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The conceptualisation and popularisation of soft power have spurred nation-states to establish and operate international institutions of cultural diplomacy (ICD) to exert global influence through cultural activities. The uniqueness of ICD lies in its many multiplicities: multi-national operation, multi-level coordination, and multi-actor participation. Such multiplicities challenge the understanding, policy design, and assessment of ICD. In response to this compounding challenge, this article constructs a transformational governance framework with a focus on the dynamic relationship between governing decisions (measured by the dimensions of structure and process) and institutional capacities including legitimacy, efficiency, flexibility, and sustainability. The utilities, benefits, and limitations of the framework as a policy and research tool are discussed through the case of the Chinese Confucius Institute (the CI). We argue that the CI's top-down decisions are shaped by international political discourse and target legitimacy as the institutional capacity, whereas the CI's street-level governance is largely driven by the considerations of efficiency and sustainability as the institutional capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the shift to relational perspective in cultural diplomacy, there is little comparative analysis of relational practices and their effectiveness on enhancing cultural relations, whether understanding, collaborations or market exchanges. To address this gap, we incorporate network literature into cultural relations to examine 10 years of Momentum, a cultural diplomacy programme hosted by Festivals Edinburgh, the British Council and Creative Scotland, that seeks to enhance learning, exchanges and collaborations among arts organizations. The findings offer three insights: (1) cultural relations, similar to networks, have a curvilinear effect where an investment is required but more years of investment do not gain better outcomes; (2) effective relational strategies depend on the larger cultural and economic environment: more investment in relations is needed for countries that are more decentralized, have higher political uncertainty or larger cross-cultural differences; (3) cultural relations are anchored in key cities, offering a concentration of artists and cultural organisations that enable both a stable base to build on and a platform for expanding across geographic regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the academic literature on cultural diplomacy since its official inception during the midst of the Cold War, in 1959. It draws on mapping, chronology building, and thematic analysis of all scholarship published on cultural diplomacy in the Scopus database, the largest academic database in the world. The research explores how the discipline has evolved, what geographies and thematic areas it covered in the past, and what is the future of this discipline. These explorations start a conversation on cultural diplomacy as an independent academic discipline that most recently has gained a wider and stronger attention and reached a higher stage of scholarly maturity. This article is evidence that the research on CD is rapidly progressing with time, incorporating new thematic areas for exploration as well as covering wider cultural and political geographies. The research findings suggest further trajectories for the development of cultural diplomacy as an academic enquiry, focusing on different diplomatic channels, modes of operation, structures, actors, meanings, and implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gastrodiplomacy is an external project because it is a struggle to represent and promote a country internationally. It is, however, an internal project as well since building a 'strong' nation is foremost a domestic public project. In this article, we focus on how a sense of nation is created in Turkey's gastrodiplomacy efforts and how these turn into cultural policy when we recognize the domestic public as the target. To be able to discuss gastrodiplomacy and its discontents in Turkey, we look at First Lady Emine Erdoğan's use of culinary culture for promotional purposes. We particularly focus on the first gastrodiplomacy project of Turkey – the publication of a Turkish cookbook and its book launch in 2021. Our main aim is to understand how Emine Erdoğan uses food to dictate a specific political agenda and how this political agenda has to do with conservative gender politics and neoliberal cultural policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Iran's soft power appeal in Azerbaijan following Azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It first reviews the state of the field and situates Iran's overall soft power strategies in relation to that context and then focuses on the relationship between Iran and post-independence Azerbaijan. Drawing on a rich array of material, including the latest publications in Persian, the article explores Tehran's exercise of soft power in Azerbaijan in three key spheres: education, culture, and religion. The article argues that although Iran has invested significant resources in the promotion of its soft power in Azerbaijan, it has encountered significant hurdles in exercising that influence. These hurdles are the result of the history between the two countries as well as their divergent state ideologies in the present. Azerbaijan resists such influence and, at times, pursues certain anti-Iranian policies including, at times, supporting separatist groups. Thus, the divide between the two countries, despite all historical and cultural commonalities remains firmly in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural diplomacy (CD) research has focused on various elements of practice, such as the contexts, rationales, players, and methods. However, research explaining the interrelationships among such elements of CD is less common. This scarcity can inhibit an effective and accurate evaluation of CD programs. This article, by acknowledging the significance of this gap and being informed by policy design theory and foreign policy analysis (FPA), constructs a framework to articulate a policy design approach by focusing on comparative cases of flagship mechanisms of CD. It specifically considers flagships characterized by having a persistent presence, formal authorization, and global scope, which