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Nation Branding in the Post-Communist World: Assessing the Field of Critical Research
Abstract
In the second decade of the 21st century, the practices, discourses, and implications of nation branding have attracted growing interest from scholars in the humanities and social sciences seeking to understand the linkages between national identities, reputations, governance, and the phenomenon of nation branding. This strand of critical research, as opposed to instrumentalist approaches, is the focus of this review. In line with the scope of the journal, the review looks at nation branding research that relates to the countries of the former communist bloc. The analysis finds that the state of the field is fragmented due to its multi-disciplinary nature. It is also argued that the field may be suffering from methodological nationalism. The discussion identifies epistemological and theoretical approaches, pointing out gaps and limitations along the way. It is suggested that research in the field can be grouped into “identity studies” and “practice studies” as a way to better understand key theoretical influences. Finally, it is proposed that future research should look at nation branding both as a field of practice that merits critical examination in its own right and as a lens that can be used to investigate changes in the state of nationhood today.
... A comprehensive summary of the nation branding literature is beyond the scope of this paper, but the research is by no means homogeneous. 1 Critical studies of nation branding can be grouped in two broad categories: (1) 'identity studies', which focus on branded narratives of the nation, and (2) 'practice studies', which look at nation branding as a field of practice and focus on actors, institutions, and procedures associated with it (Kaneva, 2021). Many nation-branding studies share an implicit or explicit assumption that nations exist before any attempts to 'brand' them and that branding is merely a new way of talking about them. ...
... For interdisciplinary reviews of the nation branding literature see Kaneva (2011Kaneva ( , 2021. For a review of the place branding literature, which extends beyond the nation, see Vuignier (2017). ...
This study presents a critical discourse analysis of two ideological challengers to the nation‐state: (1) Islamic State, which declared a Caliphate in 2014, and (2) the Good Country, a virtual state founded in 2018. While rooted in dramatically different ideologies, both projects explicitly reject nationalism and rely on media and promotional discourses to build support for their post‐national utopias. The study addresses three research questions: (1) How does each project challenge nationalism and the nation‐state? (2) What alternative utopia does each articulate? (3) How does promotional discourse shape their respective challenges and utopias? The analysis finds significant differences in the challenges, but also important similarities in the utopias, namely, (1) a multi‐cultural, multi‐ethnic, multi‐racial vision of post‐national collectivities; (2) a devaluing of the importance of bounded territorial sovereignty; and (3) an emphasis on individualization and taking personal action to ‘opt into’ a post‐national state based on shared values.
... From another perspective, Del Percio (2016) analyses the debates, tactics, positioning, and controversies surrounding the policing of the brand "Switzerland". In another study, Kaneva (2021) reviews nation branding research that relates to the countries of the former communist bloc, proposing that future research should look at nation branding both as a field of practice that merits critical examination in its own right and as a lens that can be used to investigate changes in the state of nationhood today. Furthermore, Nimijean (2018) evaluates the Trudeau government's attempt at branding Canada in "Canada's back" and "Sunny ways", interrogating the rhetoric-reality gap when actions or experiences do not live up to the brand promise, and stressing the imperative of matching values with action to achieve the goals of brand Canada. ...
This paper examines the rhetorical strategies of mobilising and inspiring a domestic audience for national identity re/construction in order to reinforce the Nigerian brand. Data for the study are composed of some branding strategies packaged and broadcast mainly on radio and television by Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Communications in its rebranding campaign in 2009 which was targeted at the domestic citizens' value re-orientation. The study adopts Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach which centres on "dialectical reasoning" – a way of reasoning from critique of discourse to what should be done to change existing reality, by way of explanation of relations between discourse and other components (social, cultural and political) of reality. It then applies the tenets of the theory to analyse the rhetorical strategies in the rebranding campaign, as the domestic citizens' agency is considered instrumental in bolstering the Nigerian brand. The study demonstrates that the branding strategies analysed largely invoke history, collective memory, values, traditions, and aspirations which could appeal to the domestic citizens' nationalistic sensibilities and imaginaries to evolve an enduring Nigerian brand which is domestic-driven.
... The empirical material we analyzed revealed that, while political elites have been inspired by folk texts that use a variety of old-fashioned clichés and bring with them 'popular mythology' and 'collective beliefs' (see Čolović, 1990) in the 1990s, the branding of BW and associated arguments have provided a new manifesto for self-discovery and the construction of a national identity (Kaneva, 2021). What we discovered is that by bringing the global to Serbia, ruling elites' nation-building project would be free of ethnic dissensions and national disputes, firmly rooted in the belief that ethnicity and nationalism will be swiftly outdated by a 'global culture' (see Smith, 1990). ...
