Abstract
The New Colombo Plan (NCP), a key plank in the Australian government’s foreign policy agenda, leverages student mobility as public diplomacy to improve Australia’s standing and influence within the Indo-Pacific region. Conceptualized as a “rite of passage” for young Australians, the NCP has been welcomed by Australian business, industry groups, and stakeholders because of its potential to deliver lasting relationships and practical economic benefits. Coordinated by the foreign affairs portfolio, the NCP represents a significant and distinct component of Australia’s public diplomacy, firmly aligned to advance the state’s economic diplomacy agenda. This paper explores the evolution of the NCP. It draws on stakeholder impressions from the program launch and pilot to explore early limitations and deeper soft power challenges. Findings suggest that the NCP is robust, yet key issues of strategic coherence, partnership, and evaluation require further attention if it is to deliver on its soft power promise.
In 2013, Julie Bishop, then acting as shadow foreign minister, claimed that “Australia’s strength as a nation and our reputation in the world is at its highest when our influence in the region is at its strongest.” 1 Against this backdrop Bishop proposed the New Colombo Plan (NCP)—an outbound student mobility program for regional engagement—as her signature foreign policy initiative and centrepiece of the Liberal National Coalition’s election platform. With the stated aim of broadening and deepening Australia’s engagement in the Indian Ocean-Asia Pacific region by sending “the best and brightest” Australian students to “live, study and work in the region,” the proposed NCP put student mobility firmly at the centre of the coalition’s regional soft power strategies. The subsequent election of the coalition government in September 2013 and Bishop’s appointment to the role of foreign minister saw the NCP move at lightning speed from policy concept to reality. Attracting support and input from high-profile business and industry stakeholders as well as the international education and diplomatic communities, the NCP quickly became the darling of the Abbott coalition’s foreign policy, boasting an enviable AUS$100 million budget to sustain its five-year lifespan.
This paper asserts that the New Colombo Plan, launched at a time of substantial cuts to traditional public diplomacy mechanisms like the Australia Network, is more than just a student mobility program. Rather, it represents a step forward in Australian public diplomacy. While successive Australian governments have promoted outbound student mobility programs, the NCP is the first to be led by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and to be explicitly linked to the advancement of Australia’s strategic foreign policy objectives. As a starting point, the NCP has provided a visible policy platform from which Bishop has refashioned the scope of Australia’s contemporary regional interests toward the Indian Ocean-Asia Pacific, or “Indo-Pacific,” stretching from Pakistan in the west to Asia and the Pacific in the north and east. This is not merely a shift in rhetoric but a clear and timely expansion of Australia’s sphere of interest beyond the Asia-Pacific. Such an expansion is not surprising and is for some, including the West Australian-based foreign minister, a long-awaited response to the shifting dynamism of the wider region. 2
At its core, the New Colombo Plan places strategic value on people-to-people engagement forged through the overseas education experience. It offers two pathways: an elite individual scholarship program for semester-based study with the option of an internship or mentorship in the country; and a suite of mobility grants to encourage university-led group study options. During its 2014 pilot, some 1,300 students took up NCP funding. Over the course of its five-year lifespan, the combined offerings of the NCP will see thousands of young Australians travel to multiple destinations within the region. The underpinning expectation is that the cumulative insights, experiences, and friendships generated by the NCP at an individual and institutional level will provide new and enduring pathways to mutual understanding, respect, trust, and collaboration between states. This is not merely an altruistic public diplomacy endeavour. Rather, the plan is expected to have a positive impact on Australia’s economic and political standing in the region, while contributing directly to Australia’s capacity for innovation and productivity over the long term. 3
However, as a public diplomacy initiative the New Colombo Plan is not without its challenges. Having moved quickly from policy concept to program, the public diplomacy foundations and features of the NCP and its soft power outcomes may still be insufficiently understood and underexplored. It is here that this paper takes its cue. The immediate imperative for this paper comes as the NCP moves from an initial pilot phase, confined to four locations, into a wider delivery phase, which in 2015 launched more than 3,000 Australian students into 32 regional host nations in the Indo-Pacific. Additionally, there is a further scholarly imperative at stake; that is, the imperative to recognize the NCP as an innovation in Australian public diplomacy.
The New Colombo Plan has already become the subject of discussion and emerging scholarship within Australia’s international education circles. Emphasis is placed on the NCP’s historical development as well as on issues relating to the student experience, institutional management, and curriculum development. 4 This discussion draws on wider scholarly interest across the international education field 5 in the internationalization of education; that is, the way that academic systems, institutions, and individuals respond to an increasingly globalized world. 6 While acknowledging the value that scholarship in international higher education brings to the analysis of the NCP, this paper introduces an alternative international relations perspective with the interests of the nation-state, in this case Australia, at the centre of analysis. The reason for such an approach is twofold. First, the New Colombo Plan was conceived as a foreign policy initiative, intended to shape and deepen Australia’s engagement within the newly identified Indo-Pacific. Second, and in contrast to other student mobility programs, the NCP has emerged as a distinct public diplomacy program, developed and delivered from within Australia’s foreign policy portfolio.
The purpose of this paper, then, is to study this development and to consider the implications for Australia’s diplomatic outcomes. There are limitations to this approach. First, this paper confines itself to the Australian experience and therefore does not engage in a comparative or transnational study of student mobility or international education more broadly. Second, it seeks to advance an understanding of the NCP from within the single conceptual framework of soft power. Alternative constructs such as global citizenship and associated overlaps with education as a platform for development and cosmopolitanism offer important insights, particularly from a student mobility perspective. However, these conceptual frameworks remain secondary to the consideration of the NCP as public diplomacy. The limitations acknowledged here suggest further opportunities for an interdisciplinary research agenda, which would be useful as the NCP develops.
