In these studies of mediatisation,81 scholars focus on social media82 alongside other forms of communication such as news releases, speeches, factsheets and so forth.83 This logic also covers studies about PD strategies for traditional media management beyond the digital context,84 as well as studies focused on content strategies specifically and the use of storytelling or narratives.85 As examinations of the execution of PD, this often connects with the value 74 Valencia and Moscato 2021. Among others also mentioning twiplomacy, hashtag dipomacy, or eDiplomacy in the paper are Kampf

Relational Logic
Research that explores the relational logic tends to focus on the relations shaped through formal and informal networks of people and ideas, as an extension of cultural relations and other long-term engagement functions. A preoccupation of the logic is with which actors in the public, private and non-governmental sectors legitimately participate in PD. The view of PD is generally normative, as an expansive and inclusive set of multi-stakeholder activities conducted through intermediaries including diasporas. Arguably, this logic constitutes the epicentre of the digitalisation of PD, as an enabler of a new form of direct access to one's audience without having to bypass the gatekeepers traditionally holding the keys to available mass media. As previously mentioned, we see it both in the digitalised media strategies developed by PD actors, and in scholars' turn towards social media analysis to describe a campaign and assess its impact or even determine its success. This new landscape seems to have widened PD actors' view of relevant stakeholders as either the intended recipients or the mediators of one's message, unpacked as the key to a relational logic in PD.
The existence of a relational logic is well documented from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. Inspired for some by public relations approaches to communication symmetry,88 and for others by cultural relations traditions embodied by cultural, exchange and education diplomacy,89 a core theme is the role of people-to-people experiences in the conduct of international relations. Relational approaches provide a strongly normative perspective on the ways in which public diplomacy can provide an alternative model of diplomatic relations outside of hierarchical governmental control.90 In the PB&PD and HJD sample, the articles expand the concept of PD actors beyond traditional state actors to also discuss the collaboration with and importance of, for example, corporate diplomacy,91 think tanks,92 domestic

4.4
Promotional Logic Just as the diplomacy logic is more prevalent in the HJD, publications from the PB&PD tend to lean towards a promotional logic. This logic encapsulates the belief that 'nation-branding professionals have the same goal as diplomats and politicians' ,107 which indicates a shift in professional practice. Other papers start with the open question of whether nation branding can be a successful tool in achieving public diplomacy goals.108 This promotional logic thus covers a range of PD practices tied to brand promotion, trade and investment, tourism, national image and perceptions of national image. Again, we see the impact of the digitalisation of this practice; for example, one paper suggests a shift from the mass approach of broadcasting in an advocacy model to emphasise the value of a narrowcasting model supported by micro-marketing -an effective approach 'enhanced in recent years due to a number of technological and social developments' such as the previously mentioned advantage as 'the Internet bypasses traditional channels of communication and broadcasting' .109 The integration of promotional approaches to PD took off in the 1990s and owes a particular debt to the work of Leonard and Anholt in both theorising and enacting these practices in a variety of countries.110 Work such as Szondi wrestled with the appropriate conceptual framework to tie the two terms together, with dozens of publications eventually settling on allowing the empirical evidence to define the relationship on a case-by-case basis.111 In the reviewed sample from the HJD and PB&PD, the promotional logic covers articles about how PD strategically engages in nation, state or country branding,112 as well as the resulting national image abroad,113 where non-traditional PD actors are described as 'image communicators' .114 Papers within the promotional logic sometimes overlap with those in the relational logic -for example, by emphasising cultural resources that can be aligned with PD initiatives or in ties to business by discussions in the promotional logic papers about positive country-of-origin effects. We also see papers in both the promotional logic and diplomacy logic, in one paper explicitly describing how 'hosting of the historic summit is an extension of the city-state's larger place branding strategy' .115 The promotional logic also covers case studies of PD campaigns, such as the European Union's efforts to deal with crises116 and various PD actors' strategic communication during the COVID-19 pandemic117 -whereby managing the crisis also means by extension to manage one's reputation. The promotional logic also covers papers emphasising the damaging impact of a negative national image, tied either to historic heritage118 or to contemporary events.119 Through this move from the promotion of one's own brand to the strategic management of contesting images of one's nation and foreign politics abroad, the promotional logic also oftentimes cover papers linked to the security logic.