represents a structural approach to CD design that is aiming for a holistic view that addresses multiple purposes and is capable of adapting to particular international environments. To explain how this structural mechanism works, this article focuses on the practices of the United States, the United Kingdom, and China as they provide rich empirical data and concrete international and domestic contexts that can be used to interpret and apply the policy design and FPA concepts presented in the analytical framework. The conclusions point to the value of the interdisciplinary analytical concepts blended and potential transferability of the flagship mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration sought to improve relations between with Latin America and strengthen the Inter-American system through the Good Neighbor Policy. In 1940, to combat the spread of Axis influence, the Roosevelt administration formed the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CIAA). Tasked with improving perceptions of the United States in Latin America and of Latin America in the United States, the CIAA worked closely with U.S. organizations and businesses to achieve these ends. One frequently cited success story of this period was sending Walt Disney to South America and its resulting films. This paper places the role of the CIAA and Walt Disney Studios within the broader strategic context of the Good Neighbor Policy. In addition, this paper attempts to glean lessons from the CIAA-Disney partnership that epitomize best practices and potential pitfalls in U.S.-Latin American Cultural Diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, the cultural projection of China has become increasingly important to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to the state in terms of enhancing its soft power amid global competition. This article examines how China's international broadcasting institutions respond to the policy initiative toward cultural diplomacy, through a case study of the China Global Television Network (CGTN) Documentary. It uses document analysis, in-depth interviews and participant observation, to explore the gap between the contemporary policy regime and its implementation in the international broadcasting sector, taking into account the interplay between broadcasters, political bodies, producers and international audiences. Situated in the interconnected global marketplace, this article examines the current condition of tensions not only between political control and commercial imperative, but also between the national regulatory regime and the need for global engagement. It argues that although the newly found political priority of promoting China's contemporary national values globally entails an increasingly assertive agenda toward nation branding, market disadvantages and the uncertainty of audience reception challenge the policy pursuit for using its state media as a means for public diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New modes of analysis are required to account for current developments in international cultural politics. To that end, this paper introduces the concept of geocultural diplomacy. It seeks to move beyond current debates about cultural diplomacy, which foreground the nation-state and suffer from narrowly conceived definitions of culture. The concept of the geocultural is offered to explore new developments in world affairs that demand more critical attention.The paper focuses on the example of the Silk Road, which, through its Belt and Road Initiative, China now proclaims to be 'reviving' for the twenty-first century. Three themes – narrative, materiality, values – critically consider how geocultural forms can emerge and stabilize as contexts across which complex, multi-actor diplomatic and cooperative structures form. Through this lens, we begin to see China's desire to build regional alliances combines internationalist values of peace, harmony and openness with strategic national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the Japan Foundation and the Tokyo International Film Festival commissioned three films from Japanese, Cambodian and Filipino directors to represent the theme 'Reflections: Living Together in Asia'. This was the first edition of a government-sponsored film co-production entitled the Asian Three-Fold Mirror. Running from 2014 to 2020, this initiative aims at improving mutual understanding between national audiences. This project shows a shift towards reciprocity and active collaboration and away from a unidirectional Japanese cultural diplomacy. However, it casts Japan as a primary actor for a successful regionalization of Southeast Asia, thus undermining the advertised reciprocity of the initiative. Through a juxtaposed analysis of the policy papers that led to the funding of this project, and of the creative content and reception of the films, this paper analyses the aims of these policies, and evaluates how the project of the Asian Three-Fold Mirror relates to these goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on multilingual research that analyses the British Council Shakespeare Lives programme. Based on a study of the global Twitter campaign to promote the programme, and a manual coding and analysis of 4,722 tweets in five languages, we investigate the key Twitter actors, topics and types of engagement generated by the campaign. We reflect on two topics that still largely remain absent in the field of cultural diplomacy: first, global audience reactions to a cultural diplomacy programme, and second, the potential of cultural relations organisations to generate intercultural dialogue, at the same time as measurable returns both on investment and influence. Our findings demonstrate that audiences like to engage with activities that invite their participation in ways that reflect their knowledge of Shakespeare, allowing them to compare his works with their own national/local literary figures and to share ideas about universal themes. While the Twitter campaign garnered significant positive attention from members of the public around the globe, the ambition to boost 'Brand Britain' did not appear to materialise. We conclude that dialogic forms of cultural diplomacy that stress the value of open cultural democracy, even if difficult to achieve in practice, are more likely to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Scholarship diplomacy' refers to a country's diplomatic strategy