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THEMED SECTION
Introduction: Nation promotion and the crisis of
neoliberal globalisation
César Jiménez-Martínez
1
| Sabina Mihelj
2
| Daniel Sage
2
1
Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
2
Loughborough University, UK
Correspondence
César Jiménez-Martínez, Cardiff University,
2 Central Square, Cardiff CF10 1FS, UK.
Email: jimenezmartinezc@cardiff.ac.uk
Funding information
Economic and Social Research Council,
Grant/Award Number: ES/S011846/1;
Loughborough University's Institute for
Advanced Studies
Abstract
This themed section seeks to initiate a debate about the
changing nature of what we call nation promotion. That is,
promotional practices aimed at creating, communicating
and managing versions of national identity to advance eco-
nomic or political goals. These practices—badged as ‘nation
branding’,‘public diplomacy’,‘country branding’or ‘soft
power—emerged more than two decades ago, in a context
characterised by the proliferation of digital communication
technologies, the intensification of globalisation and inter-
national cooperation, and the shift in the balance of power
from states to market forces. However, as we outline in this
introduction, nation promotion operates today in a very dif-
ferent environment, marked by a crisis of neoliberal globali-
sation, the changing communication environment and
mounting global challenges. The three articles that make up
this themed section tackle the changing practices of nation
promotion by focusing on the impact of at least one of
these structural shifts, offering conceptual and analytical
tools for making sense of these transformations.
KEYWORDS
globalisation, nation branding, public diplomacy, soft power
Received: 5 May 2023 Accepted: 14 June 2023
DOI: 10.1111/nana.12979
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2023 The Authors. Nations and Nationalism published by Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism and John Wiley &
Sons Ltd.
Nations and Nationalism. 2023;1–6. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nana 1
1|INTRODUCTION
The seeds of this themed section were sown in March 2019, during the symposium ‘Promoting the Nation in Trou-
bled Times’at Loughborough University. As scholars interested in the relationship between nationalism, media and
organisation, we wanted to initiate a debate about the changing nature of what we call nation promotion—that is,
promotional practices aimed at creating, communicating and managing versions of national identity to advance eco-
nomic or political goals. The exact nature and boundaries of these practices—badged as ‘nation branding’,‘public
diplomacy’,‘country branding’or ‘soft power’—are disputed (Fan, 2010; Ingenhoff & Klein, 2018; Szondi, 2008) but
largely refer to strategic communication initiatives targeted predominantly but not exclusively at foreign audiences,
which disseminate and safeguard ‘new’or ‘improved’versions of national identity to entice tourists, attract invest-
ment or prevent conflict, among other objectives (Aronczyk, 2013; Bolin & Ståhlberg, 2022; Kaneva, 2023).
As the histories of propaganda and psychological warfare evidence (Taylor, 1997), state-sponsored activities
aimed at managing national identities are not new. However, while early initiatives of this kind were concerned with
supporting or avoiding armed conflict, nation promotion emerged in a context where the proliferation of digital com-
munication technologies, the intensification of globalisation and international cooperation, and the shift in the bal-
ance of power from states to market forces made the previous focus on managing inter-national conflicts appear
obsolete. The aftermath of the Cold War gave way to an apparent global victory of neoliberalism, with former com-
munist nations in Central and Eastern Europe adopting radical reforms to embrace capitalism (Varga, 2020), and Latin
American countries leaving behind dictatorial pasts to follow the prescriptions of the Washington Consensus
(Love, 2019). At the same time, although nationalism continued to drive conflicts in the Balkans, the former Soviet
Union and Latin America (Beissinger, 2002; Pankov et al., 2011; Radcliffe & Westwood, 1996), politicians stressed
the arrival of a new era, with wars fought against local and transnational terrorism rather than other nation-states
(Kaldor, 2004). It is significant that nation promotion was posited as the solution to the challenges faced by neolib-
eral globalisation, such as persistent power inequalities between nation-states and terrorist threats. Governments all
over the world hired marketing consultants to develop national brands able to capture transnational flows of finan-
cial capital (Aronczyk, 2013; Kaneva, 2023), while events such as 9/11 gave a new impetus to the practice of public
diplomacy in order to prevent globally mobile terrorist threats (Zaharna, 2004).
