Sum up of Week 2

Hello. This is the end of week 2. So let’s sum up some of the main points that we have seen this week. The main objective of this week was to introduce the notion of the multilevel governance of cultural diplomacy. We have seen that cultural diplomacy involves a variety of actors at different levels. We saw the role of international organisations like UNESCO. We saw also how countries can gather around the common language, like in the case of Francophonie, or around a common region, like in the case of ASEAN. We also talked about the role of subnational actors, such as cities and regions, and how they can play a role in parallel or in complementarity with states to develop international cultural relations.

We also then talked about the fact that international cultural relations doesn’t only rely on public actors but involves also private actors and civil society. We talked about the idea of a privatisation of cultural diplomacy when mentioning, for instance, the case of the global movie industries in which private actors, like Hollywood movie studios or Wanda, have a great power in leading the power dynamics in this sector. We also talked about the fact that some logics coming from the private sectors have been appropriated within the public sector as well.

But we also talked about the fact that with new technologies, new possibilities are opened for individuals and civil society actors, like NGOs, to intervene directly in developing intercultural dialogue and relations with other countries around the world. So understanding the role of these various actors within cultural diplomacy is important to understand the complexity of this process. But this doesn’t mean that the states doesn’t have a role to play. In fact, what we are seeing is that international organisations are, in fact, serving the interests of the states. They are used as tools for the states to discuss among each other and to promote their interests.

We have also seen that subnational actors are, in fact, working within the legal framework that is set at the national and state level. Also, when thinking about private actors or civil society actors, there are also actors which are regulated by national and state regulations. Next week, we will push further this reflection by looking at the emerging EU strategy for external cultural relations. We will draw on what we saw already this week about the ASEAN and how different member states of a regional organisation can use culture to develop ties among each other in the cultural sector.

But we will go beyond, because in this case we will be looking at how different member states can unite to define a common strategy for external cultural relations. Thank you for following this week again, and see you next time.