cultural diplomacy in the public sector - institute for cultural

icd - institute for cultural diplomacy

Cultural Diplomacy in the Public SectorExecutive Summary of the Public Sector Ranking 2012

(ICD Publications - Cultural Diplomacy Outlook 2011)

www.culturaldiplomacy.org - The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy




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Table of Contents

Abstract .......................................................................................................... 3

Introduction ................................................................................................... 4

Research Design ............................................................................................. 5

Methodology.......................................................................................................................5

Parameters & Components ..................................................................................................6

Global Cultural Diplomacy Ranking 2011 .................................................... 7

Detailed Results of the Global Cultural Diplomacy Ranking ..................................................8

The European Union Cultural Diplomacy Ranking 2011 ........................... 10

Detailed Results of the European Union Cultural Diplomacy Ranking ..................................11

Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 12





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AbstractRecognising the central role which cultural diplomacy has to play in international relations, the In-stitute for Cultural Diplomacy Public Sector Ranking 2011 focuses on the degree to which cultural diplomacy is supported and utilised by state governments around the world. Cultural diplomacy is increasingly utilised to enhance national security in subtle, wide-ranging, and sustainable ways, a tool none more so relevant than to the public sector.

A starting definition of cultural diplomacy - and an understanding upon which this research is based - is offered by the American political scientist and author, Milton C. Cummings;

“in which he describes it as “the exchange of ideas, information, values, systems, traditions, be-liefs, and other aspects of culture, with the intention of fostering mutual understanding”

This cultural exchange can take place in various fields including art, sport, literature, music, sci-ence and the economy. Such exchange implies communication and respect between the cultures involved, based on a sounder understanding of respective values and a reduced susceptibility to stereotypes. The potential of such an expanded knowledge is to enable improved interaction and cooperation. Cultural diplomacy is the initiation or facilitation of such exchanges with an aim to yielding long-term benefits, whether they promote national interests, build relationships or enhan-ce socio-cultural understanding.

The public sector is in a singularly prominent position to practice cultural diplomacy and due to their presence in the international arena, from such a platform cultural diplomacy initiatives can be far-reaching and effective. The ICD strongly advocates the use of soft power in facilitating closer bonds between countries through cultural exchange and mutual understanding. However, whilst there is a growing awareness that cultural diplomacy has an important role to play in inter-national relations, it is a subject area which remains largely under-researched.

This report comprises a pilot study of 40 governments drawn from around the globe, investigating their engagement with and commitment to culturally diplomatic projects. The report examines the ways in which various states approach cultural diplomacy, providing a comprehensive group of regional perspectives and a statistical ranking of governments based on their cultural diplomacy initiatives.





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Introduction

This research project ascertains the degree to which cultural diplomacy is being used as a tool of international relations by the various governments included in the study. The desired outcome of the index is to detect and evaluate the emergence or continuation of preferential and advantage-ous policies by states in the field of cultural diplomacy. This is accomplished through the process of communication and interaction with foreign audiences. Governments which actively encourage cultural diplomacy initiatives provide a platform for cultural exchange as a valuable part of inter-national relations.

The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy Public Sector Ranking 2011 measures the effort and effec-tiveness of cultural diplomacy initiatives undertaken by countries around the world. It reflects the extent to which cultural diplomacy is used by states as a tool in international relations. This pilot study considers forty countries with an equal number of countries drawn from the four main geographical regions: Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. By giving equal weight to these four regions the study portrays the diversity and regional differences of governments’ CD initiatives around the globe.

As a result of equal regional representation a number of developing countries are included in the analysis, giving recognition to the emergence of cultural diplomacy activity as an aspirational tool for intercultural exchange and dialogue. Many of the established champions of cultural diploma-cy are also considered in this study, which evaluates their longstanding commitment to fostering mutual understanding and promoting international tolerance.





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Research Design

The Institute for Cultural Diplomacy Public Sector Ranking 2011 evaluates various government activities to determine whether their respective cultural diplomacy programmes are substantial, constructive and effective. In order to create a ranking system on cultural diplomacy for selected countries, specific research questions were developed:

• What governmental actions are being taken to advance cultural diplomacy?

• What are the regional and international cultural diplomacy initiatives undertaken by the country?

• What is the international perception of the country’s culture and the nation’s media policy?

These questions guided data research which enabled researchers to compose the parameters of the ranking.

MethodologyThe research methodology for composing the ICD index consists of three basic phases: research design, data collection and ranking calculation.

In the first stage, a sample of countries was selected, and the research questions were turned into operationalized questions.