This paper is divided into three sections. Section one begins by reviewing the soft power framework as a fitting conceptual context for the New Colombo Plan as public diplomacy, noting that soft power is not merely an intangible, homogeneous concept but a framework that builds and leverages perceptions of attractiveness, legitimacy, and ability to improve a nation’s influence and standing and advance policy outcomes. Second, this paper examines the evolution of the NCP both from its historical connection to the original Colombo Plan for the Cooperative Economic and Social Development in South and South East Asia of 1950 (Colombo Plan) and in the context of more recent evolutions in Australia’s student mobility policy, while identifying the NCP as a distinct public diplomacy initiative. The third section draws on the insights of practitioners and stakeholders involved in NCP development and implementation to understand the wider challenges facing and opportunities provided by the NCP, particularly as a program that is expected to contribute to Australia’s regional standing and influence. The findings here suggest that while the New Colombo Plan is robust, key issues of strategic coherence, partnership and shared leadership, and multifaceted evaluations require further attention if it is to deliver on its soft power promise.
Soft power foundations
From the time of its conception, the New Colombo Plan has been billed primarily as a foreign policy initiative that will contribute to Australia’s soft power. But just how the NCP translates into soft power, and to what ends, remains unclear. The concept of soft power, developed by Harvard professor Joseph Nye, came into focus in the post-9/11 world. Nye defined soft power as the influence and attractiveness a state can acquire and leverage when others are drawn to its culture, political values, institutions, and ideas. 7 Importantly, the soft power discourse, which builds on an evolution of scholarship relating to power, 8 has provided a welcome counterpoint to a longstanding preoccupation with hard power assets and tactics within foreign policy circles. Yet, it continues to divide scholars and practitioners alike. Critics argue that soft power is weak, superficial, and has little impact; 9 advocates bemoan its lack of hard-edged appeal. 10 Practitioners, also challenged in the application and evaluation of soft power, remain largely ambivalent. 11 Furthermore, Nye’s view of soft power, oriented toward the experience of the United States, is arguably insufficient for other contexts, including, as Jan Melissen and Sook Jong Lee suggest, middle and smaller powers within the Asian region. 12 While there is limited scholarship on soft power across the Indo-Pacific, current trends, including those from Australia, suggest the need to consider soft power contexts that lie further afield.
Notably, the language of soft power has struggled to find traction within the Australian foreign policy lexicon, with some diplomats and policymakers avoiding the terminology altogether. The Australian government’s recently launched “economic diplomacy” strategy underscores this unease and further highlights a longstanding foreign policy emphasis on concrete, measurable concepts. However, closer reading of the Australian perspective on economic diplomacy reveals a nuanced alignment to soft power pursuits. Australia’s minister for trade, Andrew Robb, highlights the centrality of “building and maintaining relationships based on trust and respect” to enable economic outcomes. 13 For the Australian government it seems that economic diplomacy provides a necessary framework through which soft power might not only gain useful traction but might also contribute to tangible outcomes.
Soft power is further challenged by the perceived latency of its resources. Janice Bially Mattern highlights this issue, whereby “soft power depends on the others’ knowledge of one’s alluring qualities.” 14 Yong Wook Lee expands on this point, noting that for soft power to be productive, there needs to be “some level of congruence between the sender’s projection of the sources of attractiveness and the receiver’s approximation of them.” 15 It is at this point that public diplomacy comes into view. Described by Jan Melissen as “one of soft power’s key instruments,” 16 public diplomacy or “diplomatic engagement with people” 17 can connect the sender and receiver in such a way as to enable this congruence. 18
But soft power does not exist as a homogeneous entity. Emerging scholarship has identified key distinctions that deserve consideration if public diplomacy efforts toward soft power outcomes are to be effective. Byong-kuen Jhee and Nau-young Lee highlight in particular the distinction between soft power’s affective and normative dimensions. They note that affective soft power involves national properties such as cultural richness, economic competitiveness, political stability, and high quality education to “facilitate the emotional attraction of others.” 19 The normative dimension of soft power is generated through behaviours and actions such as the observation of international norms and responses to international humanitarian disasters, which “strengthen perceptions of a country’s legitimacy and ability.” 20 While more might be said about the relationship of each dimension to public diplomacy, for the purpose of this paper it is simply important to note that public diplomacy is relevant to advancing both dimensions, but promoting and evaluating each dimension is likely to involve slightly different considerations and strategies.
Public diplomacy has attracted controversy in recent years. The definition and practice of public diplomacy have been the subject of multidisciplinary scrutiny and debate with input provided from across the fields of marketing, media studies, and communications, to psychology and international relations. It is a fast-evolving practice, the tempo of which is set by the emergence and spread of new media, communication channels, and technologies, moving in sync with the rising expectations and involvement of global public audiences. Importantly, though, public diplomacy has moved away from the one-way, information-push format of the Cold War toward a model based on “genuine cooperation and collaboration … [between] … interconnected communities.” 21 It is recognized as a multi-directional endeavour that can advance shared interests. To this end, contemporary approaches to public diplomacy emphasize its relational capacity. As Kathy Fitzpatrick observes, “public diplomacy’s fundamental purpose is to help a nation establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with strategic publics that can affect national interests.” 22 Bruce Gregory builds on this view, encapsulating contemporary public diplomacy’s key features and drawing attention to its soft power outcomes. Gregory describes it as “an instrument used by states, associations of states and some sub-state actors to understand cultures, attitudes and behaviour; build and manage relationships; and influence thoughts and mobilise actions to advance their interests and values.” 23 Nye, too, acknowledges public diplomacy’s relational significance, particularly as an enabler of transnational socialization, from which soft power might be realized. 24
International education in its varied forms stands out as enduring and effective public diplomacy. 25 It is enduring because it leverages the fact that “wonder and thirst for knowledge are immutable parts of human nature” and both enables and thrives on varied forms of transnational socialization. 26 It is effective because it continues to respond and adapt to the complex interconnectedness of today’s global world. Through the unique people-to-people experiences and interactions it facilitates, international education taps into soft power’s affective and normative dimensions.
