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The Catwalk Power: Germany's new foreign image policy

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Abstract

The foreign image policy of states, that is their efforts to influence how they are seen by foreign publics, is an under-researched aspect of International Relations (IR) and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). This is wrong, argues this article. As foreign image policy reflects states' self-understandings, its examination provides inside insights into the transformation of states. The analysis of the foreign image policy of Germany brings to light a remarkable transformation. Until the mid-1990s, Germany cared about its image mostly for security reasons and used traditional instruments of foreign cultural policy for its image projection. Since the mid-1990s, its image policy pursues commercial goals — promoting the Standort — and for this purpose relies on public relations and marketing instruments such as the ‘Land of Ideas’ nation-branding campaign. This new policy has been enabled by the globalization discourse and its construction of a ‘global competition’ between ‘competition states’. At the same time, Germany's new foreign image policy re-produces the globalization discourse and its key concepts. Foreign image policy and globalization are mutually re-enforcing. This interconnectedness with the globalization discourse points to the wider significance of foreign image policy. Therefore, research along these lines carries the promise of bringing FPA back into the agenda of IR.Journal of International Relations and Development (2009) 12, 293–316. doi:10.1057/jird.2009.12

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Her devletin milli gücünü meydana getiren bir takım karakteristik unsurlar vardır. Bunlar kısaca nüfus, milli kültür, coğrafya, doğal kaynaklar, ekonomik güç, askeri güç ve diplomatik güç olarak sıralanmaktadır. Bu unsurlardan ekonomik ve askeri güç detaylı olarak ele alınıp incelenmiştir. Çalışmanın özü Federal Almanya Cumhuriyeti’nin ekonomik gücünün 1990-2018 yılları arasında askeri güce dönüşüp dönüşmediğinin analizine dayanmaktadır. Bunun için Neorealist bir yaklaşım ve askeri-endüstriyel model benimsenmiştir. Makalede ekonomik güç ve askeri güç kıyaslamaları yapılarak Almanya hakkında elde edilen sonuçlara göre değerlendirmelerde bulunulmuştur. Ayrıca Almanya’nın ekonomik gücünün askeri güce oranla daha belirgin olduğu ve akıllı güç unsurları gözetilerek özellikle dış politika stratejilerinin buradan hareketle belirlendiği görülmüştür. 1990-2018 yılları arasındaki zaman dilimi incelenmiş ve buradan hareketle güç projeksiyonları değerlendirilmiştir. Each state has a number of characteristic elements that make up the national power. These are briefly listed as population, national culture, geography, natural resources, economic power, military power and diplomatic power. Economic and military power, which is one of these elements, has been discussed and examined in detail. The essence of the study is the analysis of whether the economic power of the Federal Republic of Germany has turned into military power between 1990 and 2018. For this, a Neorealist approach and a military-industrial model were adopted. In this article, economic and military power comparisons are made and evaluations are made according to the results obtained about Germany. In addition, it was seen that Germany’s economic power was more pronounced than military power and foreign policy strategies were determined by taking into consideration the elements of smart power. The time period between 1990-2018 was examined and power projections were evaluated from this point of view.
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Bilder und Dokumentationen menschlichen Leids, seien es Massaker, Hunger, Vertreibung oder die Zerstörung ganzer Dörfer und Städte sind wiederkehrende Begleiterscheinungen von Bürgerkriegen und internationalen Gewaltkonflikten. Diese Tatsache wurde zumindest in Teilen der Disziplin der Internationalen Beziehungen (IB) schon vor vielen Jahren anerkannt (Campbell 2003b, 2007; Hoskins und O’Loughlin 2010; Kennedy 2008). Visuelle Repräsentationen prägen nicht nur die kollektiv geteilten Vorstellungen von Krieg und dessen Folgen, sondern vermitteln oftmals darüber hinausweisende, politisch und normativ aufgeladene Narrative über Täter und Opfer eines Konflikts.
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In the discipline of International Relations, there are several factors that make up the national power of each state. These are population, national culture, geography, natural resources, economic power, military power and diplomatic power. Economic and military power, which is of the utmost importance to us, will be discussed in more detail. This thesis includes an analysis of how the economic power of the Federal Republic of Germany was transformed into military power between 1990-2018. In the thesis study, a Neorealist approach and Military-Industrial model are adopted. In our study, economic power and military power comparisons were made and compared with both Germany and other major powers, and evaluations were made according to the results of the obtained data. In addition, it is concluded that the economic power of Germany is more pronounced than military power and that foreign policy strategies are determined by taking into consideration the factors of intelligent power. The time period from 1990s to the present has been examined and power projections have been evaluated. Keywords: Germany, Economic Power, Military Power, National Power, Great Powers. Uluslararası İlişkiler disiplininde her devletin milli gücünü meydana getiren bir takım unsurlar vardır. Bunlar nüfus, milli kültür, coğrafya, doğal kaynaklar, ekonomik güç, askeri güç ve diplomatik güçtür. Konumuzu en çok ilgilendiren ekonomik ve askeri güç daha detaylı olarak ele alınıp incelenecektir. Bu tez Federal Almanya Cumhuriyeti’nin ekonomik gücünün 1990-2018 yılları arasında askeri güce nasıl dönüştürüldüğünün analizini içermektedir. Tez çalışmasında Neorealist bir yaklaşım ve Askeri-Endüstriyel model benimsenmiştir. Çalışmamızda ekonomik güç ve askeri güç kıyaslamaları yapılarak gerek Almanya hakkında gerekse de diğer büyük güçler kıyaslanmış, elde edilen verilerin sonuçlarına göre değerlendirmeler yapılmıştır. Ayrıca Almanya’nın ekonomik gücünün askeri güce oranla daha belirgin olduğu ve akıllı güç unsurları gözetilerek özellikle dış politika stratejilerinin buradan hareketle belirlendiği sonucuna varılmıştır. 1990’lardan günümüze kadar olan zaman dilimi incelenmiş ve buradan hareketle güç projeksiyonları değerlendirilmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Almanya, Ekonomik Güç, Askeri Güç, Ulusal Güç, Büyük Güçler
