A Historical Sociology of the New Cultural Diplomacy

Abstract

Although the term ‘cultural diplomacy’ is familiar, it was infrequently used before the end of the Cold War. In fact, practitioners avoided the term and preferred ‘cultural relations’. This paper explains the rise of ‘cultural diplomacy’ via a historical sociology of the broader field of ‘cultural statecraft’. The analysis shows that during the Interwar Period, two modes of cultural statecraft emerged with distinct organizational configurations; ‘cultural relations’ that embedded ‘culture’ within the field of foreign policy and ‘intellectual cooperation’ that sought to de-nationalize culture. Within the cultural relations area, the key relationship was between foreign ministries and semi-autonomous implementing agencies. In this context ‘cultural relations’ served to manage the arms-length relationship between the two sides. At the end of the Cold War, changing policy ideas and the emergence of an organizational model based on projects brought new actors into the field for whom old sensitivities around cultural diplomacy no longer applied.