This edited collection draws upon interdisciplinary research to explore new dimensions in the politics of image and aid. While development communication and public diplomacy are established research fields, there is little scholarship that seeks to understand how the two areas relate to one another (Pamment 2015, 2016a, b). However, international development doctrine in the USA, the UK and elsewhere increasingly suggests that they are integratedâand should become more integratedâat the level of national strategy. Similarly, ambiguous concepts such as soft power and nation brands are suggestive of changes in how nations represent their identities and interests to one another. But what are the modalities of these changes when viewed through the lens of international development ? How do these strategies interact in practice? And what can this teach us about the changing nature of twenty-first-century development communication?
The approach taken in this volume is to consider a variety of cases drawing upon a combination of theoretical and conceptual lenses that each in its own way combines a focus on aid with attention to image . The cases in this volume consist of empirical contributions in regions as diverse as Kosovo , Korea , Mexico , Turkey , Afghanistan , Somalia , Sweden , Colombia , Russia , and China . They seek to explore foreign policy trends originating with some of the most powerful Northern donors in order to see how they are influencing patterns of national development . Together, these cases establish a new body of knowledge on how contemporary debates into public diplomacy, soft power, and nation branding are fundamentally changing not just the communication of aid, but also its broader strategies, modalities, and practices.
Research in this direction builds on recognition of intersections between public diplomacy and development communication , each of which engages in strategic intervention meant to benefit the public good . While development communication as a field does not always articulate the importance of politics and political interests , we see this as an integral component of communication for social change, in its implementation as well as articulation. Equally, discussions of diplomacy and the pursuit of national interests often foreground (geo-)politics, while underplaying how these activities directly or indirectly empower and disempower societies and individuals to shape their own development . In order to analyze the layers of overlap between these different approaches, the central conceptual framework is grounded in our understanding of the interactions across strategies promoting soft power , public diplomacy, development communication , and nation branding .
Soft Power
Soft power is key in articulating critical intersections across public diplomacy and nation branding, emphasizing the geopolitics that guide strategies such as nation branding . In the late 1970s, Keohane and Nye (1977, p. 19) sketched an image of a world connected by ânetworks of rules, norms, and procedures that regularize behavior.â This context of âcomplex interdependenceâ paved the way for new theories of âhow holders of power could wield that power to shape or distort patterns of interdependence that cut across national boundariesâ (Keohane and Nye 1998, p. 82). One of those theories was Joseph Nyeâs (1990) soft power thesis, an approach that has inspired a range of studies on international influence and attraction (e.g. Nye 2004, 2008; van Ham 2010; Hayden 2012; Thussu 2013).
Theorizing interdependence between different areas of international affairs was integral to Nyeâs earliest uses of the term soft power. In his seminal article from 1990, Nye outlines soft power as a means of transposing power between areas of international relations . He claims that âthe fragmentation of world politics into many different spheres has made power resources less fungible, that is, less transferable from sphere to sphere.â Consequently, âother instruments such as communications, organizational and institutional skills, and manipulation of interdependence have become important ⌠interdependence is often balanced differently in different spheres such as security , trade, and financeâ (Nye 1990, pp. 156â158).
Nyeâs (1990) soft power thesis acted as an influential meditation on how the USA could maintain global leadership in a post-Cold War international system through its superior range of âpower resourcesâmilitary, economic, scientific, cultural, and ideologicalâ (p. 155). An international environment of âunevenly balanced mutual dependenceâ means that actors should seek âto set the agenda and structure the situations in world politicsâ through âco-optive power â (ibid., pp. 158, 166â167). Explicit to Nyeâs theory is the notion of steering flows of knowledge in order to shape experiences of international engagement , all the while utilizing structural advantages to reproduce preferred ideologies:
Co-optive power is the ability of a country to structure a situation so that other countries develop preferences or define their interests in ways consistent with its own. This power tends to arise from such resources as cultural and ideological attraction as well as rules and institutions of international regimes. (Nye 1990, p. 168)
Scholars of development communication will recognize aspects of this approach from the perspective of cultural imperialism . Cultural imperialism forms a robust body of research into the interaction between states, boundary-spanning actors, and international power relations (Schiller 1992 [1969], 1976; Boyd-Barrett 1977; Tunstall 1977; Nordenstreng 1984). It raises questions of how political, economic, and technological advantages seated in the West affect international flows of communication, and how influence over international regulation and distribution is leveraged to reinforce the attractiveness and competitiveness of Western values, goods, services, and structures. Herbert Schillerâs much-cited definition of cultural imperialism may therefore be neatly juxtaposed with Nyeâs description of soft power to demonstrate some of the similarities between concepts:
[Cultural imperialism ] describes the sum of the processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even to promote, the values and structures of the dominant centre of the system. (Schiller 1976, p. 9)
Cultural imperialism research declined during the late 1980s to be superseded by a focus on globalization; however, useful reflection has taken place over the flaws in its methodologies by many of the authors previously working in the field (cf. Boyd-Barrett 1977, 2007; Tomlinson 1991, 1997; or Mattelart 1979, 2002). For example, Thompson argued that a contemporary study of how nations and other transnational actors exert power through communication should acknowledge that there are many players impacting upon these practices, and not just one uncontested national or regional policy . Furthermore, transnational communication patterns engage with long-term pa...