The history of cultural diplomacy

Cultural diplomacy plays an important role in countering the forces that threaten democracies

today. The goal of cultural diplomacy is not to export a prestigious image, but to create new ways of

cooperation that take into account the specifics of each individual. The image of the state has

acquired great importance in modern international relations; the image that states assert, change or

improve through their actions in the field of public and cultural diplomacy. Indeed, at a time when

countries are becoming increasingly interdependent and in which a growing number of issues

beyond their own borders must be addressed in order to achieve their goals, States are encouraged

to adopt a diplomatic approach that not only emphasizes dialogue between cultures, persuasion,

reconciliation, influence, in short, soft power rather than confrontation, but also involves

international networks that include representatives of culture, education and culture, science and

economics. Therefore, it is not surprising that state and cultural diplomacy is becoming an

increasingly integral part of the arsenal that most governments use to expand their interaction with

foreign countries, whether to form political sympathies and maintain a positive image, or to create

an atmosphere of cooperation that promotes partnerships, of course, in the cultural environment, but

more so in the economy, finance and knowledge1. Therefore, culture, being one of the instruments

of a state’s foreign policy, can have a destabilizing effect both on the state of the international

system as a whole and on the nature of inter-state relations in particular. To understand the current

state of cultural diplomacy on the world stage, it is necessary to turn to its history. In this regard, in

this essay, we will try to study the history of cultural diplomacy and show its role in international

relations.

The emergence of cultural diplomacy

Cultural diplomacy may be an open institution that permits the exchange of social values in

arrange to promote peace and common understanding between people groups. The foremost

1 Jessica C. Gienow-Hecht, Mark C. Donfried, eds. Searching for a cultural diplomacy. Berghahn Books,
2010, pp. 34.
conventional shapes of cultural diplomacy are forums, universal presentations, and festivals held

regularly in numerous states.

According to Patricia M. Goff, cultural diplomacy may be a field of conciliatory action and is

related with the utilize of culture as an question and implies of accomplishing the basic objectives

of the state’s remote arrangement, making a favorable picture of the state, and popularizing the

culture and dialects of its people groups2. The common discourse of national societies, in

conjunction with the fortifying of two-sided relations, is of specific significance for

political, financial and social rapprochement. As a result, social ties are considered not as a kind of

complement to political and financial ties, but as one of the deciding variables that work for the

state’s foreign arrangement interface. 

The subjects of cultural diplomacy within the world practice are ordinarily universal socio–

political and cultural-educational organizations. They more often than not get organizational and

political bolster and, in portion, budgetary help from their

states, arrange their activities with conciliatory missions (frequently the heads of these

organizations are too the heads of social offices of government offices). The subjects work in an

adequately independent way, embracing free methodologies and finding financing (supports,

paid administrations such as language courses or organization of language exams)3.

The term “cultural diplomacy” first appeared under the pen of the French-Hungarian scholar

Janos Hankiss in a book published in 1936 under the Hungarian title “Kultúra Diplomácia

Alapvetése”4. Janos Hankiss’s work of frequently called the “first treatise”

on worldwide cultural relations, appears to be the primary to theorize beneath the name of “cultural

diplomacy” this movement, which is diverse from “official, political or financial diplomacy”,

which includes the accomplishment of political comes about by intellectual,

literary, artistic implies, that’s, through the utilize of political implies, discourses and lectures,

2 Patricia M. Goff. Cultural diplomacy. The Oxford handbook of modern diplomacy. 2017, pp. 87-88.
3 Helena K. Finn. “The case for cultural diplomacy: engaging foreign audiences.” Foreign affairs (2003): 17.
4 Kevin V. Mulcahy. “Cultural diplomacy and the exchange programs: 1938–1978.” The Journal of Arts
Management, Law, and Society 29, no. 1 (1999): 19.
articles in daily papers and magazines, grants and understudy trades, occasion courses

and scientific congresses, tourism, cinema and, over all, these natural systems that are

called social agreements or traditions5.