However, by the time of our symposium at Loughborough University in early 2019, nation promotion operated
in a radically different context. First, public confidence in the superiority of neoliberal globalisation had been under-
mined (Sparke, 2022; Walter, 2021). This was partly a consequence of the 2007–08 global financial crisis, which
challenged the dominance of the market economy and prompted demands for inward-looking economic measures
and national protectionism, undercutting policies pushing for the free movement of goods, capital and labour, and
therefore weakening some of the main justifications behind nation promotion. This was also accompanied by a
decline in the global dominance of liberal democracy, with populist and illiberal movements and leaders making sig-
nificant electoral gains, as it was the case with Donald Trump in the United States, the Brexit referendum in the
United Kingdom and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (Mylonas & Tudor, 2021; Norris & Inglehart, 2019). Many of these pop-
ulist leaders became staunch critics of neoliberal globalisation, arguing that the nation was under threat by global
forces and elites, and that a more protectionist political and economic status quo was required (Bonikowski
et al., 2019; Brubaker, 2019; Joppke, 2021).
Second, the rise of digital and social media changed the communicative environment where nation promotion
takes place. On the one hand, this new environment enabled greater participation and diversification of the voices
and interests claiming to act and speak on behalf of the nation. This has, for instance, made it possible for citizens
themselves to become more involved in promoting the nation abroad (G
omez Carrillo, 2018), while also contributing
to a greater visibility of social movements seeking to reform the state in the name of the nation (Gerbaudo, 2017).
At the same time, new communication technologies enabled greater fragmentation and polarisation, with a mutually
reinforcing relationship between the rise of illiberalism and populism, political polarisation and the new information
environment (Mihelj & Jiménez-Martínez, 2021). Paradoxically, although digital technologies gave individuals a
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greater potential to reject or subvert official nation promotion initiatives, they facilitated narrower approaches that
reduce the nation to a community of economic actors interested in selling and/or consuming particular skills and
products, rather than citizens with diverse cultural, political and social interests and needs (Castell
o & Mihelj, 2018).
Most recently, the growing monopoly of digital platforms is enabling states to reassert control over the national
imagination, while also allowing other (non-state) actors to interfere in the process (Mihelj, 2023).
Third, the crisis of neoliberal globalisation and the rise of a new communication environment coincided with
mounting pressures on nation-states to respond to global challenges, including climate change, migration, pandemics
and wars. Unlike what earlier theorists of globalisation speculated (e.g., Beck, 2000), these pressures did not result in
a demise of the nation-state. On the contrary, as often noted on the pages of Nations and Nationalism, the continuing
social significance of the nation became even more salient. Nationalism is for instance at the core of the current war
in Ukraine, with Russia's imperial nationalism denying the existence of Ukraine and Ukraine's response being driven
by the principle of national self-determination (Breuilly & Halikiopoulou, 2023). Even a global threat such as the
Covid-19 pandemic was framed as a predominantly national affair, with nation-states closing boundaries to protect
their citizens while competing to communicate their national successes in fighting the virus (Antonsich, 2020; Lee &
Kim, 2020).
