Cultural diplomacy as an external voice of cultural policy. The case of Poland

Abstract

ABSTRACT 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.