Features of cultural diplomacy of the United States of America

Abstract

The objective of the article is to shed light on the historical and intellectual frameworks within which the concept of American cultural diplomacy has emerged and transformed, as well as to identify the features of its theoretical formulations and practical application. American historical experience, first the inter-war, and subsequently World War II and Cold War, essentially determined the ways in which the diplomatic system of the United States developed. Academic and social debates on the role and significance of culture in pursuing national interest have been, and remained until today, reflections of international system transformations and the American position therein. The superpower experience during the bipolar system of the Cold War, as well as subsequent incomparable status of the global hegemony during the post-Cold War "unipolar moment", has shaped the practice of American diplomacy in a way which occasionally blurred the difference between the natures and extents of military and cultural dominance of the US. This is evident from the case of American cultural-diplomatic relations with Serbia and former Yugoslavia, analyzed in the third section of the paper. The key finding is that, in the context of great power politics, the cultural aspect of foreign policy functions only in cooperation with the military-strategic aspect; thus, only cultural influence purposefully exerted as part of general diplomatic efforts can be considered cultural diplomacy.