The Belgrade Waterfront real estate development project has attracted a considerable amount of interest among scholars from various disciplines in a short period of time. Nevertheless, these works are limited in scope. This paper draws upon existing literature on nation building by first contextualizing it before adding insights from party strategies and cultural studies (with a particular focus on identity issues) research streams. It thus aims to contribute to the nascent debate about how the new ruling elite of Serbia uses such urban projects to emancipate from the nationalist rhetoric and supporting symbols of the 1990s. The main argument of this paper is that state narratives, media coverage and branded icons of Belgrade Waterfront illustrate political regime’s switch to the global to contain the national in order to build and publicize its own ‘revitalized’ idea of the nation and legitimize its take on power. The underlying strategy consists in manipulating individuals’ preferences by marginalizing opposition parties. The research design relies on a multi-method approach crossing participant and ethnographic observation over a period of 7 years, as well as a critical analysis of the Serbian regime’s discursive strategies and project’s branding efforts using an original visual material.
... Interest in nation branding has thus spread rapidly beyond the limited realm of conventional brand strategy. The growth of interest in the field has also been accompanied by critical perspectives that challenge the practices of nation branding Browning, 2014;Kaneva, 2011Kaneva, , 2021. As well as attracting increasing interest from academic researchers, in recent years nation branding has steadily gained prominence in practice as more and more countries around the world commit resources to the development of their nation brand. ...
... In pursuing a trademark for Hualong Lamian, the county government employed wellworn strategies of ethnic branding frequently employed by states in order to monetize identity and exert control over how it may be expressed (Castelló & Mihelj, 2018;Kaneva, 2021). Branding imposes a totalizing logic to the process of identity product that puts the responsibility for development in the hands of the state. ...
Begun in 2000, China’s Great Western Development Campaign (GWDC) sought to reinforce party-state legitimation narratives by extending economic development to peripheral regions often populated by ethnic minorities. In extending aid to minority communities, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promoted narratives about its own provision of stability and prosperity, and endeavored to exert further control over the conduct of ethnic politics. However, while this subsidization of development in minority communities produced macro-level success, it also contributed to fragmentation of ethnic identity and perpetuation of instability in daily interactions. In this article, I examine the CCP’s attempt to subsidize the creation of a branded ethnic economy around the production of handmade noodles (lamian) in ethnic Hui communities in rural Qinghai Province. I argue that while the state’s investment in lamian did increase income in Hui communities, the migration that accompanied this developmental aid led to increased contestation of the boundaries of Hui identity and contributed to marginalization and alienation of the Hui migrants involved. I argue that these consequences stemming from the funding of the lamian economy allow the CCP to effect greater control through channeling measures. However, such measures also illuminate the limitations of performance-based legitimation strategies which justify the implementation of ever-increasing measures of control that risk overreach.
... A related development is the wide-spread adoption of marketing and branding ideas, models, and metrics by national governments and institutions in their efforts to exercise influence and manage their reputations (Olins 2000, Van Ham 2001. The latter is evident in the explosive growth of nation branding programs around the globe (Aronczyk 2013;Dinnie 2015;Kaneva 2021) and the proliferation of various nation brand and soft power indexes that rank the reputations of countries and reproduce a framework of global competition among states (Einarsdóttir 2020;Rasmussen 2015, 2018). ...
Inspired by feminist thought, this special issue aims to disturb conventional ways of thinking about public diplomacy and nation branding as “soft power” tools of the state. A feminist rethinking of the soft/hard power metaphor reveals its implicit masculinist logic and invites a critical exploration of the gendering of geopolitical contestations. This issue takes one step in addressing this gap and aims to inspire further inquiry into the gender dynamics of geopolitical influence. This introductory essay is organized in four parts. First, it reviews how gender is currently addressed in public diplomacy and nation branding research. Next, it points out several social and geopolitical trends that contextualize the need for a greater engagement with questions of gender. Third, the six articles included in the issue are introduced. Finally, the concluding section outlines directions for future research, organized around the themes of performativity, relationality, and ethics of care. The essay’s key argument is that a focus on gender dynamics in public diplomacy and nation branding must involve more than a challenge to structures of gender inequality and oppression; it must also include a rethinking of the foundational assumptions about human autonomy, rationality, and ethical action that underpin international relations.
Nation Branding in the Americas: Contested Politics and Identities provides
an overview of nation branding in the Americas, an often neglected con-
tinent(s) in debates about the creation, dissemination, and management
of national images.
Drawing on insights from promotional cultures, nationalism, geopoli-
tics, media, and communication, as well as their own research, the authors
look at national promotion experiences in 12 countries – Canada, the
United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia,
Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile – examining how these cases relate
to broader challenges and commonalities, such as the relationship
between nation branding and stereotypes, invisibility, heritage, or internal
contradictions.
Nation Branding in the Americas: Contested Politics and Identities is an
important contribution to the study of practices and concepts such as
nation branding, public diplomacy, soft power, and strategic communica-
tion. It highlights the multifaceted nature of nation branding, and how
this can be used to perpetuate local and global hierarchies, legitimize the
agendas of specific governments, and discipline the inhabitants of a
nation, but also become a venue for people to negotiate and communicate
the kind of society they want to be. The book will therefore be of interest
to undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral students specialized in mar-
keting, media and communication, and international relations. It will also
appeal to professionals in public diplomacy, strategic communication,
public relations, and branding, offering a broad overview of the practice
and discussion of national promotion in an increasingly contested and
cacophonic global communication environment.
