Project description
A closer look at Europe’s first cultural diplomacy bureaux
Cultural diplomacy was born at the end of the 19th century, emerging as a new aspect of diplomacy in European international relations. It was not until the 1920s that the first cultural diplomatic bureau opened at European foreign offices. The EU-funded INVCULTURALDIPLO project will explore the making of cultural diplomacy from the late 19th century until the beginning of World War Two, focusing on Germany, France, and Britain, and analysing the US as a battle ground for cultural diplomacies. The project will evaluate the adoption of cultural diplomacy, reassess the chronology of its appearance, and offer a new understanding of the policy making practices in foreign policy.
Objective
Cultural diplomacy has gained extraordinary significance in European international relations since the end of the nineteenth century as countries faced challenges in their Empire and as military force on foreign soil became increasingly contested. This project examines the making of this new aspect of foreign policy from the late nineteenth century until the beginning of the Second World War, with a focus on three case studies: Britain, France and Germany. The US will also be analysed as a battled ground for the cultural diplomacies of these western European countries. Employing an interdisciplinary approach – drawing on diplomatic and political history, cultural studies, transnationalism and textual analysis, the project will examine a broad range of private and diplomatic documents, as well as published pamphlets and media sources. The project’s first objective is to evaluate why European countries turned to foreign cultural policies as a new element of their diplomacy. Secondly it aims to reassess the chronology of the rise of cultural diplomacy, which the historiography conventionally sets to the 1920s (when cultural diplomatic bureaux opened in European foreign offices). Thirdly the project aims to renew our understanding of the policy making practices in this domain. These objectives will be met by transcending bi-national approaches that dominate the historiography of cultural diplomacy to assess the influence of entangled national competitions and asymmetric ways in which France, Germany and Britain conceptualised the significance of culture for their European and transatlantic diplomacies. Building upon theories of new diplomatic history that have stressed the significance of non-state actors, this research also goes beyond Foreign Office-centred approaches to examine the role of civil society individuals (including emigrants and transnational networks of private citizens), in shaping this area of diplomacy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- humanitieshistory and archaeologyhistorymodern history
- social sciencespolitical sciencespolitical policiescivil society
- social sciencessociologydemographyhuman migrations
You need to log in or register to use this function
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
75005 PARIS
France