It remains to be seen how nation-states will address these global challenges in a context where international alli-
ances are increasingly undermined by war, protectionism, isolationism and anti-globalisation rhetoric, as exemplified
by the challenges faced by international organisations such as the European Union, the World Trade Organization or
the World Health Organization (Walter, 2021; Woods et al., 2020). Yet it should be noted that, even in this radically
different context, nation promotion has not disappeared. Concerns about national images remained during the
Covid-19 pandemic, with governments engaging in ‘vaccine diplomacy’to boost their overseas reputations
(Lee, 2021), as well as promotional campaigns targeting foreign audiences during lockdowns (Kaneva, 2023). More-
over, 2 months after the beginning of Russia's invasion, Ukraine launched a nation branding initiative focussed on
bravery, with the same consultants previously hired to do nation promotion put in charge of communicating the
Ukrainian perspective of the war (Bolin & Ståhlberg, 2022; Kaneva, 2022).
2|THE THEMED SECTION
The existing corpus of academic research on issues relevant to nation promotion—including nation branding and pub-
lic diplomacy—has so far eschewed the transformations outlined above or addressed them in a partial manner. This
themed section therefore brings together some key authorities in nation promotion, along with other scholars active
in this area, to develop a fresh perspective. The contributions examine how the practices of nation promotion have
changed in the current context and offer conceptual and analytical tools for making sense of them. They aim to
engender a holistic, multifaceted conversation that cuts across the disciplines, specialisms and concepts that have
analysed nation promotion so far, from nation branding and public diplomacy to soft power.
With this common goal in mind, the three contributions tackle the changing practices of nation promotion by
focusing on the impact of at least one of the structural shifts outlined earlier—namely, the crisis of neoliberal globali-
sation, the changing communication environment and mounting global challenges. They are based on presentations
at the symposium held at Loughborough University in 2019 and engage with different theoretical approaches
through empirical evidence from Europe, the Americas and Asia.
The first contribution from Aronczyk critically examines eco-nationalist responses to climate change as nation
promotion. Climate change is commonly associated with imperatives for global responses and a decline in nation-
state sovereignty. However, as Aronczyk explains, nation-states and non-state actors are increasingly mobilising cli-
mate change for national promotion efforts that are grounded in nativism, racism and illiberalism. Aronczyk shows
how these instances are diverse. Fossil fuel emitting nation-states enrol UN climate policies to project an image of
climate sensitivity to accrue geopolitical power. Conservative politicians turn to environmental law to militarise
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ENEZ-MARTÍNEZ ET AL.3
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border security. And killers in mass shootings evoke environmental narratives decrying overpopulation and ecological
damage by racialised minorities to justify their atrocities. Aronczyk argues that what unites such eco-nationalist pro-
motional work is that they leave intact both the circuits of capital and hierarchical power geometries that have
fuelled planetary ecological destruction. The result is that collective responses to climate change are undermined,
and planetary ecological collapse is exacerbated. Aronczyk's paper brings to the fore an important, if rather dis-
piriting, paradox: crises in and around global neoliberalism increasingly appear as both the cause and effect of
national promotion efforts.
Although recent research, including Aronczyk's contribution, has drawn attention to the role of non-state actors,
nation promotion remains largely associated with state actors, pursing geopolitical and economic interests and
agendas. The second contribution by Jiménez-Martínez and Dolea directly challenges this methodological statism by
exploring the role of protests within national promotion. Examining national and international media responses to
three protests in Brazil, Romania and Chile, they explain how the relationship between protests and nation promo-
tion can be analysed in three ways. First, protests can threaten the power of political-economic elites, evidenced in
media responses deriding protesters as unrepresentative of the nation, chaotic and damaging to wider economic
interests. Second, protests can appear in the media as offering more authentic national representations, opening up
possibilities to present alternative national identities, including those that reinforce or contest neoliberal ideologies.
Third, protests can draw on promotional and media logics to articulate messages in national and transnational media
that contest prevailing narratives of nation promotion. Taken together, these frames for exploring protests offer one
empirical path away from the paradox given in Aronczyk. Protests are one site where elitist and exclusive nation pro-
motion efforts, and the crises of global neoliberalism they respond to or exacerbate, can be variously contested, and
negotiated.
