In a couple of recent postings I have tried to elaborate the notion of a nation brand, to identify some of the salient issues surrounding the relationship between public diplomacy and branding, and to illuminate the more subtle distinctions.

If we do not highlight it often enough, cultural diplomacy promotes the creation of transnational social spaces of engagement and interaction. And, even as they are often identified with particular cultures or countries, cultural diplomatic interventions are also unavoidably cosmopolitan in nature, insofar as they move between, confront, and conjoin multiple social worlds. In this way and even when carried away by the worst excesses of national chauvinisms, cultural diplomacy is inherently a transnationalist project of sorts.

APDS Blogger: Oscar Castellanos del Collado

Between January 29 and May 6, 2012, posters of Frida Kahlo’s self-portrait were hung from light posts around Los Angeles. The portraits served as invitations to “In Wonderland: the Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States,” the first co-organized exhibition by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Mexico’s Museum of Modern Art.

Although democracy retains its allure, the Arab uprisings that began last year were about democracy primarily as simply a means to an end.

The real goal of those who took to the streets was to grasp a better future for themselves and their families. Having a job, getting enough to eat, being assured that children could receive decent education and medical care – these constitute the substance of everyday life that so many in the Arab world had long been denied and were determined to claim.

APDS Blogger: Emina Vukic

Author’s Note: This blog is the edited version of a speech I gave at the recent NATO conference on The Power of Soft Power.

When Joseph Nye first coined the term soft power over 20 years ago, the United States and Europe were in a different place than they are today.

One of the defining attributes of being in a center of global commerce and culture is the feeling you get when walking down the sidewalks. In London, I found the experience of strolling a few blocks from where I was staying to the downtown campus of UEA London, in large part along the fabled Brick Lane, to be a source of energy and inspiration.

I have spent some time as of late picking through the now infamous train wreck that was the American pavilion at Shanghai. Cynthia Schneider offers her opinion on what went wrong here. Here’s my take: