Mariano Martín Zamorano

Spain’s nation branding project Marca España and its cultural policy: the economic and political instrumentalization of a homogeneous and simplified cultural image

Cultural diplomacy is being increasingly considered the medium in which nation states can instrumentalize their cultural production and accomplish soft power goals. Analysts have repeatedly underlined the importance of culture in place branding in globalized economies, where culture can singularize products and assign them greater value. Both foreign and cultural policy have made the international projection of cultural industries a strategic goal, and this has simultaneously transformed the goals and networks of these policies. Although the literature addresses this phenomenon, certain effects of brand policy-making have become evident and require further attention: the simplification of cultural diversity, the elimination of non-coherent characteristics within brands and the limitation of internal dissension and participation. In this paper, Spain’s nation branding project Marca España (Spain Brand) is critically analysed as a process of economic and political instrumentalization conducted by large companies who promote a simplified and homogeneous image of national culture.

The cultural paradiplomacy of Barcelona since the 1980s: understanding transformations in local cultural paradiplomacy

This article seeks to explain the conditions for the emergence and institutionalization of the cultural paradiplomacy of the city of Barcelona and its local effects. The recognition of the city as an active participant on the international stage is based on its evolution from an industrial to a service economy. Against this backdrop, Barcelona’s city council, in common with many other city authorities operating in the world’s metropolises during the 1980s, initiated its own cultural paradiplomacy as a strategy for attracting capital and promoting local development. This policy became established as part of a new multilevel system of governance. This article analyzes the causes of the institutionalization of this activity from an intergovernmental perspective. It concludes that in the context of economic globalization, the emergence of cities’ cultural paradiplomacy is strongly related to the restructuring of the State and its external administration and to the intensification of the ‘cultural branding’ of cities as a tool for global competition.

Autonomía y cooperación en los modelos federalizantes de política cultural. Análisis comparativo de los casos de Alemania, EEUU, Canadá, Suiza, Reino Unido y España

Desde los anos ochenta diversas investigaciones han profundizado en la comparacion de los diversos modelos de las politicas culturales nacionales. Asimismo, el interes por la descentralizacion cultural y el reconocimiento de la diversidad cultural y nacional ha crecido en paralelo a la importancia de la accion cultural publica de las regiones y las municipalidades. Sin embargo, no se han desarrollado estudios que permitan comparar de forma sistematica la relacion entre los modelos de federalismo y los modelos de politica cultural de un Estado. Este trabajo persigue cubrir este vacio realizando una comparativa de seis paises federales o casi federales que han destacado en su desarrollo de politicas culturales, comparando sus diferentes niveles de autonomia, gobierno compartido y del reconocimiento de distintas identidades culturales y nacionales.