Cultural Diplomacy in Europe

Abstract

The evolution of European government activities in the sphere of international cultural relations is examined. Section 1 describes the period between World War I and World War II when European governments tried to enhance their prestige and policies by means of cultural propaganda. Section 2 analyzes the period during World War II when the cohabitation of several exiled governments in the United Kingdom led to the impetus and development of both bilateral and collective forms of cultural diplomacy. The third section deals with the cultural diplomacy of specific countries including France, Italy, the Federal German Republic, and the United Kingdom. French cultural diplomacy is presented at the model, and an attempt is made to show how the other three countries vary from that model. Section 4 examines the collective experiences of three groups of countries in the field of cultural diplomacy. Attention is first given to the largely homogeneous group of five Nordic countries, which evolved a practice of collective cultural diplomacy among themselves. By way of contrast, the seven countries of the Western European Union including Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, the Federal German Republic, and Italy exhibit a system of collective cultural cooperation worked out to implement a clause of a treaty after World War II. The third group whose collective experience is examined is the 21 member Council for Cultural Co-operation and its Conference of European Ministers of Education established in 1961.