In the second stage, data was collected from several sources: the countries’ embassies and culture ministries, the United Nations and UNESCO database, the OECD database, and trusted selected rankings (RSF Ranking, Freedom House Ranking and Nation Brands Ranking). The data collected considers one point in time, usually 2010, or the latest data available.

Finally, in the third stage, the three final parameters were grouped according to the relationship of components and the final ranking was calculated as the average of the three parameter rankings. A final score and position is assigned to each country in the ranking. Scores are composed of complementary indicators that result in the final measure of success in cultural diplomacy. Lower scores are ranked higher in the index, reflecting better national policy and performance.

To populate the four regional lists (Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas), a hybrid ranking of GDP (nominal) and GDP (per capita) was used (in a ratio of 7:3) to determine the top ten coun-tries per region. This method acknowledges the strong correlation between GDP and public sector capacity which allows a government to facilitate cultural diplomacy. Due to the ambiguous and uncertain political situations in Sudan and Libya at the time when the study was conducted, these countries were intentionally omitted.





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Parameters & ComponentsThe components of the index take into account the different ways in which policy and action can further goals in cultural diplomacy. They were also based on research questions for which data is equally available for each of the countries in the index, regardless of geography, economic circum-stance, and political status. The parameters for assessment were set as follows; Parameter 1: Government Cultural Diplomacy ActionsThis category evaluates specific government policies and actions that are directly or indirectly related to countries’ performance in the field of cultural diplomacy. There are three sub-categories that comprise the final Government rankings: Conventions, Embassies, and Official Development Assistance.

Parameter 2: Cultural Diplomacy InitiativesThe Cultural Diplomacy Initiatives parameter is made up of two components: one qualitative and one quantitative. The qualitative component contains data collected on government actions for cultural diplomacy in the following areas:

• Education

• Exchanges

• Performing Arts

• Film Industry

• Visual Arts

• Music

• Sports

Parameter 3: International Perception and Media Policy1

Media policy is directly related to the ways in which cultural diplomacy is distributed in the world. For this category, data was taken based on reports provided by three external sources: Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Freedom House, and the Anholt Nation Branding Index. In each of these reports, countries are given a rank relative to the rest of the world. In the cultural diplomacy re-port, these world rankings are converted to a rank relative to the other countries in the study. For example, a nation could be 10th in the world according to RSF, but receive a 3rd on the CD list when compared to the 40 nations in the study. Nation Branding measures the effectiveness of the cultural diplomacy initiatives carried out by countries, based on international perceptions.

1 Prior to using other rankings to compose the Freedom and Media Policy parameter for the World Cultural Diplomacy Rank-ing and the Europe Cultural Diplomacy Ranking, the biases and potential subjectivity of those rankings were carefully consid-ered, as well as the risks of adding these subjectivity to both rankings. Following considered analysis of the methodologies, availability of data and intentions of many different rankings, the RSF ranking, Freedom House ranking and Nation Brands ranking were chosen to compose this parameter.





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Global Cultural Diplomacy Ranking 2011

The Cultural Diplomacy Global Ranking for the 40 countries selected is presented below:

Germany 1 Mexico 21

Netherlands 1 Trinidad & Tobago 22

Norway 3 Mauritius 23

Switzerland 4 Nigeria 24

UK 5 China 25

France 6 Russia 26

Spain 7 Indonesia 27

US 8 Botswana 28

Canada 9 UAE 29

India 10 Qatar 30

Italy 11 Singapore 31

Australia 12 Bahamas 32

Japan 13 Morocco 33

Luxembourg 14 Algeria 34

Korea 15 Colombia 35

Turkey 16 Barbados 36

Brazil 17 Gabon 37

South Africa 18 Tunisia 38

Egypt 19 Venezuela 39

Argentina 20 Angola 40





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Detailed Results of the Global Cultural Diplomacy RankingThese final ranking positions were reached by calculating the average of three parameter rankings.2

The three parameter rankings in this study and the final rankings are listed below:

