Diplomatic Life
The Battle for HeARTs and Minds: Art and the War on Terror
|
14 February 2012
Armed with art, International Relations is more alert to ideas and less blinded by rhetoric. Art and visual culture play a strategic role in the battle for hearts and minds. As soft power resources employed in cultural diplomacy, art and visual culture have the potential to shed light on and shape national and international public opinion—simultaneously influencing and responding to government actions. In the War on Terror, art has affected, and continues to affect, the ways in which ideology is represented, galvanizing action and reaction.
Art as Soft Power. The concept of soft power is often misused to refer to anything other than military power. In actuality, soft power is far more nuanced, referring to the attractiveness of a country’s culture, ideals, and politics. As the ability to attract rather than coerce, soft power is distinctly different from propaganda. The shared attractiveness of soft power has the ability to legitimatize a state’s behavior in the eyes of its citizens and other states. The notion of art as a soft power resource has been largely neglected, and to this end International Relations has missed the opportunity to wield artistic combat in the ideological battle against terror.
Diplomatic Life / Leading Stories
December 23, 2011 Paris is a museum, or so we are told. Which is meant to imply that the city is ossified, stuck in the past and resistant to...FULL STORY |
November 22, 2011 The holidays are approaching, and everyone is trying to find not only just the right presents and decorations, but also some...FULL STORY |
October 10, 2011 Beyond the occasional “in Soviet Russia” wisecrack, would you expect American college students to have any interest in...FULL STORY |
October 2, 2011 It was probably the free-flowing and glass-too-full alcohol supply that made Washington’s philanthropic crowd so giddy....FULL STORY |
September 29, 2011
Simon Dinnerstein’s The Fulbright Triptych (1971-1974) defies easy explanation. It adopts a form more suited to religious...FULL STORY |
September 14, 2011 You don't have to be an ordained Ambassador to assume the role of one. In Washington, a city full of top ranking...FULL STORY |
August 12, 2011 His Excellency Dr. Neil Parsan and Mrs. Lucia Parsan
DC: What attracted you to the role of Ambassador of Trinidad and...FULL STORY |
July 14, 2011
Ai Weiwei—the Chinese artist better-known as a sculptor and best-known as the imprisoned critic of his country’s...FULL STORY |
July 14, 2011
One of the most significant benchmarks in Italian history is the country’s unification, which took place on March 17,...FULL STORY |