In any case, Janos Hankiss’s book by remains an confined case, since within the late 1930s the

terms “propaganda” – a term that, in any case, was not continuously negative – or

“International Intellectual Relations”, in agreement with the semantic standards engendered since

the mid-1920s by the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation – the predecessor of

UNESCO6. Within the dictionary of universal participation, the word “cultural” started to seem as it

were after the Second World War, after the conference of the Allied Ministers of Education (1942-

1945) and within the setting of the creation of UNESCO, particularly beneath the impact of

American assignments permeated with the culturalist hypotheses of Anglo-

American connected human studies. “Intellectual relations”, images of the elitism of another time,

must presently deliver way to “cultural relations” outlined to attain the most noteworthy7.

The a long time of the Cold War stimulate the primary publication intrigued within the theorizing

of the activities of states within the field of worldwide social relations. Within the late 1950s and

late 1960s, these terms were clarified and normalized: the use of “cultural relations” got to

be commonplace, and the concept of “cultural diplomacy” got to be more common among Anglo-

American authors – Frederick Barghoorn, Robert Blum, Anthony Haigh, Philipp Coombs, William

Hayter, Walter Laves, Charles Thomson – that of their German-speaking colleagues – Berthold

Martin, Richard Emge, Dieter Braun, Carl Doka, Christian Schneider – or the French – Suzanne

Balous, Louis Dollot, who prefer the concepts of “cultural activity”, “foreign cultural policy” or

“policy of cultural relations”, because the concept of “cultural diplomacy”, in their opinion, carries

too much propaganda load:

5 William Glade. “Issues in the genesis and organization of cultural diplomacy: a brief critical history.” The
Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 39, no. 4 (2009): 251.
6 John Lenczowski. “Cultural diplomacy, political influence, and integrated strategy.” Strategic influence:
Public diplomacy, counterpropaganda, and political warfare (2008): 84.
7 Ien Ang, Yudhishthir Raj Isar, and Phillip Mar. “Cultural diplomacy: beyond the national
interest?.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 21, no. 4 (2015): 376.
 “if we take into account the risk of distortion of cultural relations, we can conclude that

they are not an integral part of diplomatic relations”. Thus, cultural diplomacy is often

called the “policy of cultural expansion”, or better, the “policy of cultural relations”8.

The European Union as a large-scale cultural project

Social issues have long remained on the sidelines of the European integration project, where

the need of the economy over other circles of public actions was undeniable and self-evident.

Joint dialogs on social issues between the heads of state and government of the part states of the

European Economic Community (EEC) started as it were within the 1970s. In 1974, the European

Parliament for the primary time shaped a Committee on Culture. Within the 1980s, the pan-

European social extend “European Cities of Culture” and the biggest reclamation program

“Emblematique” were executed9. A turning point within the field of regulation and lawful plan of

the pan–European social arrangement space was the report of the European Commission of 1987.

“Fresh trends for culture within the European Community”, which emphasized the significance of

culture within the European integration venture. The EU’s social arrangement gotten its

official lawful status within the EU Treaties of 1992 (the Maastricht Treaty) and 1997 (the

Amsterdam Treaty)10. These two treaties define the place and role of the European Union in the

European cultural space and set four pan-European cultural goals11:

• to advance the prospering of the societies of the EU member states, which reflect their national

and territorial differences and at the same time highlight their common cultural heritage;

• support for modern social inventiveness;

• taking under consideration the substances of cultural arrangement in all regions of EU policy;

• promotion of social participation between EU member states and third countries, as well as

with worldwide organizations.