This view of international education as public diplomacy is not new and continues to gain recognition in Australia and worldwide. 27 Yet, not all practitioners or scholars are at ease with governments tying students’ education so closely to the advancement of national, including soft power, interests. As Nancy Snow writes, some in the education field firmly resist the linkage between education exchange and public diplomacy, arguing that the state has no mandate to interfere with the private people-to-people transactions that sit at the core of such exchanges. 28 Against this backdrop it is worth noting that Australia has seen a recent shift in attitude across the higher education, business, and governmental sectors toward an increased recognition and support of international education, particularly student mobility, as public diplomacy, and an associated expectation that it be leveraged for soft power outcomes. 29
However, international education, including student mobility, can be unwieldy and problematic as public diplomacy. The sheer scale of student mobility programs operating worldwide presents enormous challenges for practitioners. 30 The parallel activities of commercial fee for service student mobility (for inbound and outbound students) alongside the scholarship and government branded programs clouds the public diplomacy boundaries. For public diplomacy practitioners, the temptation to retain control at a program and content level persists, but in today’s hyper connected and mobile world, to retain control is to limit outcomes. Notwithstanding these issues, international education presents important opportunities to develop public diplomacy as a multi-party, networked, and even collaborative practice. When viewed through the lens of public diplomacy, the New Colombo Plan provides a worthy case study, leveraging student mobility to enhance Australia’s attractiveness and legitimacy and, ultimately, influence within the region.
The New Colombo Plan as public diplomacy
The Australian government has invested in student mobility programs for more than a decade via grants, program support, and loan funding to universities and eligible students. While student mobility and education exchange offer significant public diplomacy potential, the New Colombo Plan sits apart as a distinct public diplomacy initiative. It draws significant public diplomacy credibility from its predecessor, the (original) Colombo Plan, so called because of its conception at a Commonwealth Conference on Foreign Affairs held in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in January 1950. The Colombo Plan established a framework for the “economic and social advancement of the peoples of South and Southeast Asia,” 31 and under its terms an estimated 40,000 students came from across the region to live and study in Australia from the early 1950s. As David Lowe points out, “The Colombo Plans, old and new, … are ready-made vehicles for the ‘humanising’ of foreign policy objectives, such as cultivating friends and two-way understanding of Australia and our region—public diplomacy in modern parlance.” 32
The Colombo Plan provides an important historical context for the NCP. The next section traces the evolution of the NCP as public diplomacy, from its historical roots in the Colombo Plan, through to more recent developments in Australia’s student mobility programming.
Evolution of the New Colombo Plan
At the time of its conception, the Colombo Plan represented “the moment when Asia’s social well-being and national development were deemed critical to Australia’s regional security.” 33 When signing Australia up as a Colombo Plan nation, then minister for External Affairs Percy Spender highlighted its significance for Australia’s regional engagement: “Geographically Australia is next door to Asia and our destiny as a nation is irrevocably conditioned by what takes place in Asia. This means that our future depends to an ever increasing degree upon the political stability of our Asian neighbours, upon the economic well being of Asian people, and upon the development of understanding and friendly relations between Australia and Asia.” 34
The public diplomacy aspects and soft power implications of Australia’s involvement in the Colombo Plan have been examined with the benefit of hindsight. Lyndon Megarrity notes, “hosting of Colombo Plan students and their private counterparts was partly designed to ensure that Australia as a European-dominated country was seen in the best possible light by its regional neighbours.” 35 The stories that have emerged from Colombo Plan alumni are largely positive, suggesting that participants, some of whom ended up in positions of influence in their own countries, retained enormous goodwill toward Australia. However, meaningful evaluation of the program from the perspective of its alumni is limited. Some scholars caution against placing too great a weight on the alumni impact, arguing that to suggest “Australian-trained elites would naturally benefit our diplomatic relations with Asian countries is highly simplistic.” 36 Others, however, suggest that the soft power benefits of the Colombo Plan worked both ways. David Lowe and Lyndon Megarrity are among those to assert that by bringing Asian students into Australian communities and in some cases Australian homes, the Colombo Plan also helped to change Australians’ attitudes toward an otherwise “alien” Asia, paving the way for the abolition of the White Australia Policy in later years, and shifting our gaze toward opportunities within the region. 37
While the Colombo Plan sets a nostalgic backdrop for the NCP, its tangible origins are found in more recent policy developments. Today’s NCP began in 2006 with Julie Bishop, who then held the education portfolio in John Howard’s coalition government. That year, Bishop hosted an inaugural meeting of Asia-Pacific education and training ministers and officials. The outcomes, articulated through the 2006 Brisbane Communiqué, recognized student and academic mobility and exchange as providing the “basis for friendship, mutual respect and understanding” essential for “prosperity, security and peace in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.” 38
Bishop recalls that it occurred to her through that Brisbane meeting that “we had a growing diplomatic issue, that Australia was prepared to accept students from universities in the region but we really didn’t make enough effort to ensure that [our] students, when they chose to study overseas, went to the region.” 39 According to Bishop, this was “a public diplomacy issue that Australia should address.” 40 Shortly after the ministerial meeting, Bishop joined Australia’s foreign minister, Alexander Downer, in launching an expanded suite of inbound Australian scholarships as part of the pre-existing Endeavour Awards scheme. 41 The initiative reaffirmed the importance attached to inbound scholarships within Australia’s regional engagement strategy and set an important precedent for foreign ministry involvement in Australia’s global scholarships program, but did not address Bishop’s ideas for developing outbound mobility as public diplomacy. Although she took steps to advance an outbound scholarship policy, Bishop’s efforts were ultimately put on hold by an electoral loss the following year.