of offering scholarships to and sponsoring the studies of overseas students to improve bilateral relations, promote academic exchange, or support the educational and academic development of the target country. Compared with traditional diplomacy, scholarship diplomacy is more effective in engaging foreign publics and is less confrontational. It is part of the trend of global education and is receiving increasing attention from academics and policymakers. Scholarship diplomacy aimed at neighbouring countries (Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, etc.) is an important component of contemporary India's cultural diplomacy. The region-focused feature of Indian scholarship diplomacy is notable and deserves in-depth analysis. This paper regards India's scholarship diplomacy as a strategy to counter China's growing influence in South Asia and points out that this practice serves India's 'Neighbourhood First' strategy by 1) exporting its cultural values; 2) attracting foreign citizens and promoting people-to-people cultural exchange; 3) and strengthening geographical ties with South Asian countries. Ultimately, all of these activities serve India's interests. This paper also discusses the practical and theoretical underpinnings of Indian scholarship diplomacy and lays a foundation for future research on the country's cultural diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The People's Republic of China, since its foundation in 1949, has been at the forefront of strategizing outward translation (translation of works for readers outside of China) as a means of cultural diplomacy. The concept 'guojia fanyi shijian' (literally, national translation practice) is being developed by Chinese scholars to analyze state-sponsored translation. This article provides a historical overview of China's state-sponsored outward translation activities and aims to highlight the conundrum of deploying translation as a means of cultural diplomacy in the Chinese context. The close relationship between the concept of soft power and the Chinese propaganda system not only constrains the creativity and attractiveness of cultural resources, but also predisposes translation projects to prioritize the source culture over the target culture. Based on the possibility of extending cultural diplomacy beyond national interests, this article argues that the Chinese government's use of translation for cultural diplomacy should draw insights from intercultural communication practices to reinvent the principle of 'neiwai youbie' (different approaches to domestic and foreign propaganda work). In particular, the growing international popularity of Chinese online literature, largely translated by fans, is a timely reminder for policymakers to reform their conventional translation policies with the aim of increasing soft power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Balassi Institute is the main cultural institution responsible for facilitating Hungary's cultural diplomacy goals in promoting Hungarian national culture and relationship-building with its diaspora communities abroad. This paper argues that the Balassi Institute's Hungarian Culture & Language Studies program operates as a resource of soft power in collaboration with Hungarian communities abroad to strategically shape second, third and fourth generation Hungarian-Australians as 'good-will ambassadors' who are expected to continue Hungary's cultural diplomacy efforts through promoting Hungarian culture abroad. This process of good-will ambassador construction occurs well before the program's commencement through selection processes and in drawing on the efforts of the Hungarian diaspora communities. This paper draws on focus group data with Hungarian community leaders in Australia and analysis of public documents and program applicant forms to the Balassi Institute. It also draws on motivation letters provided by previous program participants, communications with staff from the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as information provided by the Hungarian Scout Association Abroad, to highlight that both the State of Hungary and the Hungarian community in Australia become agents of soft-power collaboratively working to construct Hungarian good-will ambassadors and fulfil shared aims in safeguarding Hungarian national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objects of cultural heritage present a unique and important opportunity for the use of blockchain technology. Specifically, blockchain, a distributed ledger technology, can be used to disincentivize the sale of looted objects and to manage shared stewardship, ownership, and exhibition of these contested artifacts taken though war or colonialism. We offer background on repatriation of antiquities using the Byzantine Fresco Foundation as a core case study; introduce a working model of stakeholders in antiquities markets in both contemporary and historical context; and propose a blockchain solution using four different cases. The paper draws on newly sourced archival documents, game-theory interpretations of stakeholder behavior and application of this new technology in regulatory context. These blockchain applications are especially timely with the publication of the Sarr Savoy Report and the Arts Council England's rewriting of its restitution guidelines for museums and galleries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to explore the main rationale of Polish cultural diplomacy as it was developed by governmental and non-governmental actors at a time of international conflict. Focusing on the years following Poland's EU accession (2004) and particularly the Polish Year in Russia planned for 2015 and cancelled in 2014, this study contextualises these developments in the post-state-socialist transition to democracy. In this period a convergence between Polish cultural and public diplomacy took place. The main argument is that the internal developments in state cultural policy can be understood as constitutive of the foreign policy strategy of cultural diplomacy, as its domestic determinant. However, as the case of Poland shows, the logic of foreign policy continues to dominate cultural diplomacy. At the time of international conflict state cultural policy struggles to project its voice abroad through cultural diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent development of heritage industries and national heritage promotions in non-Western countries opens a new space for international cooperation and competition in ways that directly link to the power-political relations between states. What motivates these countries to accelerate their efforts to promote their cultural heritage internationally? Are such dynamics different from how cultural heritage is constructed and used in Western countries? This study conceptualises heritage as soft power in terms of culture, values and foreign policies, and by focusing on Japan and China, it examines the ways and motives of using cultural heritage as soft power. Although Japan and China are distinctly different countries, both share a remarkably similar approach to the construction and promotion of national heritage when participating in international heritage platforms. The present study's findings suggest that the promotion of cultural heritage is not only a feature of nation-building and nation-branding but also feeds into global and regional competitions over the attainment of cultural and moral supremacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how women contribute to cultural diplomacy by engaging in activities that relate to their country of origin. The article focuses on one non-state network called the Swedish Women's Educational Organization (SWEA). SWEA aims to foster interest in Swedish culture by organizing public cultural events and financially supporting causes that aim to increase engagement with Swedish culture. The transnational practices that these women engage in enables them to display Swedish culture to American society. This study examines how these women assume meaningful roles as unofficial ambassadors of Sweden, and how their daily and unpaid activities to promote their homeland culture is recognized by official Swedish representatives in the United States. Study findings show that the work these women perform became entangled with official diplomatic institutions. On a structural level, the women's agency enables them to carve out meaningful spaces for themselves within the field of cultural diplomacy. At the same time, some of their assumed roles reinforce notions about feminine spheres of action within international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural diplomacy is often described as one tool in a nation's diplomatic toolbox. But the term 'cultural diplomacy' encompasses many different activities. Which of these are pursued, why, and with what consequences, are important, yet often ignored questions. Using the 2018 and 2019 Eurovision Song Contests as a case study, this article explores Israel's attempts to instrumentalize the privately-run music competition for cultural diplomacy purposes. By exalting cultural icons and connecting them publicly to their home country officials attempt to transfer the positive associations foreigners have with the cultural act to the nation as a whole. However, I posit that this cultural policy instrument is used reactively rather than strategically, and that it ignores potential negative consequences, for example a legitimization and publication of opposing forces, in this case the Palestinian cultural boycott of Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British Government policy has much to say about video games, through production support, regulation and recognition (or lack of it) of their cultural nature, with games defined and promoted as part of the creative industries in a manner which owes much to film policy. Yet, the drive to promote both the games industry and games culture, and the inconsistent usage of terms like culture and creativity, produces tensions between different elements of 'Britishness', expressed and experienced not only through policy, but also through the creation and consumption of games. In considering the specificity of games' contribution to British identity, therefore, we must understand how different elements of cultural policy interact with the interests of audiences and creators to define 'British games' – games which have the quality of being, or being seen to be, British. Such games might be expected not only to represent British culture within a global marketplace, and to project soft power, but also to address the British nation in some manner. This diversity, of global and local, of present-mindedness and nostalgia, suggests that British games articulate a complex and plural sense of national (cultural) identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the cultural diplomacy initiatives undertaken by the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) during Makarios presidency (1960–1977) in order to strengthen the state acknowledgement and visibility in the international scenery and promote a nation brand focused mainly on the Hellenocentric aspect of the Greek-Cypriots' cultural identity. Cyprus, a recently independent state (1960), shaped its cultural diplomacy practices according to the political developments; on the escalation of bi-communal conflicts internally and the international insecurity provoked by the Cold War rhetoric. This paper aims to map certain state cultural initiatives in an attempt to make connections between the internal identity-building process and the external projection of cultural identity and gain a better understanding about how a small-sized state can pursue and project a nation brand abroad by practicing the diplomacy of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the second half of 2018, Austria for the third time has taken over the EU Council Presidency and is therefore particularly interested in promoting an image of itself as a reliable partner and a European country which accepts and protects European values. Foreign cultural policy is one of the suitable instruments for achieving this goal. The present paper analyses Austrian foreign cultural policy with the aim of finding out how European integration affects it. The paper uses qualitative research methods such as desk research, document research and expert interviews. The results of the analyses show that Austrian stakeholders traditionally consider Europeanization primarily as a tool to promote Austrian national interests on the international stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of diaspora in cultural exchange, international affairs and in economic development is now well established. What is new is the increasing proliferation of national strategies to harness them actively for public diplomacy. This