When Does Cultural Diplomacy Work?

Abstract

While South Korea has been an active player in cultural diplomacy, there is a dearth of research on how cultural diplomacy events should be designed to maximize their effectiveness. We fill this gap by investigating what affects audience satisfaction with Korea's cultural diplomacy events. We utilize opinion surveys conducted from 2018 to 2020 with close to 2,000 respondents at 12 official cultural events in nine countries celebrating the anniversary of diplomatic ties. We find that local cultural expert involvement in the design of the event is associated with greater satisfaction when the audience has a high familiarity with Korean culture. We also find that introducing intercultural elements to the event can help improve event satisfaction among audience members with relatively low intercultural competence. Our analysis also confirms that audience members satisfied with these events hold a more favorable perception of Korea. The findings have important implications for cultural diplomacy practitioners.