Although cultural diplomacy has grown in importance in recent years, there is no consensus on its definition. Cultural diplomacy is commonly framed in terms of soft power: the capacity of persuasion and attraction that allows the state to construct hegemony without using coercive methods. In this article, I offer a critical analysis of this theory’s limitations. To shed light on this situation, I provide an historical analysis of cultural diplomacy. Based on this historical analysis and on an extensive desk research, I examine the dominant methodological and conceptual articulation of soft power in cultural diplomacy literature to clarify how the logical framework of soft power favors a specific and restrained conception of these policies, narrowing its understanding and legitimating its economic and political instrumentalization.
This article seeks to explain the conditions for the emergence and institutionalization of the cultural paradiplomacy of the city of Barcelona and its local effects. The recognition of the city as an active participant on the international stage is based on its evolution from an industrial to a service economy. Against this backdrop, Barcelona's city council, in common with many other city authorities operating in the world's metropolises during the 1980s, initiated its own cultural paradiplomacy as a strategy for attracting capital and promoting local development. This policy became established as part of a new multi-level system of governance. This article analyses the causes of the institutionalization of this activity from an intergovernmental perspective.It concludes that in the context of economic globalization, the emergence of cities' cultural paradiplomacy is strongly related to the restructuring of the State and its external administration and to the intensification of the "cultural branding" of cities as a tool for global competition.
ha revelado distintas tensiones políticas y sociales derivadas del uso de la cultura local con fines de creación de marca ciudad. No obstante, dichos estudios no se han centrado en las racionalidades detrás de este proceso ni en sus implicaciones para los modelos de la política cultural local en el ámbito cinematográfico. Con el objetivo de avanzar en el entendimiento de los modos de relación entre marca y política cultural, en este artículo analizamos una de las estrategias de cultural branding desarrolladas por la ciudad: la actividad pública en torno al filme Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Mediante el análisis de las relaciones políticas y los objetivos detrás de dicho proyecto, este artículo revela la instrumentalización gubernamental del patrimonio cultural de la ciudad con el fin de fortalecer y promover una marca global orientada al turismo. palabras clave | política urbana, cultura urbana, marketing urbano. abstract | The literature on the governance of cultural policy in Barcelona has revealed different political and social tensions arising from the use of local culture for the purpose of creating a city brand. However, these studies have not focused on the rationales behind this process nor on its implications for the models of local cultural policy in the cinematographic field. With the aim of advancing in the understanding of the modes of relationship between brand and cultural policy, in this article we analyze one of the cultural branding strategies developed by the city: the public activity around the film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Through the analysis of political relations and the objectives behind this project, this article reveals the governmental instrumentalization of the city's cultural heritage in order to strengthen and promote a global tourism-oriented brand. keywords | urban policy, urban culture, urban marketing.
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