article addresses the rise of Australia's only formal, global diaspora network: Advance - Australia's Global Community which has acted self-consciously to become an instrument of public diplomacy. Emerging from a small base in New York, Advance sought to 'open doors' for Australians in the world's biggest market. Cultivating a strong membership base of well-connected individuals in the arts, commerce and professions, Advance developed its network centrality by building partnerships with state governments, Australian universities and federal government agencies. As an elite organisation of high-profile Australians overseas, Advance has developed into a global organisation communicating Australian culture and economic achievements to both Australian national audiences and foreign constituencies. Abbreviation: AAA - Australian American Association ACOLA - Australian Council of Learned Academies AWNY - Australian Women in New York BHP - Broken Hill Propriety CEDA- Committee for the Economic Development of Australia CEO - Chief Executive Officer DC - District of ColumbiaDFAT - Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade ICJP - International Journal of Cultural Policy ICT - information and communications technology KEA - Kiwi Expatriate Organisation MFA - Ministry of Foreign Affairs MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology NGO - non governmental organisationNISA - National Innovation and Science AgendaNZ - New Zealand SBS - Special Broadcasting Service TIE - The Indus Entrepreneur UN - United Nations US - United States USA - United States of America YAPA - Young Australian Professionals Association [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent turn to substantial theories of 'recognition' in international relations is of considerable interest for the study of international cultural relations. France provides a revealing case study due to the historical importance of culture as such in its foreign policies. Its 'diplomacies of influence' can be understood as forms of recognition-seeking across shifting international 'regimes of recognition' (Ringmar). France once played a leading role in shaping the global templates for cultural recognition between states. In recent decades, it has had to adapt to the terms of new recognition templates established elsewhere, either via forms of institutional imitation, or by seeking to inflect these new templates (notably in a self-ascribed role as global champion of cultural diversity). These dynamics can be traced in a series of official reports on France's external cultural policies, notably across the sectors of language policy, arts diplomacy, higher education mobility and global news projection. The reports' deliberation on these processes opens a space for critical discussion concerning the contemporary operation of international regimes of recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cine Europa is a European Union Film Festival that has been staged annually in the Philippines since 1997. The EU attempts to augment Europe's visibility through this effort, as European countries, through their corresponding embassies and cultural institutes, submit a film entry to exhibit to Philippine audiences. This paper characterises Cine Europa as a collaborative cultural diplomacy event, due to the participation of multiple states in one initiative. Findings form this case study indicate that although a collaborative cultural diplomacy project can bring together countries to work towards a common cultural goal, such as staging a festival, the policies, agendas, and interests of their home countries often take precedence in decision-making in areas like film selection. This is reflected in the way that the festival programme is created. Applying a production of culture approach, this paper argues that contributions by participating countries are influenced by three key considerations: the costs of acquiring films from their home countries, the states' hosting of or participation in other film festivals in the Philippines, and the availability of films that align with the assigned theme of Cine Europa for the year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Francoist cultural policy in Latin America - itself based on Hispanist philosophy - and the Spanish activity in the Organization of Ibero-American States (1949) promoted the emergence of Ibero-American cultural diplomacy. The return of democracy to Spain in 1978 turned these projects into more horizontal instruments of cultural cooperation. After a process of institutionalization that led to the creation of SEGIB and the establishment of the Ibero-American Cultural Letter in 2006, this multilateral diplomatic system was called into question due to its economic asymmetries and its ideological basis. However, the relative influence of this process in reformulating the system and in creating a shared identitarian discourse within Ibero-America has never been properly weighted, nor has the importance of each actor within this process. This article analyses the multilateral Ibero-American cultural diplomacy in order to understand its recent transformations in terms of the importance of both national power and symbolic hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial introduction presents the aims and contents of a special issue devoted to cultural policies in Ibero-America. The issue provides a wide-ranging overview about the subject. In addition to papers focused on the development of cultural policy in specific countries, it also includes articles analyzing particular cultural policies in a transnational perspective, paying attention to their multiple programmatic transferences. It also includes articles centred on the development of cultural diplomacy and institutional networks within this area. In this way, it intends to highlight the commonalities among countries and the relations between them, so offering a new and deeper vision of the development of cultural policies in the Ibero American region. In this introduction we offer some theoretical keys for analyzing this development, in particular the notion of family of nations proposed by Castle (1993) and we evaluate its applicability to the case and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews selected contemporary theoretical approaches to cultural diplomacy and suggests that there is still room for further theorizing in the field. Cultural diplomacy has drawn its