Uluslararası ilişkilerde “küçük ülke” olarak sınıflandırılan Finlandiya, eğitim, yönetişim, cinsiyet eşitliği ve yaşam kalitesi konularındaki başarılarıyla uluslararası politikada iyi bir itibara sahiptir. Bu olumlu uluslararası imaj, Finlandiya hükümetlerinin 1945 sonrası dönemde yürüttüğü aktif ve bilinçli uluslararası iletişim politikalarının bir ürünüdür. Bu makale, İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasındaki dönemde Finlandiya’nın kamu diplomasisi uygulamalarını incelemektedir. Makale, kamu diplomasisi ve ulus markalaşması faaliyetleriyle ilgili Finlandiya’daki politika yapım süreçlerini tarihsel ve politik bağlam içinde analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Bu hedef doğrultusunda, Finlandiya’nın kamu diplomasisi etkinliklerini değerlendirmek için “bilgi temelli kamu diplomasisi” ve “ilişkisel kamu diplomasisi” sınıflandırmasına başvurmaktadır. Uluslararası siyasi ortamın Finlandiya’nın uluslararası iletişim yönetimi üzerindeki etkisini vurgulayan makale, Soğuk Savaş döneminde Finlandiya’nın kamu diplomasisi faaliyetlerinin, tek yönlü mesaj iletimine vurgu yapılması nedeniyle bilgi temelli kamu diplomasisi perspektifini yansıttığını savunmaktadır. Makale ayrıca 2000’li yıllardaki girişimlerde, ilişkisel kamu diplomasisinin etkisinin sınırlı kaldığı ve kamu diplomasisinin ulus markalaşmasına indirgenmesi nedeniyle bilgi temelli yaklaşımın etkisinin güçlü şekilde devam ettiği sonucuna varmıştır.
Although protests are an essential part of modern politics, scholars in nation branding, public diplomacy and soft power have had very little to say about these episodes. Discussions in the field have only marginally addressed dissent and disruption , falling into a methodological statism that emphasises what states do to construct and legitimise specific versions of national identity. Debates on nation promotion consequently overlook how individuals and organisations outside the state and outside national boundaries can be equally important in the construction and communication of national images. Drawing on domestic and foreign news coverage of protests in Brazil, Romania and Chile, we propose three frames to analyse the relationship between protests and nation promotion: (1) protests as threats, (2) protests as expression of the true nation and (3) protests as strategic communications. These frames shed light on how bottom-up efforts contest-overtly or covertly-state-sponsored versions of national identity and how protests are visibility arenas where competing discourses about the nation are communicated. Protests should therefore be acknowledged not as mere disruptions to national images or reputations but as another expression of the contingent, multifaceted and shifting nature of nationhood, particularly in highly mediatised contemporary societies.
Documents play a vital role in constructing political regimes and their geopolitical relations. In this article, we analyse a particular type of document – the 21st century national vision – and examine its political work. Often glossy (digital) documents featuring simple slogans, fantastic plans, and claims to global relevance and prestige, national visions make specific futures present and close off room for alternative interpretations. Combining work in critical geopolitics with research on nation branding and authoritarian legitimation, we argue that national vision documents are productive – rather than merely reflective – of geopolitical scripts and the future they make possible. Analysing this practice in three image-savvy non-democratic regimes – Kazakhstan, Qatar and Thailand – we show how such scripts are simplified in national vision documents and displace the complexity of the spaces they claim to represent. The oversimplified abstractions they present then resonate widely in national and public discourse, where they obscure struggles over national identity, directions of economic development, and the nature of political orders. Rather than superficial branding documents, national visions are key documents for the making of authoritarian regime legitimation claims today.
This paper explores the ideological work performed by the inconspicuous flagging of the nation across four locations: Bucharest (Romania), Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Calgary (Canada) and Madrid (Spain). Using data collected between 2012 and 2016, the paper maps the use of the nation in outdoor signage across different urban landscapes. This mundane flagging of diverse nations performs a triple function: it reproduces the nation as a universal epistemic category, it entrenches mobility within the imaginary of contemporary urban life and it sanitises select mobilities and the power dynamics producing them. The ongoing use of the nation by different objects in our urban surroundings participates in the naturalisation of nationalism, furthering existing trends in the commercialisation of the nation and its reinvention as an innocuous brand addressing a global marketplace.
Since the late 1990s, nation branding has attracted a lot of attention from academics, professional consultants and government actors. The ideas and practices of nation branding are frequently presented by branding advocates as necessary and even inevitable in the light of changing dynamics of political power and influence in a globalised and media-saturated world. In this context, some have argued that nation branding is a way to reduce international conflict and supplant ethno-nationalism with a new form of market-based, national image management. However, a growing body of critical studies has documented that branding campaigns tend to produce ahistorical and exclusionary representations of the nation and advance a form of ‘commercial nationalism’ that is problematic. Importantly, the critical scholarship on nation branding has relied primarily on sociological and anthropological theories of nationhood, identities and markets. By contrast, the role of the media – as institutions, systems and societal storytellers – has been undertheorised in relation to nation branding. The majority of the existing literature tends to treat the media as ‘neutral’ vehicles for the delivery of branding messages to various audiences. This is the guest editors’ introduction to the Special Issue ‘Theorizing Media in Nation Branding’, which seeks to problematise this overly simplistic view of ‘the media’ and aims to articulate the various ways in which specific media are an integral part of nation branding. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach and problematises both the enabling and the inhibiting potentialities of different types of media as they perpetuate nation branding ideas, images, ideologies, discourses and practices.
This article outlines a new perspective on the role of media in nation branding, drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s post-structuralist media theory. I argue that, following Baudrillard, we can see nation brands in a new light, namely, as simulacra which exist within a transnational media system for the creation, circulation and consumption of commodity-signs. In this capacity, nation brands shed their representational burden of standing in for the nation and, instead, operate as self-referential entities. I use the example of Brand Kosovo to provide illustrations for my theoretical points. However, while the case of Kosovo has its specificities, I propose that the theoretical claims presented here hold beyond its parameters. This article forms part of the Theorizing Media in Nation Branding Special Issue.
Nation Branding, Public Relations and Soft Power: Corporatizing Poland provides an empirically grounded analysis of changes in the way in which various actors seek to manage Poland's national image in world opinion. It explores how and why changes in political economy have shaped these actors and their use of soft power in a way that is influenced by public relations, corporate communication, and marketing practices. By examining the discourse and practices of professional nation branders who have re-shaped the relationship between collective identities and national image management, it plots changes in the way in which Poland's national image is communicated, and culturally reshaped, creating tensions between national identity and democracy. The book demonstrates that nation branding is a consequence of the corporatization of political governance, soft power and national identity, while revealing how the Poland "brand" is shaping public and foreign affairs. Challenging and original, this book will be of interest to scholars in public relations, corporate communications, political marketing and international relations.
This article traces the limits of branding as a tool for (re)constructing nations as 'imagined communities' (Anderson 1983). Drawing on examples from post-socialist Eastern Europe, I analyse discourses and practices of nation branding from a critical perspective, rooted in the theoretical traditions of political economy and cultural studies. Focusing more closely on branding campaigns implemented by post-Soviet Ukraine and post-war Kosovo — two nations seeking to assert themselves as independent actors on the global stage — I consider the impact of nation branding on national identities and democratic governance. I identify three interconnected limits of the branded national imagination as a structuring discourse for nation building. First, the branded national imagination is structured through its subjection to a foreign gaze; second, it is heavily dependent on commercial transnational media; and third, it produces branded national subjectivities that contradict the lived experiences of national populations. I argue that while nation branding effectively depoliticises national (re)definition, it may in fact serve to reinvigorate ethnic nationalisms in the post-socialist region. Finally, I suggest that although we must be aware of local histories and legacies, the post-socialist experience can inform our understanding of the structuring limits of the branded national imagination in other post-conflict and post-colonial contexts as well.
This paper discusses four nation branding post-communist campaigns initiated by the Romanian Government, from a cultural semiotic perspective, as developed by the Tartu-Moscow-Semiotic School. In so doing, it focuses on analyzing advertising and national identity discourses inside the semiospheres. Moreover, the paper investigates how elements of neoliberal ideology are addressed in the governmental campaigns, considering the “marketization of public discourse” (Fairclough, 1993). Nation branding in post-communist Romania is a distinctive phenomena, compared to other countries, especially from Western Europe. In transition countries, nation branding is often mentioned because of the constant need to reconfigure national identity by dissociating from the communist past (Kaneva, 2012). In Romania, nation branding is also a public issue discussed in the media, connected to the ways in which the international press portrays the country or to the migrants’ actions. In this context, Romania’s nation brand represents a cultural space and the campaigns mobilize cultural symbols as systems of signs necessary for the existence and functioning of advertising discourses.
Using a semiotic analysis linked to the field of cultural semiotics (Lotman, 2005/1984), this article analyzes four nation branding campaigns initiated by the Romanian Government (Romania Simply Surprising – 2004, Romania Land of Choice – 2009, Explore the Carpathian Garden – 2010, and Discover the Place Where You Feel Reborn – 2014), considering elements such as semiotic borders, dual coding and symbols. The results show that the campaigns are part of four different semiospheres, integrating discursive practices both from advertising and public diplomacy when communicating the national image to the internal (citizens) or external (international) audiences.