The 2007 Labor government led by Kevin Rudd also raised outbound mobility as an element of Australia’s regional engagement strategy. The Australia 2020 Summit convened by Rudd in 2008 acknowledged a strategic gap in Australia’s understanding and knowledge of the Asian region, its languages and cultures. Discussion honed in on incentives for “Australians to live, study and work in Asia,” including through a so-called “reverse Colombo Plan.” 42 However, the interplay of several factors, including concerns that references to the Colombo Plan would attract an unhelpful neo-colonial critique from across the region, as well as competing summit priorities, dampened interest in the “reverse Colombo Plan” and it did not move beyond discussion. 43
When Julia Gillard replaced Rudd as prime minister in 2010, she re-emphasized the place of student mobility within Australia’s regional diplomatic agenda. Previously, as education minister, Gillard had advocated student mobility on that basis, noting that, “People connections … are vital to the future prosperity of our country—constituting part of what’s known as the ‘global supply chain’ and ensuring that Australia is truly ‘globally connected’ going into the future.” 44 As prime minister, Gillard’s key policy initiative set out in the Australia in the Asian Century white paper reiterated the premise that “stronger relationships will lead to more Australians having a deeper understanding of what is happening in Asia and being able to access the benefits of growth in our region. In turn, more of our neighbours in the region will know us better than they do today.” 45 Gillard subsequently launched AsiaBound, a high-profile student mobility program aimed at encouraging Australian students to study within the Asian region. With its AUS$30 million budget, AsiaBound, led by Australia Education International (within the Department of Education) was to “dwarf in size and scale the work that was done under the Colombo Plan.” 46 The program was accompanied nation-wide by promotional activities, including the World Class Campaign produced by peak body Universities Australia to raise awareness among Australian students of the opportunities for overseas travel within their various programs. 47 The volume of program funding and scale of promotional activities lifted the profile and activity of student mobility at the time. Although well regarded as an outbound student mobility program, AsiaBound was disconnected from foreign policy circles, was not recognized as public diplomacy, and was ultimately lacking in soft power influence. While the reasons for this disconnect are not clear, it is probably a reflection of the predominantly domestic focus of Australia’s education bureaucracy at the time. 48
At the same time, although from the ranks of political opposition, Julie Bishop reignited discussions on the NCP. The concept was introduced and developed within foreign policy circles, and the 2013 bilateral Australia-Indonesia Dialogue, co-organized by the Australian Institute for International Affairs (AIIA) and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), provided an important testing ground. 49 Subsequently, a series of strategic roundtables with vice chancellors, industry leaders, practitioners, and academics, led by the Menzies Research Centre, further shaped and developed a policy framework for the NCP. With clear business and community support, the NCP became the signature policy initiative in the coalition’s election campaign. It subsequently became the central plank of Bishop’s foreign policy agenda and one of the first policy initiatives to receive budget funding when the coalition won office later in the same year.
New Colombo Plan: New public diplomacy direction
Australian students are increasingly attracted to overseas study experiences. Universities report that more than 24,000 Australians are in some form of study overseas, with Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom rating highly as preferred destinations, but highlighting new interest in Asia. 50 The Australian government already plays a positive role in this. In addition to AsiaBound, programs such as the International Student Exchange Program, the Endeavour Cheung Kong Student Exchange Program, as well as vocational education and training (VET) Outbound programs all contribute to increases in the outward movement of Australian students. Given these student trends, the existing landscape of mobility programs, and the emphasis on AsiaBound, some question, as Rob Maliki notes, whether the NCP reflects a new vision of student mobility or simply just another version of what has gone before. 51
It is against this backdrop of activity that the New Colombo Plan sits apart from other student mobility programs on the basis of its distinct public diplomacy direction: the NCP is located, funded, and implemented from within Australia’s foreign affairs portfolio, with the result being an outbound mobility program that is firmly aligned to public diplomacy efforts aimed primarily at deepening Australia’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific. The plan also rebalances Australia’s student mobility profile away from inbound recruitment models toward a model that ensures young Australians have the opportunity to be educated, informed, and connected within the Indo-Pacific region. Bishop personally expressed this point to her regional counterparts when inviting them to participate in and endorse the program—a public diplomacy measure in itself. Finally, drawing on the collaborative potential of public diplomacy, the NCP demonstrates a wider commitment to partnership building, encompassing public institutions, businesses, communities, and government at home and in the region within its sights. When viewed together, these features suggest that the plan is clearly aimed, as Fitzpatrick’s definition suggests, at establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relationships and generating “networks of influence” with strategic publics across the Indo-Pacific region to advance Australia’s interests. Moreover, in doing so, it might also contribute to longer-term shared outcomes within the region. Yet as an act of public diplomacy, the New Colombo Plan faces a range of distinct challenges and opportunities, particularly in its implementation. They are addressed in the next section.
Challenges and opportunities: From concept to reality
Building on a longstanding bipartisan approach and established student mobility policies, the New Colombo Plan initially moved from concept to reality at breakneck speed. It began, as stakeholders had advocated, as a pilot program, which in 2014 delivered scholarships and mobility grants to four priority recipient locations: Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia, in two major tranches. Interestingly, the NCP pilot nations did not replicate the priority nations identified by Gillard’s Australia in the Asian Century white paper some 18 months earlier. 52 While a point of initial concern, the difference related more to the ease with which programs could be tested rather than any deeper or deliberate political bias. 53 In the case of Indonesia, the launch of the NCP was timely for a bilateral relationship otherwise bogged down in political tensions. When launching the plan in Indonesia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott made special reference to the fact that each NCP scholar travelling to Indonesia would be known as a Yudhoyono Fellow, in honour of the outgoing Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. 54 Although not explicitly articulated as such, conferring the Yudhoyono name was a clear manoeuvre to smooth over recent tensions while drawing attention to the importance of Australia’s bilateral relationship with Indonesia, a relationship Abbott has described as “our most important.” 55 Indonesia responded positively to the NCP, and in a striking gesture of diplomatic reciprocity, Indonesia’s foreign minister at the time, Marty Natalegawa, offered to host Australian interns within the foreign affairs ministry. 56 All pilot nations embraced the New Colombo Plan, while those outside the pilot were quick to flag their interest in participating as regional hosts in the longer-term NCP roll-out.
Universities and students immediately sought places in the NCP pilot. Their response not only reflected support for funded outbound mobility but also highlighted the underpinning public diplomacy objectives of the plan. As Universities Australia observed, “Our universities have been delighted to get behind this unique program because of the exciting opportunity it represents, not just for their brightest students but for those who embody the spirit of the Plan in celebrating Australia’s commitment to the region.” 57 Through the pilot, the NCP Secretariat (based in DFAT) actively engaged in outreach with institutions and student mobility officers across Australia, demonstrating the ministry’s willingness to work in partnership with institutions from an early stage in the process.