justification and objectives from a rationalist view of politics, particularly the various realisms and liberalisms, and substantiating it with theories of social constructivism and cosmopolitanism is pertinent. Cultural diplomacy all the way down implies making common understanding of Other-societies the prime objective of the field, deploying cooperation and exchanges as a core strategy. An Ibero-American perspective implies a specific cultural-regional discourse, where mestizaje, cooperation, and understanding in the area of cultural diplomacy require a cosmopolitan constructivist approach to make sense. The result is a radical view of the Other-in-relation-to-us, both of whom are part of the family of mankind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1959, UNESCO published a film catalogue titledOrient. A Survey of Films Produced in Countries of Arab and Asian Cultureto familiarise Western audiences with Eastern cultures. Out of the 139 feature films included in the catalogue, 37 were Japanese. Through a discussion of the descriptions of the films provided in the catalogue, this article analyses Japan’s post-war cultural diplomacy in the context of the Orient project. The aim is to discuss the question of what purpose the Japanese films chosen for the Orient catalogue served in terms of cultural diplomacy. The analysis suggests the Japanese representatives aimed to position the nation in the international arena outside the Cold War political and ideological framework. Instead, they promoted national interests by utilising the catalogue project to renegotiate the country’s position in the post-war world with the larger ideal of intercultural understanding guiding the selection process and the meaning created for Western audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While positively connoted tangible cultural heritage is widely recognized as an asset to states in their exercise of soft power, the value of sites of ‘dark heritage’ in the context of soft power strategies has not yet been fully explored. This article offers a theoretical framework for the analysis of the multiple soft power potentialities inherent in the management and presentation of sites of past violence and atrocity, demonstrating how the value of these sites can be developed in terms of place branding, cultural diplomacy and state-level diplomacy. The relationship between dark heritage, soft power and the search for ‘ontological security’ is also explored, highlighting how difficult pasts can be mobilized in order to frame positive contemporary roles for states in the international system. Drawing on this theoretical framework, the article offers an analysis of the case of the Soča valley in Slovenia and the presentation of the site of the First World War battle of Kobarid in a dedicated museum. Through this case study, the article underlines the particular role of dark heritage for the national self-projection of a new and small state in the context of European integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural diplomacy using diasporic communities as facilitators of interaction between states has long been important. This article suggests a typology of networks of communication derived from a case study of long-established diasporas living in post-independence Kazakhstan and their relationship with their European ‘homelands’. The typology juxtaposes the official stance of homeland governments expressed in formal and legal provisions with the lived experience of the diaspora communities. The study highlights the benefits of developing vibrant ‘valued’ networks of communication embracing both local diasporas and homeland embassies and agencies. In such cases, diplomatic benefits accrue to the homeland and local communities are empowered. Similarly, failing to capitalise on positive sentiment with some infrastructural support may leave an ‘expressive’ network as one of neglected potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the singularities of Indian doctrine and practice of cultural diplomacy, beginning with the observation that this term and the notions of ‘soft power’ and ‘public diplomacy’ commonly associated with cultural diplomacy elsewhere do not have much purchase in India, where the spirit and letter of ‘international cultural relations’ are the preferred currency. The essay explores the historical grounding for this preference, as well as the attitudes and practice that flow from it. Another singularity is the role and importance of the Indian diaspora: overseas populations of Indian origin have been both a significant segment of the target audience for international cultural relations – as if a certain idea of India had to be projected abroad to a part of itself – and a significant ‘co-producer’ in projecting that image. A third is the emergence of a new avatar of the diasporic Indian, now identified with capitalist entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses how the government of Qatar has over the last years used practices of cultural diplomacy to enhance its standing abroad, and consolidate its legitimacy at home. Looking in particular at key initiatives of international collaboration of the Qatar Foundation and Qatar Museums, I argue that the Qatari government strategically uses cultural diplomacy to first produce and then disseminate an elite identity narrative of Qatar being a cohesive, future-oriented and rightfully engaged player in international affairs both inside and outside the state. To develop this argument, the analysis builds on observation during fieldwork in Doha between 2015 and 2016, and is enriched by a textual analysis of primary and secondary sources. As a timely contribution, the paper moreover shows that even in the light of considerable economic downturn, where budgets are cut and state-projects downsized, official narratives about Qatar’s global cultural ambitions have so far remained largely unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural diplomacy continues to attract significant interest as a potential means for states to exercise ‘soft power’. However, policy-makers and academics who assert the efficacy of cultural diplomacy in terms of influencing foreign publics and states rarely consider how cultural products are actually received abroad. This article proposes that this process of reception can be better understood with reference to the theoretical approaches of Cultural Studies, which encourage us