This contribution offers a systematic and complete overview of the scientific literature in the field of place marketing and place branding research. A total of 1172 articles published between 1976 and 2016 in 98 different journals were analyzed and meticulously classified into categories and subcategories according to disciplinary approach, method used and perspective adopted. This literature review thus provides a detailed overview of the state of the art and reveals various trends and developments in this emerging field of study. Among other things, it demonstrates that the field suffers from a lack of conceptual clarity, diverging definitions and a weak theoretical foundation, which means it addresses a very broad range of research topics. In addition, the field lacks empirical evidence and explanatory articles, meaning that the numerous hypotheses concerning the effects of place marketing activities on attractiveness remain unsubstantiated. The review also underscores the literature’s lack of interest in the political and institutional contexts of places, although this information is crucial in terms of public management. Moreover, this work notes that the rhetoric of consultants is given pride of place, with the publication of numerous prescriptive articles focused on sharing best practices. Finally, this study notes the existence of a significant number of critical articles.
This article surveys the official narrative on representation of Estonian identity and Estonianness through the tourism strategy implemented by Estonia from 2007 to 2015. Gathering material from brochures and documents targeting foreigners produced by the Estonian Institute and “Enterprise Estonia” (EAS) and analyzing the logic behind the interior design of Tallinn Airport, we engage with current debates on identity construction in post-Soviet spaces. In particular, we suggest that along with an established body of literature looking at the role of state actors in the construction of identity, studies should consider the role of nontraditional or non-state actors in identifying and promoting identity markers.
In recent years, nations have regained prominence as central symbols of political unity and mobilization, and proved capable of serving political goals across the political spectrum. Yet, the current revival of the national extends well beyond the realm of politics; it is anchored in the logic of global capitalism, and has become inextricably intertwined with the practices of promotion and consumption. Our article seeks to map the interface between nationalism and economic life, and bring some clarity to the so far fragmented debate on the topic, which developed under diverse headings such as ‘economic nationalism’, ‘nation branding’, ‘consumer ethnocentrism’ and ‘commercial nationalism’. We focus more closely on developing the concept of consumer nationalism, which received little sustained attention in cultural studies and in social sciences and humanities more generally. We offer a definition of consumer nationalism, situate it vis-a-vis the broader phenomena of economic nationalism and political consumerism, and propose an analytical distinction between political consumer nationalism and symbolic consumer nationalism. Drawing on existing literature we then consider a range of examples and examine how these two forms of consumer nationalism become involved in the reproduction of nationalism, taking into account both consciously nationalist discourses and practices as well as the more banal, everyday forms of nationalism.
This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Chinese advertising as an industry, a discourse and a profession in China’s search for modernity and cultural globalization. It compares and contrasts the advertising practices of Chinese advertising agencies and foreign advertising agencies, and Chinese brands and foreign brands, with a particular focus on the newest digital advertising practices in the post WTO era.
Based on extensive interviews, participant observation, and a critical analysis of secondary data, Li offers an engaging analysis of the transformation of Chinese advertising in the past three decades in Post-Mao China. Drawing upon theories of political economy, media, and cultural studies, her analysis offers most significant insights in advertising and consumer culture as well as the economic, social, political, and cultural transformations in China.
The book is essential for students and scholars of communication, media, cultural studies and international business, and all those interested in cultural globalization and China.
Nation branding is a remarkable phenomenon. In less than two decades, it has established itself as the preferred framework for interstate strategic communication and as an emerging academic field. The paper describes how this extraordinary expansion was possible by showing how nation branding presents itself as a theoretical possibility and a practical necessity. We propose that what made a travel possible from product branding via corporate branding to nation branding was the semantic flexibility of the brand concept. We argue that the brand concept is almost void of meaning and that this feature has been an indispensable requisite for establishing nation branding as a field of practice and as an academic field. Despite the indisputable academic productivity that is a result of the vagueness of the brand concept, we suggest that to reach a normal science-like situation in the field of nation branding a clarification and systematization of central concepts is needed.
This article examines how and in which societal and political contexts nationhood is expressed and symbolised in reunified Germany. This ‘rediscovery’ of nationhood since the 1990s mixes new and old motifs of the cultural repertoire of ‘the national’ for different purposes. Three main contexts triggered a rediscovery of ‘the national’ after 1989: reunification, immigration and the retrenchment of the social state. I argue, by analysing ethnographic material and political discourses, that these contexts, on the one hand, rearticulate old forms of ethnic and cultural nationalism and, on the other hand, create new images and symbols of an open civic society and immigration country. There are ‘playful’ forms, such as campaigns of nation branding, that symbolically include the ‘productive’ and ‘useful’ immigrant into the national project. Moreover, such campaigns serve to legitimatise the downsizing of the national state that – according to a neoliberal attitude – relies on a new community spirit of entrepreneurial, ‘activated’ citizens who ‘help themselves’. Thus, focusing on these pluralised renationalisation processes makes evident how polyvalent ‘the national’ still is. It can be employed by those who attempt to ‘reunite’ the East and West Germans, by businesses to sell their goods and ideas and by almost any political orientation, be it right-wing or left-wing. © The author(s) 2016. Nations and Nationalism © ASEN/John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2016
This article analyzes the forms of metasemiotic regimentation that are inherent to any nation-branding project and examines their implications for the organization of publics and governance. Focusing on a state-sponsored nation-branding project undertaken in the Republic of Macedonia, the article argues that nation-branding strategies are best understood as interventions within and across public spheres. As illustrated in the article, the nation-branding project that developed around Skopje 2014—a spectacular urban renovation plan that transformed Macedonia’s capital—included both a public relations effort that targeted several external publics and also a campaign to shape how Macedonia was represented internal to the Macedonian public sphere. This inward-facing aspect of nation branding in Macedonia manifested through metapragmatic discourses that ascribed meaning to public speech and conduct based on their imagined impact on the nation-branding project. In analyzing how government-produced media sought to interpellate Macedonians as responsible for “living the brand,” the article interrogates how logics of nation branding can organize new demands on how and to whom one performs national identity and argues that such coordinated efforts to regulate public communication constitute a wider program of economic and social governance that can be glossed as a “nation brand regime.”