Government CD Actions

Cultural Diplomacy Initiatives

International Perception and Media

Policy

Final Ranking

Algeria 27 17.7 33 34

Angola 35 18.6 27 40

Argentina 16 15.3 18 20

Australia 20 3.5 9 12

Bahamas 40 13.7 24 32

Barbados 38 18.1 22 36

Botswana 37 11.5 21 27

Brazil 10 11 16 17

Canada 18 2.3 7 9

China 26 5.9 39 25

Colombia 33 13.2 36 34

Egypt 12 14 24 19

France 3 1.3 10 6

Gabon 28 18.7 32 37

Germany 6 2 1 1

India 8 2.8 20 10

Indonesia 33 12.5 23 27

Italy 10 6.1 13 11

Japan 17 7.3 6 13

Korea 22 2.8 15 15

Luxembourg 9 9 11 14

Mauritius 31 11.9 19 23

Mexico 22 9.3 26 21

Morocco 22 17 37 33

Netherlands 2 2.5 4 1

Nigeria 15 13.6 34 24

Norway 1 3.9 3 3

2 The parameters were composed according to the description in the methodology.





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Government CD Actions

Cultural Diplomacy Initiatives

International Perception and Media

Policy

Final Ranking

Qatar 28 13.4 31 29

Russia 18 13.8 34 26

Singapore 38 9.9 29 31

South Africa 20 7.5 17 18

Spain 3 1.6 12 7

Switzerland 7 2.2 1 4

Trinidad & Tobago 36 9.6 14 22

Tunisia 22 17.8 40 38

Turkey 14 1.9 28 16

UAE 31 12.4 30 29

UK 5 1.8 5 5

US 12 1.4 8 8

Venezuela 28 16.4 38 39





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The European Union Cultural Diplomacy Ranking 2011The overall Cultural Diplomacy Ranking for the 27 states of the European Union is presented below:

Germany 1 Portugal 15

Netherlands 1 Ireland 16

Sweden 3 Poland 17

Austria 4 Hungary 18

Belgium 5 Greece 19

United Kingdom 6 Slovenia 20

Finland 7 Latvia 21

France 8 Lithuania 22

Denmark 9 Malta 23

Luxembourg 10 Cyprus 24

Spain 10 Slovakia 25

Estonia 12 Bulgaria 26

Italy 12 Romania 27

Czech Republic 14





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Detailed Results of the European Union Cultural Diplomacy RankingAs in the Global Ranking, the countries were ranked according to the three parameters outlines in the methodology, however, for the parameter “Cultural Initiatives” the ranking was based on Eurostat data which was relevant to this research. Again, the final ranking was calculated as the average of these three rankings, and can be observed below:

Government Actions Government Actions International Perception and Media

Policy

Final Ranking

Austria 8 2 7 4Belgium 4 6 7 5Bulgaria 17 27 27 26Cyprus 17 23 21 24Czech Republic 24 10 13 14Denmark 2 11 4 9Estonia 22 12 10 12Finland 8 8 2 7France 8 3 13 8Germany 8 1 5 1Greece 8 18 26 19Hungary 15 19 16 18Ireland 17 22 6 16Italy 8 14 20 12Latvia 26 15 23 21Lithuania 22 23 12 22Luxembourg 3 13 10 10Malta 27 19 15 23Netherlands 4 4 3 1Poland 16 16 19 17Portugal 7 19 18 15Romania 24 26 25 27Slovakia 17 25 21 25Slovenia 17 16 24 20Spain 4 9 17 10Sweden 1 7 1 3United Kingdom 8 4 9 6





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ConclusionEurope ranked ahead of the three other regions in the government actions category, largely as a result of adherence to continent-wide initiatives and policies. The three other regions had mixed results in government actions based on respective national policies. European success in govern-ment action was nevertheless, like countries in the other regions, strongly determined by national policy.

The “Cultural Initiatives” category was led by Europe, followed by Asia, the Americas and lastly Africa, but there was no pattern concerning the specific activities in which the regions scored in the “Cultural Initiatives” parameter. Instead, each region had its own unique area of strength. Europe scored most highly for its performing arts; Asia in visual arts; the Americas in music; and Africa in its sports initiatives. This can be explained in part by the objectives of cultural diplomacy in each area, and the relative strengths of the each region: in Europe, for example, performing arts initiatives might be more universally pursued as a cultural representative of the region.

The results for Media Policy and International Perception were largely based on a compilation of studies conducted over the past few years. The final order closely reflects the rankings found in these sources, with European nations again scoring quite highly. The inclusion of international perception the composition of this parameter resulted in the combining of two separate facets of cultural diplomacy: direct policy and its reception which therefore expands the overall scope of the category.

The findings in this study reflect the state of cultural diplomacy in the world in 2011. The parame-ters used to determine the ranking are nevertheless constructed based on available data. It is also less feasible for economically disadvantaged countries to invest in cultural diplomacy in the same degree as parts of the developed world. These realities must be considered when drawing conclu-sions from the final ranking report.


Institute for Cultural DiplomacyKu’damm Karree, Kurfürstendamm 207-208, D-10719 Berlin

Tel.: +49 (0) 30 2360 768 0E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.culturaldiplomacy.org

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