Cultural Diplomacy: Soft Power

Public diplomacy is one of the important methods of the state’s foreign policy. Sometimes this method is underestimated because it doesn’t involve military and political power of a certain state and it is mainly aimed at influencing public opinion of foreign audience. However, cultural diplomacy is a meaningful tool that helps to shape an appropriate image of a country and to attract foreigners to its culture, language, traditions and lifestyle. To start my thesis, I would like to introduce the concept of “public diplomacy” and its main dimensions.
Cultural diplomacy is also called a “soft power”. This term was coined by Joseph Nye in 1990. Soft power is “based on intangible or indirect influences such as culture, values, and ideology”. J.

An object of public diplomacy, as it was mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, is to promote national interests and values and to influence foreign nation’s perception of your native state and its interests. That is why it is mainly oriented at citizens of other country, not on the state’s officials. In a pursuit of gaining a sphere of influence on other nation, it may be used such method as propaganda. For example, during the Cold War the Soviets spread the information that AIDS was created by the United States and that the US forces used chemical weapons in Honduras and Grenada. Of course, there is a small chance that this is a true information, but, by spreading it, they tried to gain influence during that time and to convince people of the Soviet Union that the Unites States is an enemy-state. Usama bin Laden justified his terroristic organization and its actions by blaming the United States in its intervention in the Middle East. He used propaganda in the promotion of anti-American spirit in some Arab societies. Sometimes propaganda is based on false facts or facts that lack sufficient evidence and they are used to foster certain opinion in a particular society. So, propaganda can be used as a kind of the state’s public diplomacy campaign in order to influence other nation’s perception of something or

This dimension demands a lot of time and a well-developed organization of state’s institutions and programs that are aimed at foreign audience. Scholarships, students’ exchanges, trainings, conferences, weeks of culture – all of these events relate to this dimension and contribute to the development of, in most cases, positive relations between different countries. This kind of public diplomacy is quite important because it is mainly oriented at local people who will be acquainted with traditions and customs of other nation and will shape a perception of it. It is important to be ensured that the organized events will bring a positive experience to people and there will be follow-up afterwards. There are dozens of examples of this kind of events: the Unites States FLEX exchange program that gives opportunity to school students from former Soviet states to experience the American culture for a year, “Le Printemps français en Ukraine” festival organized by French embassy and cultural organizations that introduces French culture to local citizens in Ukraine,