4.5
Security Logic Studies that emphasise the security logic place PD within a context of defence and security policy, covering a variety of topics related to peace, conflict and stabilisation. This can include questions such as warfare, geopolitical rivalries, counter-extremism, studies of propaganda, as well as work on traditional and non-traditional threats in the information environment. It covers both offensive and defensive communications. Again, there is a recurring emphasis on PD actors' ability to 'shape the narrative and thus the nature of a regional order that will be favourable for their national interests' , where one directs these efforts towards the public to 'inform, engage, and influence public audiences' in a 'hyper-connected world' , with an emphasis of such practices now occurring 'online and in real time' .120 The security logic permeates much of the post-9/11 literature, as public diplomacy found a new role in conjunction with the War on Terror.121 Briant, and Bjola and Pamment, explore in detail some of the ways in which PD came to be shaped by counter-terrorism, counter-extremism and the use of psychological operations, with a more recent emphasis on counter-disinformation and hybrid threats.122 We may also anticipate an increasing interest in security issues raised by war, populism, climate change, health, cyber and migration, among others.
In the public diplomacy journal articles from 2016-2021, a few clusters of topics emerge within the security logic -related to the different arenas in which these activities are observed. On the one hand, we have the link to peace summits and peace projects,123 as treatments of aid diplomacy,124 or tied to actors such as the US Peace Corps.125 On the other hand, in contrast to this sub-logic related to peace, we also find a set of studies about PD's role in international conflict,126 or other forms of geopolitical rivalry -emphasising the strategic advantage of universities and exchange programmes127 -or sometimes conceptualised as 'disputes' ,128 or PD 'between hostile nations' .129 Here, studies cover PD activities by military organisations130 and PD campaigns in the context 120 Byrne 2019, 182-185. 121 Zaharna 2010. 122 Briant 2015Bjola andPamment 2018. 123 de Beer andvan Buitenen 2016;Kim andLee 2021. 124 Akerlund 2016;Zalas-Kaminska 2021. 125 Palmer, Nyantakyi and Fullerton 2021. 126 Jeong 2021Bar-David 2017. 127 Fominykh 2017;Krasnyak 2021. 128 Aguirre 2020. 129 Wiseman 2019. 130 Samuel-Azran and Yarchi 2018 The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 19 (2023) 1-35 of war,131 arguments for why PD is to be considered a tool in counter-terrorism strategies,132 and descriptions of PD 'in the context of non-traditional security threats and conflicts' .133 The new geopolitical landscape has given rise to a set of studies discussing crises such as global migration and its impact on PD practice,134 others describe geopolitical tensions manifesting in a context of 'the contested world order'135 or in relation to a new situation 'driven by a toxic mix of populist politics and disruptive social media' .136 Within this security logic, papers also cover discussions about 'state-sponsored disinformation campaigns' ,137 linking the security logic to the value logic as part of an ongoing process of placing boundaries around legitimate PD practices.138 With the COVID-19 pandemic, this cluster has also come to include articles on the strategic communication of policy tied to 'reputational security' and a defensive form of PD communication not only boosting one's own credibility but also discrediting others.139 In this cluster, we thus see how crisis policy links to the promotional logic by building national image,140 including evolving forms of influencer and celebrity diplomacy.141

4.6
Organisational Logic Research on organisational logic focuses on the internal and coordination issues behind PD. This can involve organisational principles, management functions, and questions of objectives and evaluation across domestic spheres, government, foreign ministries and overseas posts. It also includes an interest in the profession, including desirable skills and capabilities. The assumption is that PD is best explained by understanding how and why it is organised, since this can reveal intent, capabilities and limitations. It also covers a discussion on how new organisational structures may accommodate the digitalisation of PD, where 'digital technologies change the way in which knowledge circulates, whether inside, outside, or between organisations' , which in turn has a fundamental impact on the organisation and 'sets a tremendous strain on the professionals' .142 131 Manor andCrilley 2020. 132 Seib 2019. 133  The organisational logic is often identifiable because of a preoccupation with the production of public diplomacy, and especially best practice. For example, Cull and Pamment chart the organisational histories of US and UK PD respectively,143 exploring the personalities, policies, examples and problems that enabled and constrained certain PD practices at any given time. The organisational logic is reflected in comparative work on different countries and multilateral organisations,144 studies of evaluation practices,145 and of efforts to systematise public diplomacy techniques or optimise their usage. More recently, the sub-state diplomacy of cities and provinces and the diplomacy of non-state actors raises questions of national PD organisation and strategy.
In relation to the digital landscape, articles from the literature review clustered as this organisational logic has also engaged in organisational questions related to various forms of digital diplomacy -sometimes more specifically expressed as, for example, Facebook diplomacy146 and Hashtag or Twitter diplomacy147 -as well as covering discussions of e-residency,148 e-diplomacy and virtual diplomacy.149 Beyond the digital context, papers tied to the organisational logic also include studies on organisational re-structuring initiatives,150 studies on the institutional boundaries between PD and nation branding in practice,151 and the formation and development of national PD institutions152in some papers also dealing with the evaluation practices of PD activities.153 This also ties to articles about ethnic diversity management within MFAs,154 women's agency within diplomatic institutions,155 and the character of public diplomats and its impact on their practices.156