Early issues and limitations
Three key issues of geographic distribution, study timeframes, and participant criteria emerged through pilot outreach as potential limitations on the wider New Colombo Plan program. First, the geographic distribution of outbound scholarships, determined largely by student interests and university orientations, highlighted an underlying tension for the NCP as a public diplomacy tool of foreign policy. In the first pilot tranche, only five of the possible 40 NCP scholarship students chose Indonesia as their study destination, while Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore all attracted at least twice that number. 58 Given the emphasis placed on the Yudhuyono Fellowship as an important touchstone in the Australia–Indonesia relationship, it was not surprising that the NCP secretariat quickly announced a preference for students identifying Indonesia in the second pilot tranche and subsequent rounds. 59 Of note, Indonesia turned out to be the second most popular destination for the first round of 2015 NCP scholarships. The geographic spread and balance of outbound scholarships and mobility grants will most likely present an ongoing tension within DFAT as foreign policy priorities ebb and flow; it is a balance to be handled with both sensitivity and caution.
Second, both pilot tranches highlighted the preference among NCP scholars for short-term rather than long-term study options within the region. This preference is not unique to the NCP. Asian destinations, although increasingly attractive to Australian students, are mainly taken as short-term study options. 60 The NCP Secretariat flagged concerns about whether short-term study would still fulfil key foreign policy objectives. 61 For some involved in Australia’s education promotion, the value of longer-term study for language immersion and skill development was at risk of being overlooked. 62 Depth of knowledge, including in language proficiency, comes with longer-term immersion, yet short-term study can also be transformational. The clear message to come out of the 2014 Australian International Education Conference (AIEC) reaffirmed that length of study is not always the primary issue; rather, “transformation occurs through the collision of two worlds, where old skills, knowledge and expertise must be adapted to understand and negotiate new experiences, not only personally but in terms of institutional learning.” 63 On a more practical level, it appears that many host institutions, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, are best equipped at present to accommodate short-term mobility. For some regional institutions and communities, longer-term hosting of Australian students may create an unanticipated strain on internal resources and infrastructure, which in turn may lead to unexpected resentments and limited public diplomacy outcomes. Furthermore, these short-term international study programs and placements play an important role in diversifying Australian student mobility away from the traditionally preferred and comfortable destinations and toward more strategic and challenging locations. 64
Third, the NCP Taskforce identified that the rigid criteria on age and academic background may have unnecessarily and inadvertently shut potential candidates out of the New Colombo Plan process. Practitioners and academics have expressed related concerns that the language of the NCP, aimed at “Australia’s best and brightest,” is unnecessarily exclusive. 65 The AIEC, for example, observes that “while there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to mould future leaders, the language is not very inclusive of those who might benefit more from the experience, those with the lower grades or limited life or travel experiences.” 66 Questions might be asked about whether the plan simply benefits privileged cohorts who already have access to overseas study opportunities, or whether it casts the net of opportunity to a wider cohort of young Australians who would not otherwise access the experience. It might be argued that as a flagship program, the NCP both requires and benefits from the status and prestige that come with a highly competitive selection process. Yet there are underlying flaws. While it is important for the plan to maintain a level of prestige in order to engage the interest and support of regional leaders, institutions, and businesses, it is equally important that a more representative cross-section of young Australians see themselves as fitting the NCP profile and vision. Not only is such an approach likely to deliver more authentic public diplomacy; it is also likely to support the wider objective that studying in the region becomes a “rite of passage” for young Australians. Greater flexibility on age and academic performance along with consideration of socio-economic factors was incorporated into the application and selection process for the New Colombo Plan in 2015. These are encouraging trends that reflect a new DFAT willingness to align foreign policy objectives more closely to domestic expectations and situations. Ongoing evaluation of the NCP’s success, including in terms of student uptake and experience, will be critical. However, deeper soft power challenges and longer-term prospects must also be addressed.
Moving forward: Challenges and opportunities
The strategic challenges and opportunities presented by the NCP as public diplomacy fall into three main categories: (1) strategic policy coherence; (2) partnerships and relationship building; and (3) soft power evaluation. Each category presents a range of issues of varying levels of significance; each has implications for the soft power impact of the program; and if left unaddressed, each may erode the NCP’s soft power potential.
Strategic coherence
In terms of strategic coherence, the NCP policy clearly reflects and builds on a fundamental view held across the political, international education, industry, and foreign policy sectors that student mobility offers an important opportunity to enhance regional engagement. Yet it is a patchy narrative interrupted over recent years by changes to government and to the machinery of government. Political point scoring, policy imprinting, and erratic levels of promotion have at times presented a confusing picture of Australia’s student mobility offerings, particularly to regional partners and stakeholders. The awkward co-existence of the newly launched NCP and pre-existing AsiaBound provides a case in point. Administration of the two programs by different government agencies operating from separate budgets added to the confusion. The decision to roll the AsiaBound program, including its funding, into the NCP in 2015 has provided a level of much-needed coherence for those seeking to participate. The active input of Julie Bishop over the past decade, from within the education and foreign affairs portfolios and while in opposition, presents a striking thread of coherence in the recent evolution of the NCP. Bishop’s involvement has arguably mitigated against policy and program conflicts. Two aspects of Bishop’s involvement are particularly notable. First, she actively engaged influential stakeholders from across government, industry, and business in the development of the plan. Second, she sent personal invitations to and has continued to include regional leaders in her vision of the NCP. Both aspects demonstrate the effectiveness of Bishop’s own public diplomacy style as well as her overarching commitment to see the plan become a reality. Both have had a significant impact on domestic and regional buy-in to the program.
Another aspect to strategic coherence relates to the ultimate longevity of the New Colombo Plan. For the NCP to deliver on its intended foreign policy goals, both Australian and regional stakeholders require clarity of purpose and an assurance that the program will be embedded in the government’s long-term agenda. The five-year budget allocation secured by Bishop early in her term as foreign minister bodes well for the future of the NCP. A further step might be achieved through ongoing and high-profile bipartisan acknowledgement of and commitment to the plan in its current form and name. Current evidence suggests that bipartisan commitment to the NCP is developing. Bipartisan support of the NCP is understandably a less important priority for opposition parties, but as recent past history demonstrates, it is essential to building and sustaining the policy model and longer-term domestic and regional brand.