Histories of Public Diplomacy and Nation Branding in the Nordic and Baltic Countries provides an historical perspective on public diplomacy and nation branding in the Nordic and Baltic countries from 1900 to the present day. It highlights continuity and change in the efforts to strategically represent these nations abroad, and shows how a self-understanding of being peripheral has led to similarities in the deployed practices throughout the Nordic-Baltic region.
Edited by Louis Clerc, Nikolas Glover and Paul Jordan, the volume examines a range of actors that have attempted to influence foreign opinions and strengthen their country’s political and commercial position. Variously labelled propaganda, information, diplomacy and branding, these constant efforts to enhance the national image abroad have affected how the nation has been imagined in the domestic context.
Nation branding is a rapidly developing practice for promoting images of a nation-state for tourists or investors, sometimes with the secondary goal to foster nation building. It has also attracted a fair amount of scholarly attention. Analyses have focused on various themes, including national identity and neoliberal approaches to nation building. Given that the practice of nation branding presupposes the orchestration of mediated
campaigns, surprisingly few studies have specifically focused on the role of the media.
This article argues that a focus on the media (as technologies and organizations) can shed light on the dynamics of nation branding. The article reviews previous research, then presents a specific case of nation branding in Ukraine. This case study reveals the different types of media involved and how this involvement may have varied consequences for the analysis of branding campaigns.
According to nation branding consultants, problems of underdevelopment and global inequality are, to a significant extent, a product of the negative images peddled by charities and the broader development industry. While such images secure donations, it is argued they deter more sustainable investments. In contrast, consultants argue that concerted nation-branding strategies offer much better solutions to problems of underdevelopment. This article subjects such claims to critical examination and argues that while the diagnosis of the problem may have some merit, the solution offered is more problematic. This is because nation-branding practices are inherently status quo oriented and reflective of a neoliberal understanding of the nature of (under)development. Moreover, nation branding also entails a troubling commodification of identity and culture as well as unsettling implications in respect of extant understandings of 'good governance'. Finally, the article suggests that the dichotomy drawn between aid and nation branding cannot be upheld; rather, it is a device used to legitimise a market for the services of nation-branding consultants.
This article reviews recent literature concerned with the analysis of the relationship between nationalism and economy. First, it discusses scholarship advocating a new understanding of the concept of “economic nationalism” beyond its traditional focus on protectionist state policies. Second, the article branches out to consider a more interdisciplinary body of literature addressing the nationalism-economy nexus, and it relates this literature to broader debates in nationalism studies, distinguishing between three prominent approaches in the discipline: nationalism as political movement and ideology; nationalism as political discourse; and everyday nationalism. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.
This analysis suggests nation branding” as a useful category for the study of international relations and international history. In the past 15 years, entrepreneurs have invented nation branding as something new and modern, and governments the world over have signed up for cost-intensive campaigns to brand their countries’ images abroad. However, practices of nation branding have been around much longer. Indeed, the history of nation branding avant la lettre needs writing. That history provides a major encasement for the multitude of individual studies dedicated to soft power, public diplomacy, and cultural relations across time and space. This analysis looks first the at current experts and discourses on nation branding. Second, it sketches nation branding’s emergence from the end of the early modern period to the present. Third, it suggests a number of historical examples to inspire future research.
Purpose
Despite the growing interest by scholars, practitioners and public policymakers, there are still divergent and fragmented conceptualizations of nation branding as the field is still developing. In response, the purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize nation branding research and to provide directions for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors review peer-reviewed theoretical and empirical journal articles published during the last two decades – from 1998 to 2018. Selected journal articles on nation branding were subsequently synthesized for further insights.
Findings
The field of nation branding is fragmented and has developed in the course of the last two decades in different directions. This paper identifies key publication outlets and articles, major theoretical and methodological approaches and primary variables of interest that exist in the nation branding literature. The findings also highlight several research themes for future research.
