Cultural diplomacy and the reconfiguration of soft power: Evidence from Morocco

ABSTRACT During the reign of King Mohammed VI, Morocco experienced a rapid expansion in regional economic and military ties that have given a gradual impetus to a shift in regional power constellations. But in the shadow of this hard power trajectory, the Moroccan regime is increasingly capitalizing on its soft power resources as well. In this paper, we demonstrate how the kingdom’s considerable cultural capital – arising from religion, historicity, and tradition – has become a political instrument to improve the country’s outward image. The regime inter alia employs cultural politics and public diplomacy measures in Islamic and Jewish religious policy, through the commercialization of material and immaterial cultural heritage and through the massive investment into cultural infrastructure to construct a new nation brand and subsequentially solidify Morocco’s regional and international soft power standing. This, in turn, has enabled Morocco to more successfully pursue its foreign policy goals, first and foremost its quest to gain sovereignty over the Western Sahara. The research is based on media analysis and original data from semi-structured interviews conducted between February 2020 and February 2021.