Building a partnership model
The second strategic issue relates to the ongoing development of the NCP partnership model. The NCP model will be sustained, developed, and extended through the complex set of interconnections, dynamics, and relationships. As with any complex, socially oriented network, there are multiple touch points and levers of interaction. DFAT plays a key role in fostering positive and dynamic interactions and engagements at each of these touch points. Yet, this is new territory for Australian public diplomacy and builds on emerging trends in international public diplomacy scholarship and practice, which highlight public diplomacy as both medium and model of collaboration. Indeed, as Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault suggest, collaboration “can sometimes be the most important form of public diplomacy.” 67 From this viewpoint, encouraging a culture of shared leadership that engages all or any members of the network at any time, 68 rather than relying on traditional forms of heroic leadership or hierarchical instruction, is likely to lead to more effective, even transformative, soft power outcomes. The recent soft power failings of the high-profile but increasingly contentious Confucius Institutes are instructive, demonstrating that tight, top-down control mechanisms can engender suspicion within and rejection by the target audiences they were intended to engage. 69
Capacity building at key touch points in the network is integral to working toward a shared leadership model and provides the opportunity to integrate global citizenship considerations within the NCP’s soft power framework. For example, recent steps by DFAT to engage private sector institutions in the preparation of New Colombo Plan scholars, including through cross-cultural training, are positive. Such training will position the scholars with the competencies required for them to engage effectively in very different regional environments. It also goes some way toward addressing stakeholder concerns about student preparation, while moving away from other concerns regarding government propaganda messaging, and further demonstrates external partnerships in the NCP’s core public diplomacy project.
From the university perspective, the New Colombo Plan offers a prestigious opportunity to claim scholarships and grants that will extend their institutional brand and private sector linkages into domestic and regional markets. Most Australian universities can already point to extensive regional networks. Yet outreach sessions revealed that practitioners are less confident when it comes to identifying and supporting workplace experiences within NCP host countries, including the extent to which such diplomatic support might be accessed. 70 The plan has brought about a notable shift in the workload intensity and expectations for university staff, particularly for those in the student mobility field. Through the NCP framework, student mobility officers who previously operated “under the radar” are now program architects, faculty liaisons, deal brokers, and support crew for the plan, dealing with their own institution as well as regional partner institutions and businesses through this new public diplomacy frame. In short, they are active producers of Australian public diplomacy. While most university practitioners express philosophical support for the New Colombo Plan, they also express their concern with its tactical execution, with a particular emphasis on the demanding time frames required to identify and recruit students and develop mobility programs suitable to NCP parameters. Some practitioners confirm that, because of time and resource constraints, they simply look to their existing partners without exploring new partnership opportunities in the region. They also suggest that mobility opportunities go unrealized because of a lack of time to innovate or develop new programs combined with a lack of faculty and academic buy-in. 71 These concerns, although of a programmatic nature, are important and relevant to NCP success. Building confidence and capacity at the university level and enabling access to Australia’s diplomatic network will require some additional effort in the short term. However, it is likely to prove beneficial at a systemic level, building on the culture of shared leadership and encouraging new partnerships in the region, particularly as the NCP moves into its larger program phase.
While the individual student experience sits at the core of the NCP program, it is the potential cumulative value of those NCP experiences and relationships over time that drives soft power outcomes. Sustained alumni engagement features prominently in the public diplomacy view of international education, and universities are already well placed to build their institutional networks into a wider NCP setting, using social media and digital platforms to encourage and sustain connections across the globe. More than just alumni engagement, this paper calls for an ongoing network engagement strategy that links with and meets the needs of students as well as universities, businesses, and communities involved in NCP delivery.
To this end, there is real scope to engage the wider Australian community within the New Colombo Plan network, including through existing state and municipal government linkages, so that communities might also embrace their outgoing NCP scholars as regional experts and connectors. State and municipal governments are increasingly active in building their own regional linkages and attuned in particular to the significance of inbound student recruitment to local economies and community cohesion. Yet, they remain largely unaware of the potential of the NCP program. Improved integration with state and municipal government strategies will generate significant two-way benefits: giving regional networks local visibility, and improving the recognition and profile of NCP scholars and mobility students at home. On the latter, local communities are well placed to acknowledge and celebrate the return of their NCP scholars and facilitate their smooth transition back into Australian life, including through facilitation of professional debriefing and networking. A longer-term commitment by communities to the success of the NCP framework is key to supporting and leveraging this “rite of passage” for young Australians.
Soft power evaluation
A third strategic issue relates to the evaluation of NCP public diplomacy in soft power terms. While DFAT has stated its intention to evaluate the NCP, current indications are that such an evaluation will be aimed at measuring the plan as public diplomacy. Such evaluations continue to confound public diplomacy scholars and practitioners around the world. 72 While there is no single formula or approach to follow in evaluating soft power impacts, two principles emerge from current literature and practice. First, quantitative, activity-based evaluations conducted in the short term will provide insufficient measures of outcome. Second, multi-faceted approaches combining quantitative and qualitative measures over time are necessary both to evaluate the soft power of the NCP and to tease out the wider impacts as they relate to Australia’s affective and normative soft power profile.
Program-level evaluations could incorporate measures that usefully distinguish between the normative and affective dimensions of the New Colombo Plan. Factors that measure the awareness of and participation in the plan, both at home and abroad, including media coverage, speak directly to the wider attraction of the program. Factors that explore changes in the breadth and depth of NCP relationships at the individual and institutional level speak to its normative impact. That impact might include the development of longer-term relationships and associations that derive from NCP participation, such as, for example, involvement in an alumni association, involvement in relevant bilateral friendship or business associations, and ongoing travel to the region. For institutions it might include shifts in international student enrolments and alumni activity or in academic or research collaborations with relevant NCP host nations.
Furthermore, while the NCP is a limited program, its purpose is not just to promote study abroad for a few, but rather to establish and promote regional study and work abroad as a “rite of passage” for a wider audience of young Australians. An overall increase in Australia’s regional outbound student mobility during the NCP’s lifetime and increased uptake of relevant cultural and language studies more broadly through the school system would present as a powerful indicator of New Colombo Plan soft power (across both the affective and normative dimensions). Even so, while these data may provide useful insights about the NCP, gaps regarding Australia’s regional soft power remain.
