The growing relevance of global citizenship forces governments to rethink the procedures of conducting foreign policy and to acknowledge the plurality of actors in international relations. Besides being a target group of public diplomacy, citizens themselves constitute actors. They form associations or serve as small-scale ambassadors when exchanging thoughts and ideas with people from other countries and cultures. Thus, citizens have to be seen as a crucial factor in public diplomacy that has to be recognised in both the academic analysis of public diplomacy and the practice of the concept. | Advancing Public Diplomacy from a Global Citizenship Perspective: An Empirical Study on How State and Non-state Actors Address Foreign Citizens in a Globalised World Martin Löffelholz1, Claudia Auer2, Silvia Krichbaum3, Alice Srugies4 1, 2, 3, 4 Technical University of Ilmenau, the . of Germany. Email: Received: 28 December 2016 Accepted: 3 January 2017 Abstract: The growing relevance of global citizenship forces governments to rethink the procedures of conducting foreign policy and to acknowledge the plurality of actors in international relations. Besides being a target group of public diplomacy, citizens themselves constitute actors. They form associations or serve as small-scale ambassadors when exchanging thoughts and ideas with people from other countries and cultures. Thus, citizens have to be seen as a crucial factor in public diplomacy that has to be recognised in both the academic analysis of public diplomacy and the practice of the concept. Based on the first comprehensive and empirically grounded study on this concept in Germany, this paper analyses how public diplomacy actors address foreign citizens and how public diplomacy is conducted today. It points out that theoretical considerations on global citizenship contribute to advancing the concept of public diplomacy and vice versa. Keywords: Public diplomacy, global citizenship, international relations, diplomacy, international public relations, international communication, transnationalisation, citizen diplomacy. 1. Introduction: Tendencies in contemporary world politics Global citizenship dates back to as far as ancient Greece [54, ]. In the last decades, political, cultural, economic, technological and social developments have contributed to a world in which the concept of global citizenship appears to be more relevant than ever. Many problems of the 21st century such as climate change or the threat of nuclear weapons demand transnational cooperation. This