8 Louis Dollot. Culture individuelle et culture de masse. FeniXX, 1993, pp. 92-94.

9 John Holden, Rachel Briggs, Samuel Jones, and Kirsten Bound. “Cultural diplomacy.” London:
Demos (2007): 4.
10 Brian Wallis. “Selling nations: International exhibitions and cultural diplomacy.” Museum culture,
Routledge (2004): 293.
11 Caterina Carta, Richard Higgott, eds. Cultural diplomacy in Europe: Between the Domestic and the
International. Springer, 2019, pp. 108.
 The EU advances measures

to extend participation between cultural workers from diverse part states

and underpins their activities in this region, but does not require part states to harmonize

national cultural approaches. Hence, now, the EU’s social arrangement, agreeing to the

Lisbon Treaty of 2007, is an interstate approach and expect that cultural policy remains inside the

competence of the member states, with extra control by the EU12.

In practice, the EU can as it were co-finance different universal cultural projects actualized by

governments, companies, affiliations, territorial specialists, colleges, investigate centers, and non-

profit organizations from different EU member states. The most competences within the field

of cultural arrangement execution are within the hands of national states, which in this

case oversee their possess and European financial assets.

Conclusion

Hence, numerous states nowadays recognize the pivotal contribution of cultural policy to

the improvement of the character and economy of their social orders, as well as the commitment to

their international scope. Culture, which in later a long time has set up itself – along side the

environment, socioeconomics, or economy – as a fundamental perspective of the world order, is

evolving at the side the computerized insurgency and must meet the requirements and challenges

that are being reestablished beneath the weight of the globalization of trade.

In a world where technological change is reshaping and changing the forces of presence,

governments ought to tune in more than ever to modern actors and systems, both formal and casual.

In this setting, social strategy, depending on the victory of social businesses and

the advancement of information, tries to venture a positive picture of the state overseas. Since the

concept of impact is based primarily on the control of attraction, states rely on

the dynamic interest of cultural institutions within the worldwide field, which look

for their social and creative attributes. 

12 Karen E. Smith. “A European Union global strategy for a changing world?” International Politics 54, no.
4 (2017): 511.
 Cultural diplomacy, formerly the select purview of states, is advancing and reorganizing

as worldwide social administration rises. It is additionally a critical apparatus for

the improvement and advancement of human rights and North-South relations.

This dynamic, counting the significance of arrangements on cultural issues (mental property rights,

the capacity of governments to bolster their social businesses), demonstrates the importance of

rethinking the role of culture in inter-state relations.

Bibliography

Ang, Ien, Yudhishthir Raj Isar, and Phillip Mar. “Cultural diplomacy: beyond the national

interest?.” International Journal of Cultural Policy 21, no. 4 (2015): 365-381.

Carta, Caterina, and Richard Higgott, eds. Cultural diplomacy in Europe: Between the Domestic

and the International. Springer, 2019.

Dollot, Louis. Culture individuelle et culture de masse. FeniXX, 1993.

Finn, Helena K. “The case for cultural diplomacy: engaging foreign audiences.” Foreign

affairs (2003): 15-20.

Gienow-Hecht, Jessica C., Mark C. Donfried, eds. Searching for a cultural diplomacy. Vol. 6.

Berghahn Books, 2010.

 Glade, William. “Issues in the genesis and organization of cultural diplomacy: a brief critical

history.” The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 39, no. 4 (2009): 240-259.

Goff, Patricia M. Cultural diplomacy. The Oxford handbook of modern diplomacy. 2017.

Holden, John, Rachel Briggs, Samuel Jones, and Kirsten Bound. “Cultural diplomacy.” London:

Demos (2007): 1-12.

Lenczowski, John. “Cultural diplomacy, political influence, and integrated strategy.” Strategic

influence: Public diplomacy, counterpropaganda, and political warfare (2008): 74-99.

Mulcahy, Kevin V. “Cultural diplomacy and the exchange programs: 1938–1978.” The Journal

of Arts Management, Law, and Society 29, no. 1 (1999): 7-28.

Smith, Karen E. “A European Union global strategy for a changing world?” International

Politics 54, no. 4 (2017): 503-518.

Wallis, Brian. “Selling nations: International exhibitions and cultural diplomacy.” Museum

culture, Routledge (2004): 285-302.