Public Diplomacy in Peace Missions: The Case of the UN and NATO in Kosovo

Peacekeeping missions remain a contentious subject capable of tarnishing the reputation of international organisations (IOs). In response, IOs engage citizens and enhance their understanding of the missions through public diplomacy. The article connects two fields of research – public diplomacy in missions and the debate about the decline of liberal peacekeeping in favour of a specific approach. The aim is to analyse whether UNMIK and KFOR promote general norms while conducting public diplomacy or rather pay attention to the specific context. It concludes with two assumptions. Firstly, the comparison shows that one-way advocacy continues to dominate public diplomacy, which limits the potential of public diplomacy to function as a partnership-oriented engagement tool. Moreover, the empirical evidence demonstrates that KFOR promotes neutral topics primarily through listening, whereas UNMIK engages the audience with both specific and general topics. Secondly, the research indicates that the turn towards specific topics is not linear and varies across missions.