Dominique Lopes
SIS-628-02 Applied Public Diplomacy
Craig Hayden
11/29/12
The importance of Cultural Diplomacy
The question was brought up in
class of whether or not Cultural Diplomacy should be practiced. In light of the
difficulty to measure and evaluate its outcomes and impacts and on the various
ways to define “culture”, Cultural Diplomacy can be seen to be an irrelevant
avenue for the policy persuasion attributed to public diplomacy practitioners. However, I believe that Cultural Diplomacy
allows PD officers a unique outlet for interacting with foreign publics on a
very basic level. Arts, food, and local folk lore are common to every nation
and therefor present an informal gateway for persuasion.
Cultural Diplomacy initiatives for
the most part can take a long while to come to fruition, but this does not mean
that they are impossible to measure and evaluate, nor does this mean that they
must always take time to achieve an impact. One of our readings this semester used
the example of the Smithsonian, an American arts organization, partnering with
Haiti after the earthquake. The Smithsonian came in to give guidance and
support to Haitian arts organizations who were trying to rebuild and re-claim
their cultural heritage after the devastation. This partnership was a cultural
exchange under the heading of culture defined as arts and education. It was a
one off whose impact immediately transpired in the knowledge that the Haitians received
and the art works that they were able to recover. Quantitative and qualitative
measurements could easily be evaluated right after the exchange in the
favorable opinion towards the United States and the numbers of arts
organizations that were able to re-build.
Cultural programs also offer venues
for policy makers from different countries to come together outside of
government meetings. These occasions allow the officers to talk informally and
perhaps more personally about important initiatives. The “last three feet”
concept is most apparent during these times. The parties are relaxed and come
together for conversation, not debate. It is very hard to talk at someone about
policy decisions while say learning how to dance a traditional hula. Dialogue
is sparked and people begin to see each other as equals, if not friends, making
coming together on certain policies more likely.
Cultural Diplomacy is important because
culture in all its many forms is important to every country. When we can come
together and learn more about each other we see each other less as the “strange
other” and more as individuals much like ourselves. Though it is hard sometimes
to pin point exact impacts directly related to specific cultural diplomacy
programs, these initiatives open up more realms for two-way dialogue than any
other tool in a PD’s toolbox.
I think cultural diplomacy, broadly defined, can be the most powerful agent of public diplomacy. If we define it as a program or endeavor designed to make a certain group of people understand how we view the world, how we live and who we really are, it is essentially an exercise in empathy.
ReplyDeleteWhile arts exchanges and dancing together do have a 'culture' aspect in the sense of high-culture/low-culture, I think this is distantly secondary to the prime function - to allow these artists to experience the world from another perspective. This is the real engine of change for these programs.
They do take a long time to come to fruition, but this is because a significant experience really takes time - not only for the program, but also for the deep reflection that individuals need to go through after processing the experience and exchange. It is also expensive to run these sorts of exchanges on a large scale - except of course in the case of student exchange, which, at least to me, functions also as cultural diplomacy under the definition above.
Marc Hedman