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Background of the Development of Public Talks
From John Connolly, founder of the Institute for Public Dialogue
In 1983, when all kinds of groups were hijacking airplanes to grab world attention, the idea for Public Talks began with a single question: What if there was an established way in which these groups could grab world attention by challenging their adversary to respond in kind to a highly structured document widely distributed in various magazines?
This would bring the considerable and growing influence of world opinion to bear on world conflicts.
Amidst other jobs and projects, I slowly developed the idea for Public Talks, which was originally called "negotiating in public." The Dialogue Document was originally called an IMC or Independent Media Communication and later a “Challenge Document.” These efforts occasionally brought me to campuses around Boston, Philadelphia and New York. During that time, several professors wrote me letters of comment and from time to time, I published the occasional article, usually in the context of South Africa (which at that time was the most prominent example of the failure of private talks). Many of these letters are available on this site.
There was one category of individual on these college campuses that consistently saw the “negotiating in public” process as a viable and indeed important idea. It was the student government president. As this happened again and again, the reasons became clear: they were leaders in their respective areas who perceived this process not as consumers of information but as the implementers of a strategy. They saw it as a way to influence public opinion, which was the necessary predicate to enact new initiatives on their respective campuses.
The most recent chapter in the development of Public Talks began about two years ago when I embarked on a strategy that was based on engaging a wide range of writers, editors, and foreign policy experts who actively assisted in refining the entire project.
John Connolly's personal political background:
After moving out to California in 1988, I worked as a media strategist for a California Initiative, Proposition 103.
This consumer initiative reformed the state's automotive insurance law. It was the most expensive campaign in US history at that time (with the exception of presidential campaigns). Prop 103 passed – while all of the competing insurance initiatives were defeated. It is now the law of the land in California.
I testified June 28, 2005 on Capitol Hill in front of the FEC on the topic of "Internet Political Communications." My FEC testimony is near the end of this transcript.
Founding the Institute
As time has gone on and the media environment has become increasingly dominated by big money and powerful groups, the need for a level communication platform is greater than ever. And world events are perhaps more pressing than ever.
After achieving some commercial success, it became clear to me that I would have the resources to advance the idea of Public Talks on an entirely different scale than at any previous time. In the fall of 2005, I created this Institute to become an organizational structure to bring Public Talks onto the national and world agenda. I have to date, not accepted any outside funding for this Institute. Throughout this entire project, I have always been committed to advancing Public Talks as a universal communication process and not as a mechanism to advance the agenda of any political group or ideology. Thus, any future fund raising efforts will reflect this philosophy.
I currently have a wide range of diverse commercial interests, based primarily on inventions and new types of business models. Almost all of these interests involve either patents, new business models or very unique services (none of which, however, are relevant in any substantive way to the field of politics).
Given the normal and prudent concern of political leaders, allow me to state that there is no hidden agenda behind this project. To that end, I have prepared a list of my commercial interests. I am reluctant to outline these interests on a public web site but I will be prepared to dispatch an outline of these projects on request to any political office.
Are there political groups involved in this initiative?
There are no political groups involved in this project in any way. The many people who have assisted the development of Public Talks, both Democrats and Republicans, have been joined only in the sense that they have largely agreed that it is in the public interest for the U.S. to have one more diplomatic option when all other forms of negotiations have run their course.
Another view that was largely shared is that a structured clash of views, which is the defining characteristic of Public Talks, will tend to yield a greater sense of historical truth than we commonly experience today. In the past three years, since the founding of this Institute, 90% of the people helping this project were introduced to it through classified ads in http://www.craigslist.com seeking writers.
Staff:
Senior Fellow: Brian M. Downing is a research analyst who has written extensively on political and military affairs. A graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Chicago and also a veteran of the Vietnam War, he has held positions at Chicago and Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs. Among his publications are The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War And Social Change from the Great War to Vietnam. He serves on the board of directors of Fingers, a manufacturer of sports and medical equipment.