Originality/value
This research fills a need to summaries the current state of the nation branding literature and identifies research issues that need to be addressed in the future.
https://www.routledge.com/Canada-Nation-Branding-and-Domestic-Politics-1st-Edition/Nimijean-Carment/p/book/9780367143404
After his Liberal Party’s surprise victory in the 2015 federal Canadian election, Justin Trudeau declared that "Canada was back" on the world stage. This comprehensive volume highlights issues in the relationship between articulated visions of Canada as a global actor, nation branding and domestic politics, noting the dangers of the politicization of the branding of Canada. It also provides the political context for thinking about ‘Brand Canada’ in the Trudeau era.
The authors explore the Trudeau government’s embrace of political branding and how it plays out in key areas central to the brand, including: Canada’s relations with Indigenous peoples; social media and digital diplomacy; and the importance of the Arctic region for Canada’s brand, even though it is often ignored by politicians and policymakers. The book asks whether the Trudeau government has lived up to its claim that Canada is back, and highlights the challenges that emerge when governments provide optimistic visions for meaningful transformation, but then do not end up leading meaningful change.
Edited by Dunja Fehimović and Rebecca Ogden
Foreword by Melissa Aronczyk
As public and private sectors become stakeholders, nation-states become corporations, interests become strategic objectives, and identities become brands, branding emerges as a key feature of the pervasiveness of market logic in today’s world. Branding Latin America: Strategies, Aims, Resistance offers a sustained critical analysis of these transformations, which see identities deliberately (re)defined according to the principle of competition and strategically (re)oriented towards the market. Through context-sensitive case studies that foreground a specific, under examined set of practices and concepts, this volume draws particular attention not only to the reconfigurations of citizenship, identity, and culture according to an insidious logic of market competitiveness, but also to the ways in which different actors resist, survive, and even thrive in such a context. In so doing, it illuminates the ambivalent relationships between the local, national, and global; the individual and collective; the public and private; and the economic, political, and cultural landscapes that characterize contemporary Latin America and the wider world.
Tourism is a promise and destinations communicate the credibility of that promise by means of destination brands. Branding has become a key tool for tourism destinations to make explicit the complexity of experiences to be expected by tourists visiting a destination. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review of various issues associated with tourism destination branding. It brings together a wide range of debates in the generic marketing literature, places them alongside the nuances of tourism, and thereby identifies unique challenges of branding in tourism destination contexts. Finally, a case study of USP based national tourism branding campaigns in the Caribbean is presented.
The essay traces the development of institutional networks that form the basis for promotional practices which today are labelled as “nation branding”. While current understanding of nation branding is embedded in neoliberal ideology and draws on new marketing techniques, in many affluent countries it did not have to start from scratch; rather, the concept has been expanding a well-oiled machinery of persuasive communication that had already been promoting the nation-state, its products, and its services for many decades.
Drawing on the case of post-war Kosovo, this chapter explores how nation branding intersects with a neoliberal development agenda. The author argues that Kosovo’s “Young Europeans” campaign was an effort to legitimize the adoption of economic policies and ideologies that served the interests of global capital rather than of the local population. Furthermore, the campaign articulated a post-ethnic, cosmopolitan, entrepreneurial national subject, while disregarding real social divisions. By juxtaposing the campaign’s messages with material indicators of life in Kosovo, the analysis raises questions about the winners and losers of neoliberal development. The chapter ends with lessons for a broader understanding of the changing nature of the nation-state under a neoliberal regime and suggests directions for future research at the intersection of public diplomacy and development communication.
'Imagined Communities' examines the creation & function of the 'imagined communities' of nationality & the way these communities were in part created by the growth of the nation-state, the interaction between capitalism & printing & the birth of vernacular languages in early modern Europe.
In the 2000s, China and Russia emerged as outspoken actors with global ambitions. To communicate their status aspirations, both countries introduced a range of nation-branding institutions and initiatives. Global Internet governance – the design and administration of Internet technology and related policymaking – is among the domains where China and Russia have asserted their national brands. The Chinese and Russian governments co-advance the brand narrative of ‘Internet sovereignty’ in opposition to perceived technological and governance hegemony of the United States. Given the power that private online intermediaries wield in the political economy of the Internet, national digital media champions, China’s Baidu and Russia’s Yandex, have been integral to their countries’ Internet branding efforts. The article examines how China and Russia have forged a public–private relationship with respective digital media champions in the context of building and branding an Internet sovereignty agenda.
Faked in China is a critical account of the cultural challenge faced by China following its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. It traces the interactions between nation branding and counterfeit culture, two manifestations of the globalizing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime that give rise to competing visions for the nation. Nation branding is a state-sanctioned policy, captured by the slogan “From Made in China to Created in China,” which aims to transform China from a manufacturer of foreign goods into a nation that creates its own IPR-eligible brands. Counterfeit culture is the transnational making, selling, and buying of unauthorized products. This cultural dilemma of the postsocialist state demonstrates the unequal relations of power that persist in contemporary globalization.