An evaluation of the NCP’s impact on Australia’s regional soft power is a more difficult and nuanced task, but follows a similar pathway to the program level. In the interests of policy coherence, overall evaluation of NCP soft power impact should sit within DFAT’s overarching economic diplomacy framework. To this end, shifts in bilateral and regional recognition and engagement of Australia, evidenced through media coverage, tourism, and business activity—including trade delegations, improved political and diplomatic access, and international education opportunities—would all point to improvements in Australia’s attractiveness to the region. Increased opportunities to facilitate or engage in policy dialogue; more substantial collaborations across education, science, and industry; and increased opportunities to take on leadership roles across all sectors in the region would suggest improvements in perceived legitimacy and ability. Improvements in Australia’s affective soft power would be reflected in the friendliness and warmth of Australia’s relationships within the Indo-Pacific. Improved normative power would reflect in widening areas of shared understanding, greater depths of trust, and more productive and substantial collaborations. Improvements in both affective and normative soft power at the region level will, when taken together, offer Australia greater flexibility and leverage in advancing its foreign policy interests and pave the way for achieving formal political and diplomatic outcomes.
The evaluation approach noted above is not exhaustive, but presented to stimulate further research and discussion about the multifaceted and multidimensional nature of NCP evaluation. Such discussion is not just important for the NCP itself, but will also contribute to the ongoing evolution of public diplomacy and understanding of soft power. In terms of opportunity, such a study may contribute to wider conceptions of soft power, including a distinctly Australian view of building soft power within the diverse Indo-Pacific. As Sook Jong Lee and Jan Melissen note in their review of soft power, further contributions to this field are welcome. 73
Conclusion
This paper explores the New Colombo Plan as public diplomacy intended to enhance Australia’s standing and influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Drawing from an international relations perspective, this exploration positions the NCP within a soft power context, whereby the cumulative value of the relationships, experiences, and insights of young Australians living, studying, and working in the region might contribute, over time, to Australia’s longer-term regional engagement, as well as to improved productivity and innovation at home.
In practical terms, the New Colombo Plan hones in on a persistent deficiency in Australia’s deeper attention to, understanding of, and literacy in the diverse and dynamic region. It provides substantial incentives and opens up opportunities for selected young Australians to immerse themselves in an Indo-Pacific education experience. But these “rite of passage” experiences might be created from a wider perspective that sees the potential of international student movements to equip young Australians with the skills to participate effectively in the region. From this perspective, the NCP is identified as a distinct form of public diplomacy that is not just supportive of, but explicitly ties student mobility to Australia’s foreign policy outcomes. Tensions remain, particularly in reconciling the soft power interests of the state with other interests in global citizenship as well as the education and experiential interests of students and institutions, which all sit within and across states. These issues might be usefully teased out within a broader, interdisciplinary research agenda surrounding the NCP itself and other student mobility programs.
Further examination of the New Colombo Plan approach highlights its potential to recalibrate Australia’s public diplomacy practice. Although still in its early stages, the NCP provides a unique architecture for public diplomacy whereby regional networks, encompassing government agencies, businesses, institutions, communities, and individuals, self-organize and multiply around its collaborative agenda. Importantly from DFAT’s perspective, the model suggests a changed approach to public diplomacy leadership that privileges a facilitative over a controlling approach. Within this model, NCP participants, from scholars to institutions to businesses and governments, are enrolled as co-creators and co-producers of a public diplomacy experience rather than simply targets for a public diplomacy message. However, networks can be messy, unpredictable, and unexpectedly fragile—particularly where capacities are under or unevenly developed. Navigating through this new public diplomacy space will require dexterous diplomacy to identify and convert opportunities into outcomes, while anticipating and troubleshooting issues as they arise.
There are many challenges ahead for the New Colombo Plan as public diplomacy, both in sustaining longer-term political and budgetary support and developing and optimizing its partnership model. These challenges are not surprising; nor are they insurmountable. However, if left unaddressed, the NCP risks being relegated to the ranks of just another student mobility program, vulnerable to replacement in time by another version with a new name. This leads to fundamental questions of how NCP outcomes will be identified and measured—not just in terms of exchange activity, but translating the individual and cumulative experiences, exchanges, and interactions generated by young Australians into soft power outcomes at the programmatic, state, and regional levels. The potential the New Colombo Plan holds for promoting and generating both affective and normative soft power outcomes is significant and not to be dismissed. Consideration of strategies and evaluations that recognize and foster these distinct faces of soft power will add value to the overall view of NCP as public diplomacy.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Rebecca Hall, Kent Anderson, and Mark Darby as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback and comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
1
2
The language and meaning of the Indo-Pacific, particularly as it represents Australia’s contemporary region, is explored at greater length in “The Indo Pacific: Reconstructing Australia’s region,” a special mini-issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs 68, no. 4 (2014): 433–483.
3
Bishop, “The New Colombo Plan.”
4
For example, the New Colombo Plan featured as a topic for discussion during the 2014 Australian International Education Conference, Brisbane, 7–10 October 2014, and more recently during the Universities Australia Higher Education Conference 2015, “Future Sense: Universities Shaping the New Era,” Canberra, 11–13 March 2015. David Lowe discussed the topic, “International students as foreign relations: A research agenda in the context of Colombo Plans old and new,” in a public lecture to the Australian National University, Canberra, 28 August 2014.
5
For example, scholars addressing emerging themes, trends, and perspectives in international education include Philip G. Altbach and Jane Knight, “The internationalization of higher education: Motivations and realities,” Journal of Studies in International Education 11, no. 3/4 (2007): 290–305; Tristram McGowan and Elaine Unterhalter, eds., Education and International Development: An Introduction (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015); Kemal Guruz, Higher Education and International Student Mobility in the Global Knowledge Economy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011); Simon Marginson, “Dynamics of national and global competition in higher education,” Higher Education 52 (2006): 1–39.
6
Altbach and Knight, “The internationalization of higher education,” 290.
7
Joseph Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2005).
8
Shin-wha Lee observes that Nye’s soft power concept reflects and draws on an evolution of scholarship relating to power, from E.H. Carr’s discussion of the “power of opinion” through to Kenneth Boulding’s “integrative power” whereby “influence is exerted through human relationships that extend beyond respect into friendship.” See Shin-wha Lee, “Theory and reality of soft power: Practical approaches in East Asia,” in Sook Jong Lee and Jan Melissen, eds., Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 13.