Senior Fellow: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood is an experienced international relations expert. He represented George Mason University as an academic observer at the US Department of State’s Middle East Peace Conference in Annapolis, Maryland in 2007. He was chosen to represent the U.S. at the 2006 NATO Summit "Young Leaders' Forum" in Riga, Latvia where he gave foreign policy recommendations on the war in Afghanistan to the NATO Secretary-General. His book Solutions for a 21st Century Economy was published in Germany in 2008. Brent’s other writings on the Middle East have been published by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and The American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Eastwood was also an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University School of Public Policy where he taught graduate seminars in national security. He has also served as an analyst for the RAND Corporation and taught international relations at West Virginia University.
He is a former US Army Infantry officer and Distinguished Military Graduate with five years military experience. He has earned a PhD in Political Science, an MA in Political Science/ International Relations, an MS in Journalism, and a BA in English
Senior Fellow: Alaya Vautier holds a master’s degree in International Policy Studies with an emphasis on Conflict Resolution and Negotiation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Prior to her position with the Institute for Public Dialogue, Ms. Vautier worked with Global Majority as the Nepal Project Assistant in Kathmandu where her work included co-coordinating the International Symposium on Peace in South Asia with Nepal NGO Collective Campaign for Peace. Ms. Vautier attended the Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution’s one-month intensive course in Cyprus on conflict in the Middle East and is also certified as a community mediator. Currently Ms. Vautier is the Bay Area Assistant Coordinator for the World March for Peace and Nonviolence organized by the Madrid based NGO World Without Wars.
Senior Fellow: Mary Johnson has lived and worked abroad in Europe and Asia. Her educational background in International Relations (honors division program) from San Francisco State University and graduate course in Public Relations from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA, prepared her for careers in the international education field managing elite student exchange programs; and as a technical translator as well as global trade analyst (import/export commodity specialist) and software design engineer with world renowned Silicon Valley firms. mjohnson@ifpdialogue.org
Senior Fellow: E. Steve Stevens is a Northern California based consultant and writer. He has been the Chief Executive Officer of ecampus.com, Crown Books Corporation and the Senior Vice President of Global Program and Product Development for PeoplePC. Mr. Stevens has been involved with the Institute for Public Dialogue for a number of years. He has received a number of awards including the Sun Microsystems "iForce Hero of the Dot Com Age," Oracle Corporation's "Star of E-Commerce," and was a finalist for the Ernst and Young "Entrepreneur of the Year " award for the year 2000. His business accomplishments have also been featured in Forbes, Wired, The New York Times, The Washington Post and various other publications. Mr. Stevens is also a highly accomplished yachtsman and has published over 100 sailing and travel articles since 2002. sstevens@ifpdialogue.org
Board of Advisors
The Institute for Public Dialogue has just begun extending invitations for individuals to participate on our Board of Advisors. This page will be updated as our Board of Advisors grows.
Gordon Feller is CEO of the Urban Age Institute, an international non-profit organization. Urban Age Magazine, which he edits, was founded by the World Bank in 1992. He advises cities and national government agencies, as well as foundations and corporations, on the public policy issue, which cities are seeking to address in innovative ways. http://www.urbanage.org
Kimberly Weichel, from Tiburon, CA, has directed international projects over the past 25 years in eastern and southern Africa, Europe, the former Soviet Union, within the United States, and with the United Nations; particularly with women. Kim is co-founder of the Institute for PeaceBuilding, which provides courses, training, mentoring and consulting in peace leadership. She is also co-founder of Our Media Voice, which focuses on media education and reform. Her passion is to instill a new generation of peacebuilders, and to build the foundation for a culture of peace.
www.kimweichel.org
Carl Carter, from San Anselmo, CA, has worked for 30 years in the equipment finance and leasing industry, for companies such as US Leasing, Pitney Bowes Credit Corporation, Newcourt Credit Corporation and NationsBanc. He was a founding member of the Marin Interfaith Task Force on the Americas (MITF). Since 1995, he has also served on the of Board of Seeds of Learning (SOL), as either its Board President, Secretary or as its Executive Director.
www.mitfamericas.org
www.seedsoflearning.org
Jonathan Firestein of San Francisco is a co-founder of the Print Debate Center, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that has developed a platform to increase the amount of direct, issue based dialogue between political candidates. In the 2004 election cycle, the Print Debate platform was utilized by 13 Republican and Democratic federal election candidates. Jonathan works in the banking industry.
John Connolly, Sausalito, CA
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