210055 LK BAK8: International Politics (2020S)

This course supplements the main introductory lecture by Prof. Ulrich Brand on International Politics. Its emphasis is on foreign policy and its interrelationship with the arts and culture, i.e. on cultural diplomacy and cultural cooperation.
The arts have always been a rich resource for the projection of power abroad. Artists, academics and intellectuals are instrumentalized by political elites and foreign policy apparatuses for goals of public diplomacy such as increasing legitimacy and credibility. At the same time, artists, academics and intellectuals are often interested in cooperation to further national goals, but also as a means of extending their own networks and boosting their professional reputation.
In liberal democracies diplomatic service for the arts, academia and intellectuals has become an integral part of foreign policy - along with furthering political, economic or consular interests. Proactive cultural diplomacy has supported national artistic and academic operators with a view to fostering their international integration, cooperation and competitiveness. Sending creative talents abroad also helps to promote openness and reduce peripherality and provicialism.
Cultural cooperation, educational exchange and diplomacy are to improve international dialogue and cooperation and consequently foster peace and security.
Artistic and intellectual production, however, is always closely interwoven with power, be it critical or affirmative, political or economic. New states that developed after the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union as well as many aspiring countries of the former so called Third World devote considerable resources to the creation of new identities and to branding their images abroad.
These States do not only compete with well established competitors in the international arena, but also with international corporations, media and other interests´ networks which also exert considerable cultural power.
The underlying structures of power are often veiled or not fully transparent. Diplomacy remains – whether admittedly so or not – in the first place an instrument of securing national interests.
Other important issues such as inequalities, cultural and economic divergences in class and gender, as well as postcolonial imbalances are often sidelined to the “cultural and academic sector” where controversies can be negotiated in relative freedom, but with less political relevance.
Artists, academics and intellectuals often address these questions as well as the tensions that arise from their interaction with diplomacy. This has resulted in a vast body of critical, activist, and emancipatory creativity to challenge the status quo.
Progressive and democratic cultural diplomacy and cultural cooperation has therefore to support this critical potential, challenging established structures of international power reproduction. This is how critical questions can be transferred from the sidelines to the center of political attention.