to recognise the extent to which audiences are implicated in processes of meaning-making, processes which are closely associated with the articulation of identity. By applying these approaches to cultural diplomacy, policy-makers and researchers could shift their focus to an exploration of realities of the reception cultural products abroad, which would better inform their assumptions about how to achieve successful cultural diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines how acrobatics was imbued with multiple meanings through the practices of nation-state building and international diplomacy. More specifically, the author discusses why the Chinese government chose acrobatics to facilitate the Sino-US rapprochement and the implications of this cultural diplomacy for the governments as well as the acrobats. Drawing on oral history interviews and archival data, this study demonstrates how the relationship between acrobatics and the ideas of ‘Chinese revolution’ was established, strengthened, disrupted, and finally re-modified to facilitate China’s relations with the West. This historical investigation advances the literature on performing arts and politics by exposing the political logics in the North-South exchange. As important, the analysis of acrobats’ engagement with Cold War politics evades state-centric narratives and contributes to an understanding of international diplomacy from a bottom-up perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What mission and objectives does China want to achieve through its project of globalizing Chinese media? What are its moral and intellectual justifications? What key recommendations are being made in its policy deliberations so far, and to what extent do they represent continuity with or departure from China’s past? I pursue these questions in this paper through an analysis of a range of policy statements and scholarly research published in China. First, I examine the extent to which China’s public diplomacy policy has shifted, paying particular attention to both continuity and change over time. I then outline the major policy recommendations that have been proposed as part of China’s efforts to improve its global image through media expansion. Finally, I consider the ways in which various moral and intellectual resources have been marshalled to justify and propel such initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The field of cultural diplomacy, which looms large in present-day cultural policy and discourse, has been insufficiently analysed by the cultural disciplines. This special issue engages with the task of filling the gap. The present essay sets out the terms in which the authors have taken up this engagement, focusing principally on Australia and Asia. Distinguishing between cultural diplomacy that is essentially interest-driven governmental practice and cultural relations, which is ideals-driven and practiced largely by non-state actors, the authors pursue a twofold aim. First, to demystify the field, especially when it is yoked to the notion of ‘soft power’; second, to better understand how actually-existing discourses of cultural diplomacy and/or cultural relations operate in different national contexts. The essay seeks in particular to scrutinize the current confusion surrounding cultural diplomacy and, in the context of the changing role of the nation-state, to explore its possibilities as an instrument for going beyond the national interest. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This chapter analyses the emergent cultural diplomacy discourse and practice of the European Union (EU) institutions, which has differed from that of nation-states. In semantics to begin with, since a far broader notion of ‘culture in EU external relations’ is EU usage. Yet Bhabha’s theoretical distinction between the ‘pedagogical’ and the ‘performative’ functions of nation-state narrative strategies holds at the supra-national scale as well: the author will explore the ways in which these functions have been appropriated by non-state actors. In EU cultural diplomacy as a ‘cultural policy of display’ in Raymond Williams’ sense, the agenda setting process has thus been marked by a polyvocal process of appropriation by different stakeholders. They have recently taken the discourse ‘beyond cultural diplomacy’ and expedient ‘soft power’ considerations, in a spirit of global cultural citizenship that privileges intercultural dialogue, mutuality and reciprocity. How this vision will be applied, however, is yet to be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that in the case of Korea, cultural diplomacy (CD) has been explicitly implemented in a top-down and unilateral approach by government to enhance national prestige abroad, underpinned by the institutional legacy of a ‘developmental state’ model of governance. Yet, an implicit approach has also emerged, associated with capacity building of the domestic cultural industries through promoting ‘international cultural exchange’. Whilst the top-down unilateral approach has persisted, a disarray of policy rhetoric and institutional fragmentation surrounding CD, as well as the blurring of cultural industries development policy with the CD agenda has led to gradual convergence of both explicit and implicit approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article compares US and Chinese national soft power strategies, using the cases of the US Shared Values Initiative for the Middle East in the aftermath of 9–11 and the present operation of Chinese Confucius Institutes in the US. Comparing these two national programs, I describe a consistent disjunction between visual image and spoken word for each. Regardless of variations in national approaches to soft power, this disconnect between seeing and talking is a limitation of soft power as a cultural tool of diplomatic communication. First, public diplomats’ unexamined folk theories about culture’s instrumental role in messaging emphasize spectacle in ways inimical to reciprocal engagement. Second, as a cultural policy of display, soft power image projection discourages opportunities for inter-cultural dialogue. Third, government-sponsored national image management and branding are often controversial elsewhere, in the process touching off boundary-patrolling public debates instead of helping to build international relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the influence of cultural policy