The third contribution from Kaneva also repeats the turn away from methodological statism. Kaneva undertakes
a critical discourse analysis of how media and promotional discourses inform two contrasting post-national utopias
founded on a rejection of the nation-state and nationalism: the Islamic State's Caliphate declared in 2014 and The
Good Country, a virtual state founded in 2018 by Simon Anholt, a British consultant considered the ‘father’of
nation branding. Both cases have remarkable similarities, including their criticism of nationalism and the nation-state
system. The Caliphate's critique stems from an imperative to dismiss secular modes of government and their pro-
fessedly corrupt and destructive political-economic interests. The Good Country proposes a virtual country, where
decisions are made via artificial intelligence rather than traditional nation-state voting systems, tackling crises associ-
ated with neoliberal globalisation, including environmental destruction and economic chaos. Both cases also rely
upon promotional efforts emphasising the immediacy, attractiveness and accessibility of their post-national utopias.
Leaving aside commitments to violence and Islam, the Good Country shares with the Caliphate imperatives for vol-
untary commitments to join a diverse population to transform a global (neoliberal) order. Similarly, both the Caliphate
and the Good Country employ promotional tools where communications are instrumentalized to generate actions to
join; messages are highly personalised; and signs are used to refer to not yet materialised places and subjectivities.
Kaneva's contribution thus returns us back to the paradoxical relationship between crises in and around global neo-
liberalism and nation promotion. Both the Good Country and the Caliphate emerged as responses to crises associ-
ated with global neoliberalism, yet they also relied on elitist, instrumentalist and commodifying promotional tools
that worsened these crises.
The three contributions emphasise that it is not possible to tackle global challenges and crises associated with
neoliberalism simply by revising the ideological content of national or post-national promotional efforts. This is
because promotional work often remains market-driven, elitist and instrumentalist, such that regardless of content, it
persists in reproducing neoliberal ideologies. Conversely, if promotional work is organised differently, progressive
alternatives to neoliberal ideologies become possible. As Jiménez-Martínez and Dolea explain, promotional work
within protests might example such an alternative but so perhaps might some post-national utopias, or even particu-
lar eco-nationalist projects. What is important is not just that alternative images of the nation are promoted but
whether those images are articulated, circulated and consumed through alternative ways of organising. This demands
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more than simply the use of new digital and social media. Parker et al. (2014a) explain one way of evaluating alterna-
tive ways of organising to neoliberalism is how they balance imperatives for individual autonomy, solidarity with
others and responsibility towards the future. Artistic cooperatives, intentional communities, communes, worker
cooperatives and countless other non-state groups are similarly concerned with alternative ways of organising and
often engage in national or post-national promotional work. Future research on nation promotion might explore such
groups to open up the neoliberal ‘black boxing’of how promotional work is usually organised. These efforts would
benefit immensely by engaging with multi-disciplinary studies of alternative organising (Parker et al., 2014b).
Some may question whether the term ‘promotion’remains useful to describe all work to communicate with or
beyond the nation. Etymologically, ‘promotion’has its origins in the Latin promotionem, referring to ‘a moving for-
ward, an advance’. In consequence, perhaps there is no better word to critically address how diverse peoples,
employing varied work, can not only imagine but also move together towards a more inclusive and prosperous future
in the face of immense global challenges.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council (Grant No. ES/S011846/1) and to Loughborough
University's Institute for Advanced Studies for co-funding the 2019 workshop during which early ideas developed in
this themed section were first formulated. We are also indebted to workshop participants and to anonymous
reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier versions of these papers, and to Nations and Nationalism for pro-
viding a fitting home for this themed section.
ORCID
César Jiménez-Martínez https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2921-0832
Sabina Mihelj https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8557-2504
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How to cite this article: Jiménez-Martínez, C., Mihelj, S., & Sage, D. (2023). Introduction: Nation promotion
and the crisis of neoliberal globalisation. Nations and Nationalism,1–6. https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12979
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