This seminal book explores the complex relationship between popular geopolitics and nation branding among the Newly Independent States of Eurasia, and their combined role in shaping contemporary national image and statecraft within and beyond the region. It provides critical perspectives on international relations, nationalism, and national identity through the use of innovative approaches focusing on popular culture, new media, public diplomacy, and alternative “narrators” of the nation. By positing popular geopolitics and nation branding as contentious forces and complementary flows, the study explores the tensions and elisions between national self-image and external perceptions of the nation, and how this complex interplay has become integral to contemporary global affairs.
Usually, a country brand is not focused, resulting in unsuccessful place branding. It is possible to successfully raise your national identity to the level of an attractive brand. Building a country brand is an investment, with strong positive returns. This book will guide you along the path to building a successful brand.
Purpose
This study aims to address a heretofore neglected area in research, nation branding, for the purpose of attracting foreign direct investment (FDI). It compares and contrasts the well-established literature on decision-making and location choice in FDI with studies in the nascent field of nation branding, with a view to developing directions for future research that result from the identification of research gaps at the intersection point between the two areas.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a systematic and integrative review of several streams within the relevant literatures, from the theory of decision-making in FDI to the similarities and differences between advertising, promotion, branding and marketing for investment on the part of nations and sub- or supra-national places.
Findings
Each of the two areas is characterized by lack of consensus as to the principal factors that affect investor and nation decisions and actions, resulting in several knowledge gaps that need to be addressed by new research along the lines suggested in the study.
Research limitations/implications
A large number of avenues for potential future research are identified, from assessing the importance of target country image in location choice to the adverse effects arising from the emphasis on “promotion” rather than “marketing” on the part of places engaged in nation branding efforts.
Practical implications
The study examines several problems that affect the practice of nation branding for FDI and points to alternative approaches that may enhance place marketers’ effectiveness in their efforts to attract foreign capital.
Originality/value
Notwithstanding the global growth of FDI in volume and importance, and the omnipresence of nation branding campaigns to promote exports or attract tourism and investment, there has been virtually no research to date on the core issue, nation branding for FDI. The study uses a strategic perspective that highlights key nation branding issues related to FDI, and FDI issues related to nation branding, and suggests a comprehensive agenda for research in the future.
Place branding is happening. A new field of practice and study is in existence and whatever we choose to call it there can no longer be any doubt that it is with us. This collection of intuitive and well-reserached articles examines how places and regions see themselves, and how they reflect this in their branding.
Nation branding is the most recent feature of imagined nation-making in the history of nations. Facing global competition, national decision-makers aim to distinguish their countries from others by means of branding. Quite a few nations have considered the term 'cool' suitable for describing some essence of their country's brand. Cool Nations. Media and the Social Imaginary of the Branded Country traces the mediated ways in which the transnational idea of "cool" has circulated from popular culture, fashion, and marketing into describing nations. The book explores the commodification of the nation, the shift to a promotional political culture, and the role of media in contributing to the circulation of the idea of the Cool Nation. The social imaginary of nation branding takes its theory and practices from marketing, unlike earlier imaginations based on ideas of democracy or citizenship. Cool Nations argues that "cool" is one of the vehicles through which the commodification of nations takes place.
This article applies recent critiques of branding and marketing to a case study of the nation branding trend. We argue that critical approaches to brand "co-creation"-a reliance upon consumers to build and disseminate brand identity-help illuminate the ways in which nation branding serves as a technique of governance in the era of global capitalism. The article first considers the recent development of nation branding as a global phenomenon and then explores the details of one such campaign in post-socialist Slovenia. The case study illustrates the ways in which nation branding enjoins the populace to "live" the national brand, and to promulgate it nationally and internationally in the name of taking responsibility for the homeland's economic development. The article concludes with a consideration of the way in which nation branding's framing of the state as an "enterprise" fits with the logic of emerging forms of so-called commercial nationalism.
This paper examines how, in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, both channels of elite and banal nationalism (such as sports and higher education) serve as instruments to promote the country. Through these channels, Kazakhstan is portrayed as an open, dynamic and successful country, an image which is in serious disjuncture with the authoritarian nature of the regime. Taking advantage of massive oil revenues, the government organized a significant OSCE general conference in 2010, while chairing the institution. In addition, it created the Astana professional cycling team, which rapidly became a world leader in the sport. Last but not least, Nazarbayev University, attracting prominent Western scholars, is now designed to make the country compete in the international arena of academic rankings. Domestic and international performances are thus treated as instruments to promote the legitimacy of the state at national and global levels. But this would not be possible without the help of individual actors who actively participate in this process. A close investigation shows that their social capital is based on global connections in various spheres (sports, finance and academia). This paper draws on evidence gathered through qualitative methods of enquiry (participant observation and semi-structured interviews). Finally, Astana is treated as a Latourian actor-network that has its own life and agency, thanks to the global association of various human actors and material objects.