In search for Cultural Diplomacy

Despite forming part of the modern buzzwords, cultural diplomacy has been into existence since ancient times. One instance is the Olympic Games which were born in Ancient Greece. Athletes represented their city-states and kingdoms in competitions and were regarded as an alternative to military conflicts. It could be argued that cultural diplomacy is a form of “soft power” such as defined by J. Nye: “the ability to persuade through culture, values and ideas, as opposed to ‘hard power’, which conquers or coerces through military might” (cited in Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, available at: http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/index.php?en_culturaldiplomacy). However, this persuasion could raise towards the pejoratively regarded propaganda when the cultural diplomacy is operated by state diplomats. An uncertainty is to be asked- is cultural diplomacy to be considered part of public diplomacy or it should be deemed to be separate from the latter?

Milton Cummings defined cultural diplomacy as “the exchange of ideas, information, art and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples to foster mutual understanding” (M. Cummings, cited in “Culture Communicates: US Diplomacy that Works”, available at: http://www.clingendael.nl/publications/2004/20040300_cli_paper_dip_issue94.pdf). Thus, cultural diplomacy should be the linking point among hostile states; it should promote peace and understanding. But how distinct it could be from state funding and could it be, because being independent would equally retreat it from eventual propaganda.

Geoffrey Pigman reckons that cultural diplomacy is linked to public diplomacy but “differs in that it is not generally crafted to have an issue-specific message focus […] Whilst culture is an important tool to use in communicating to a foreign public, public diplomacy uses a much wider range of communicative tools than culture alone” (Pigman, 2010, 181). Events giving the names such as “ping-pong diplomacy”, “cricket diplomacy” eventually helped heal bilateral state relations in the countries concerned with those events, but concern has been throughout regarding the role of the players in the above mentioned diplomacies and how careful the latter have to be not to be associated with politics playing ping-pong or cricket.

It is a diplomacy abounding in successful stories indeed, but there is one fine line where the players of cultural diplomacy should not cross in order not to be connected to politics and I think this fine line is embedded in the definition of culture- “the arts and other instances of human intellectual achievement regarded as a whole” (Oxford English Dictionary for Students, 2005, 239).

· “What is Cultural Diplomacy? A Global Dialogue: It all starts Here”, Institute for cultural diplomacy website, available at: http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/index.php?en_culturaldiplomacy, accessed 19 May 2011

· Cummings, M., cited in Schneider, C. (Sept. 2004), “Culture Communicates: US Diplomacy that Works”, Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, available at: http://www.clingendael.nl/publications/2004/20040300_cli_paper_dip_issue94.pdf, accessed 19 May 2011

· Pigman, G. (2010), “Contemporary Diplomacy: Representation and Communication in a Globalised World”, Cambridge: Polity

Image taken from: http://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/alumni-and-friends/floreat-domus/2007/humanitarian-affairs-and-emergency-relief