9
10
11
12
Lee and Melissen, “Introduction,” in Lee and Melissen, eds., Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia, 2–3.
13
Andrew Robb, Launch of the Australian Government’s Economic Diplomacy Agenda, Lowy Institute for International Policy, 18 August 2014.
14
Janice Bially Mattern, “Why ‘soft power’ isn’t so soft: Representational force and the sociolinguistic construction of attraction in world politics,” Millenium: Journal of International Studies 3 (2005): 588.
15
Yong Wook Lee, “Soft power as a productive power,” in Lee and Melissen, eds., Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia, 45.
16
Jan Melissen, “The new public diplomacy: Between theory and practice,” in Jan Melissen, ed., The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 4.
17
Jan Melissen, “Public diplomacy,” in Geoffrey Wiseman and Pauline Kerr, eds., Diplomacy in a Globalizing World: Theories and Practices (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 192.
18
Joseph Nye, “Public diplomacy and soft power,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616, no. 1 (2008): 94–109.
19
Byong-kuen Jhee and Nae-young Lee, “Measuring soft power in East Asia: An overview of soft power in East Asia on affective and normative dimensions,” in Lee and Melissen, eds., Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia, 53.
20
Ibid.
21
Rhonda S. Zaharna, Amelia Arsenault, and Ali Fisher, “Introduction,” in Zaharna, Arsenault, and Fisher, eds., Relational, Networked and Collaborative Approaches to Public Diplomacy: The Connective Mindshift (New York: Routledge, 2013), 1.
22
Kathy Fitzpatrick, The Future of U.S. Public Diplomacy: An Uncertain Fate (Boston: Brill, 2010), 105.
23
Bruce Gregory, “American public diplomacy: Enduring characteristics, elusive transformation,” Hague Journal of Diplomacy 6, no. 3–4 (2011): 353.
24
Joseph Nye, “Public diplomacy and soft power,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616 (2008): 94–108.
25
Caitlin Byrne and Rebecca Hall, “Realising Australia’s international education as public diplomacy,” Australian Journal of International Affairs 64, no. 4 (2013): 418–438.
26
Judith McHale, “Enduring leadership: Marshall’s legacy for American public diplomacy in the 21st century,” The 2010 Frances McNulty Logan Lewis Lecture, 7 October 2010, Lexington.
27
House of Lords, “Persuasion and power in the modern world,” Report of the Select Committee on Soft Power and UK’s Influence (London: UK Parliament, 2013).
28
Nancy Snow, “Valuing exchange of persons in public diplomacy,” in Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor, eds., Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York: Routledge, 2009), 236.
29
Byrne and Hall, “Realising Australia’s international education as public diplomacy,” 421.
30
31
32
33
34
Percy Spender, quoted in Julie Bishop, “The New Colombo Plan,” Address to the New Colombo Plan Policy Roundtable.
35
Lyndon Megarrity, “Regional goodwill, sensibly priced: Commonwealth policies towards Colombo Plan scholars and private overseas students, 1945–1972,” Australian Historical Studies 38, no. 129 (2007): 88.
36
Byrne and Hall, “International education as public diplomacy,” 4.
37
David Lowe, “The Colombo Plan and ‘soft’ regionalism in the Asia-Pacific: Australian and New Zealand cultural diplomacy in the 1950s and 1960s,” Alfred Deakin Research Institute Working Paper No. 1 (Geelong: Alfred Deakin Research Institute, 2010); Megarrity, “Regional goodwill, sensibly priced.”
38
39
Bishop, “The New Colombo Plan.”
40
Ibid.
41
42
“Australia 2020 summit,” Final Report (Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2008), 363.
43
Final Summit recommendations instead supported the reinvigoration of Asian cultural and language studies in Australian schools.
44
Julia Gillard, Address to Australian Education International Industry Forum, Melbourne, April 2008.
45
Australian Government, Australia in the Asian Century (Canberra: Australian Government, 2012), 20.
46
48
50
51
52
The Australia in the Asian Century white paper identified China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea as priority states for Australia’s ongoing engagement in the region.
53
Brisbane NCP Secretariat Outreach Discussion, DFAT Queensland Office, Brisbane, 16 July 2014.
54
55
56
57
58
Australian Government, “Summary of New Colombo Plan Tranche One Offers,” New Colombo Plan website, https://www.dfat.gov.au/new-colombo-plan/summary-tranche-one-offers.html (accessed 15 October 2014). See also Bernard Lane, “Griffith and Sydney equal first in New Colombo scholarship count,” The Australian, 3 December 2014, 
(accessed 15 June 2015).
59
Brisbane NCP Secretariat Outreach Discussion.
60
Alan Olsen, “2013 research agenda: Australian universities international directors’ forum,” presentation to the Australian International Education Conference, Canberra, 9 October 2013.
61
Brisbane NCP Secretariat Outreach Discussion.
62
Cathryn Hlavka, “Expanding student and researcher mobility to China,” presentation to the Australian International Education Conference, Brisbane, 10 October 2014.
64
Olsen, “2013 Research Agenda.”
65
66
The Global Student.
67
Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault, “Moving from monologue to dialogue to collaboration: The three layers of public diplomacy,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616, no. 1 (March 2008): 22.
68
Haiyi Zhu, Robert Kraut, and Aniket Kittur, “Effectiveness of shared leadership in Wikipedia,” Journal of Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 55, no. 6, (December 2013): 1021–1043.
69
70
Brisbane NCP Secretariat Outreach Discussion, AIEC, Participant Discussion, session 343, 10 October 2014, Brisbane.
71
Ibid.
72
Robert Banks, “A resource guide to public diplomacy evaluations,” CPD Perspectives on Public Diplomacy, Paper 9 (2011).
73
Melissen, “Concluding reflections on soft power and public diplomacy in East Asia,” in Lee and Melissen, eds., Public Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia, 248.
Author Biography
Caitlin Byrne is an assistant professor of international relations at Bond University Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.