studies and other theoretical approaches ‘after critique’, the dominant paradigm across much of the humanities remains anti-governmental especially when ‘culture’ is the other term in the equation. This paper argues instead for a positive relationship between humanities academics/intellectuals and the governmental agendas of cultural diplomacy, and for ways of accommodating critical perspectives on both the concept of ‘the national interest’ and the instrumentalisation of culture. It examines the policy objectives of the Australian government’s main cultural diplomacy agencies together with practical examples from its bilateral bodies, in particular the Australia-China Council and its program of support for Australian Studies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper critically examines the development of what is known as ‘pop-culture diplomacy’ in Japan. In the postwar era, the country’s cultural diplomacy was propelled by the necessity to soften anti-Japan perceptions, notably in Southeast Asia. In the late 1980s, the popularity of Japanese media culture in Asia began to attract the attention of policy makers, while subsequent globalized practices of soft power and nation branding gave greater emphasis to the use of media culture to internationally enhance the image of the nation, which has meant the promotion of ‘pop-culture diplomacy’ and, more broadly, ‘Cool Japan’. It is argued that pop-culture diplomacy goes no further than a one-way projection and does not seriously engage with cross-border dialogue. The Japanese case also shows that pop-culture diplomacy hinders meaningful engagement with internal cultural diversity and suggests the necessity of taking domestic implications of cultural diplomacy seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the ways in which one of Australia’s cultural diplomacy initiatives aimed at bringing Australia closer to Asia – the Asialink Arts Residency Program – may provide valuable insights for reimagining cultural diplomacy with a revised understanding of the national interest that reflects the increasingly transnational realities of the contemporary world. Drawing on extensive data gained from interviews and an online survey, the author found that program participants are engaging in exceptionally complex and at times unintended activities, and that policy concerns, such as positive image projection abroad, are rarely high on the residents’ list of priorities. However, these experiences are of particular value for the national interest, in ways not yet formulated by or included in existing cultural diplomacy discourses. With the findings in mind, the author takes a critical cosmopolitan approach to reconceptualising cultural diplomacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Diplomatic relations between South Korea and Israel were formed only in 1962. Furthermore, as the two countries from both ends of the continent cooperated in various areas during the 1960s and 1970s, relations were becoming more complicated and even officially rather cool in light of Korea’s evolving relations with the Arab world. Against this backdrop, and based on the reading of contemporaneous Israeli press, the study argues that culture mattered very much in the early stages of the relations. Cultural contacts between Koreans and Israelis started well before the establishment of full diplomatic relations, and cultural diplomacy played a significant role in maintaining them in the decades that followed. Like today, both parties often emphasized the cultural and historical affinities between the two peoples, and in the process, the Israeli public was exposed to early glimpses into Korean culture while images of Korea and its people were created as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on government policy aimed at the presentation of the nation abroad through cultural activities and its relation to national identity, external cultural policy. The methodological framework is offered by the discourse analysis of Wodak and the notion of identity of Laclau and Mouffe, treating policy as a discourse. A closer look is taken at the concept of cultural diplomacy and the closely related term nation branding. This article will show how the shift in paradigm also changes the role of ‘the other’ in the construction of national identity and how this influences the role of the arts in international cultural policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Museums are increasingly recognised as having a role to play within international relations, to facilitate cultural exchange, assert national identity and foster mutual understanding. Whilst international work is perceived to be politically motivated and diplomatically advantageous, it can be highly beneficial to cultural institutions. In this paper, ‘cultural diplomacy' is shown to be a strategy used by museums to enable organisational development and economic growth. This paper demonstrates how national museums adopted a political rhetoric and used strategic lobbying to formulate a new cultural policy, which expanded the scale and scope of their international work. By defining the parameters and principles of this policy, the institutions wield power, thus challenging the conventional perceptions of policy-making and contradicting commentators who accuse museums of political subservience. Throwing the notion of instrumentalism into disarray, this paper calls for a theoretical and conceptual rethinking, to revamp understanding and bring it in line with practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines wartime Japan's establishment of culture bureaus and its promotion of the Takarazuka Girls' Revue in allied European nations and the United States in a moment of international crisis. This overseas cultural policy was part of a series of alternative strategies employed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an effort to persuade the West to acknowledge Japan's self-appointed role as a leader in East Asia, capable of producing advanced cultural products on a par with those of western nations. Key features of this essay include the negotiation between state goals and private interests in the performance of cultural diplomacy, as well as the aesthetic articulation of a hybrid Japanese culture which was traditional yet fully modern, particularly as presented on stage through a display of the female body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]