Reflect on what the differences are with nation-branding and cultural exchanges.

My topic will be about the GCC Crisis and Qatar’s public diplomacy, please have this strategy more oriented to Qatar’s side.

To do Task 1, you have to research past events to identify patterns, answers, findings that could shed light on an IR or Law-related issue (inductively) or examine how a theory or theoretical framework applies to real cases (deductively). What you need to do is summarising your research by thinking about a paper based on a research question.

A PD strategy is always a communication strategy, but not all communication strategies are PD. PD has to be public (yes, a communication strategy) and diplomacy (involving one or more foreign countries). For example, if your strategy has to do with solving a domestic problem, it is not PD. Think: what would be the foreign audiences to whom the strategy would appeal? If you have none, it means you have the wrong strategy.

Also, maybe you are thinking in marketing terms about a nation branding exercise. Reflect on what the differences are with nation-branding and cultural exchanges. Is your strategy only about “changing your country’s reputation”; does this sound more like a nation-branding/marketing exercise? A PD strategy is to establish conversations, not to impose ideas or deals, so to speak of improving reputations only is not a complete PD strategy (or not only). Maybe you do need to improve your country’s reputation to be able to establish a dialogue, but that is not the end of a PD strategy.

Topic: Include a title and subtitle. Usually, you include a general title and details about the object of study, method, and timeframe in the subtitle.
Purpose/objective: What does the paper achieve? What questions/problem does it address? What hypothesis does it test? (25-50 words)
RQs: Include your main research question and other specific questions that are necessary to respond to your main question. Yes/no questions are poor RQs. RQs guide all the other elements in the abstract: object of study, method, timeframe, justification.
Hypothesis: This is your expected finding/s. It has to be based on research, not speculation (articles do not usually state the hypotheses; since this is not a complete article, the findings can serve as hypothesis).
Motivation/justification for the article: Why does the topic matter? What motivates the study? How does the article contribute to social science? It includes background and context as a way to justify the article:
Justification: How the study sheds light on a PD issue? How does it contribute to social science?
Context: Include all the relevant information you need to understand the RQ and justify them.
Avoid generalizations [e.g., “the economy has grown a lot,” NO; “the economy expanded at a 2.6% percent rate during 2018 (Sánchez, 2019),” YES].
Be specific and reference everything that is not the result of your analysis [e.g., “Finland’s economy grew by 3 percent in 2017 (IMF 2018)”].
All numbers, cases, facts, opinions, and concepts have to be REFERENCED adequately in an academic style.
Approach and methods: How have the questions been addressed, or hypotheses tested? What data and evidence have been used? What method has been used for analysis?
Timeframe: Period of study. Careful, “two years” is probably not a doable period of study for one researcher (yourself) without the help of automatic computing.
Implications for IR: What may the findings imply for IR practice/theory?

Task 1: Structured abstract

Interest/relevance (40%): What is the contribution of your article to social science, and IR studies in particular? Is it justified? What is the relevance of your article?
Completeness (50%): Includes a relevant and feasible research question, a convincing justification for doing the article’s analysis, a relevant context, referenced definitions, a specific method (e.g. semistructured interviews with 30 experts; a “qualitative method” is not a methodology, and a summary of the (expected) findings. All the facts, numbers, examples, and concepts should be referenced correctly in an academic manner. Styles can include APA and Chicago.
Coherence (10%): It makes sense, and it is well written and presented, it complies with the word-count. The RQ and methods are in line with the expected results.

Please use online easily accessible resources. Here’s an example: https://risingpowersproject.com/quarterly/qatars-public-diplomacy-international-broadcasting-and-the-gulf-crisis/