4.7
Legitimisation Logic A great deal of public diplomacy research is dedicated to examining the existence of the research field itself. Research into definitions, norms, values and boundaries of public diplomacy is perhaps the most difficult to define since these approaches are spread across many academic disciplines and may have little in common with one another. However, a great deal of research into PD (as well as discourse around PD's practice) may be characterised by efforts to legitimise PD as inherently 'good' . This is often supported by theorising PD's unique role in peaceful international relations,157 by drawing distinctions between PD and propaganda,158 and by highlighting the overall benevolence of value-based concepts such as listening,159 engagement or transparency, otherwise described as 'public diplomacy's new global mandate for collaborative problem solving for the global good' .160 Among those commenting on the digital landscape's effect on PD, there are those arguing for both its positive and its negative effects: PD is losing its connection with wider diplomacy which is based on reciprocity and consensus-building. The digital revolution has enabled PD self-promotion [… that] has immersed itself in the confusing and decisive nature of online engagement. While the Internet has brought massive benefits and opportunities to both diplomacy and PD, the consensus-building part of true diplomatic engagement is receding.161 As previously mentioned, the legitimisation logic ties back to previously presented logics as, for example, linked to the security logic when discussing how PD should respond to toxic and disruptive communication in the new political and media landscape,162 as well as in relation to how one should engage in PD interactions with hostile nations.163 In connection to other previously presented logics, we also see pieces linking the media and relational logic to a value-driven discourse within the literature on how new media could enable PD to become more dialogical and inclusive -this while, as already emphasised, finding that studies contest the use of these mediums in a mostly normative way.164 The legitimisation logic also concerns other expressions of a normative view on where to draw the boundaries of PD practices in view of the 'radical changes in diplomacy's global environment' as well as the blurry divide  ' PD practices.167 In this way, we see a pattern of explicitly or implicitly expressed normative statements or papers clustered into this legitimisation logic that not only covers the ethical values of right and wrong but also ties back to the organisational logic where researchers engage in the negotiation of what should be included within the boundaries of PD in terms of activities and actors,168 some suggesting how to systematically understand PD in a framework of two axes manifested as ethics and efficiency,169 and scholarly reflections on 'the evolution of the "public" in public diplomacy' , starting with value-driven questions such as 'should diplomacy be public?' .170

Conclusions
The public diplomacy research field has struggled with conceptual fuzziness, caused in part by its reliance on multiple disciplinary backgrounds, and in part by an overemphasis on identifying its functions and components. While many researchers have studied PD with an eye on improving the practice, there remains only implicit agreement over the field's principles and conceptual boundaries. A focus on functions, components and best practice has been important to establishing the research field as we know it today, but it should be clear from the evidence presented here that a new wave of PD scholarship is pushing the bounds of theory and method and asking increasingly difficult questions of the fuzzy PD concept. Rather than assessing numerous practices as functions performed to a lesser or greater degree well, the field is increasingly seeking to understand the dynamics and rationales behind those practices and to build theory at a step removed from practice. Yet it is crucial that this work builds on existing PD scholarship, regardless of which academic discipline it is from. As a point of departure for exploring these underlying principles, this study attempts to 165 Gregory 2016. 166 Di Martino 2020. 167 Potter 2019. 168 Hare 2020. 169 Zhang 2020. 170 la Cour 2018 establish PD logics as a baseline for further research. By acknowledging and understanding the dynamics behind the various practices or clusters of practices, the PD concept is opened up to transdisciplinary consilience; that it to say, regardless of the disciplinary background of the scholar, it is possible to identify contributions to knowledge grounded in the same purposes and principles. We contend that logics can provide a means for clustering PD research into common issues and developing knowledge of them in a systematic way.
Future studies can test the validity of our logics on a larger sample, perhaps adding logics, dividing logics into sub-units, or identifying geographical and historical patterns that shed more light on the field. Others could dive into one particular logic and nuance the depictions of its emergence and scope.
The benefits are of course many. For one, the field can continue to build based on the demands of rigorous scientific knowledge rather than on the demands of the practice, which ultimately benefits practitioners far more in the long term. Secondly, clustering the research field into logics and identifying research as drawing on one or more of them will better support consilience and, over time, help to better identify the evolution of the practice and the field as logics wax and wane. It is for each individual researcher, and each individual study, to determine which PD logics they draw upon, how and why.
Thirdly, it better prepares the field for the more fundamental (long-running and long-promised) shift away from state-centric PD towards what could be variously described as human-centric, non-state, private sector, activist, multilateral or disruptive public diplomacy. By investing in PD as a field of scholarship with a history, clear boundaries and an established body of knowledge, we may finally be able to state, with a high degree of confidence, that there are indeed theories of public diplomacy.171