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Das Politikfeld „auswärtige Kulturpolitik“ ist ein Teil der auswärtigen Politik. Wie auch immer die übrigen Felder der Außenpolitik definiert werden mögen (also etwa Diplomatie, Außenwirtschaftpolitik, Sicherheitspolitik oder Entwicklungspolitik), entscheidend ist, dass die Staaten für die allgemeinen Zwecke der Außenpolitik versuchen, mit Mitteln der Kultur auf die Staatenwelt Einfluss zu nehmen oder ihren Einfluss bzw. Macht über die kulturellen Beziehungen zu erhöhen. Dem liegt die einfache Überlegung zugrunde, dass durch die Präsentation kultureller Errungenschaften das Ansehen eines Staates bei seinen internationalen Partnern erhöht und damit die Einwirkungsmöglichkeiten verbessert werden.
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Als der US-Präsident und spätere Friedensnobelpreisträger Woodrow Wilson 1918 seinen Vierzehn-Punkte-Plan für eine friedliche Nachkriegsordnung vorlegte, stand die Abschaffung der Geheimdiplomatie an erster Stelle. Die Entwicklung der Massenmedien, aber auch die Demokratisierung vieler Gesellschaften hat mittlerweile dafür gesorgt, dass diese Forderung weitgehend erfüllt ist. Die Öffentlichkeit hat den geheimen Kabinetten seither in einem unvergleichlichen Siegeszug den Rang als maßgebliches Forum der Außenpolitik abgelaufen. In der globalen Medien- und Informationsgesellschaft wird das Handeln von Staaten Schnell und direkt in der Öffentlichkeit anderer Länder wahrgenommen: Interessengruppen, Nichtregierungsorganisationen und Bürger verfolgen, wie ein Land sich in globalen Fragen entscheidet. Sie registrieren, welche Standpunkte es einnimmt, für welche Werte es steht und ob sich diese in dem konkreten außenpolitischen Handeln auch widerspiegeln. Und sie nehmen Einfluss auf die Politik ihrer Regierungen.
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The practice of 'branding' has invaded all aspects of public and private life. Increasingly, cities, regions and states are using the services of PR and branding consultants to strengthen their ties with so-called stakeholders, aiming to achieve economic and political benefits. This essay studies the intersection between the two worlds of PR and IR theory; two epistemic communities that have little real contact with each other, despite the fact that they share an interest in concepts such as globalisation, identity and the changing nature of power in international politics. This essay offers numerous concrete examples of the phenomenon of location branding to describe how and why territorial entities have decided to jump on the `brandwagon'. It relates the trend of location branding with some strands of constructivist thinking and explores the possible consequences for the study of nationalism and democracy. In this, it sketches the outlines of a potential new research agenda.
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It is not uncommon to argue that 'the notion of Europe as a continent is a social construction'. The concern of this article, however, is to explore the ways in which 'Europe' is imagined in various forms of European Union-level economic policy making. It argues that categories such as 'the European economy', 'European competitiveness', 'European industry' and 'European firms' are not self-evident entities, but social constructions. The suggestion is that these elements are somewhat neglected in both (a) studies that seek to discuss the complexities of identity formation around the processes of European integration and (b) work on the changing European political economy more generally. The idea of a self-evident European economic space has become a staple of public and policy discourse. Yet, as this article seeks to show using the particular example of 'European competitiveness', the articulation of this idea is a matter of intensive discursive practice. There seems to be considerable weight attached to the assertion of a European economic self as the basis for enhancing the legitimacy of both the deepening of integration in particular policy directions and the 'Europeanisation' of governance capacity. While the article offers a discussion of the evolution of what might be called rhetorical strategies towards this end, it does so in the context of important theoretical considerations about the role of ideas and discourses relative to interests in economic life. It is worth stressing at the outset that the approach taken here refuses to make simple linkages between material circumstances, interests and rhetoric. Rather interests are thought of here as perceptual and subjective, rather than as fixed by objective/material status. This means that discourse and rhetoric matter as (respectively) structural and agential variables in the discursive construction of interests, rather than being simple derivatives or echoes of underlying interests.2.
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This article examines the relevance of place branding as a political phenomenon in international politics. After setting place branding in a historical and conceptual context, it maps out the connections between branding and international politics by looking at three examples. First, it examines the challenges facing the European Union to strengthen its image as a global player. Second, it analyzes the efforts of the United States to deal with its collapsing image in the aftermath of its failing “war on terror” and military intervention in Iraq. Third, it examines negative place branding by focusing on the Borat movie that upset Kazakhstan in 2006 and the cartoon crisis that erupted in Denmark in September 2005. This article also aims to situate the practice of place branding in a broader analytical context. It argues that place branding is part of a wider spectrum of postmodern power, where soft power and public diplomacy also have their place.
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To scholars researching the connections between international relations and globalisation, such as those in the five books reviewed here, ‘foreign policy’ is becoming functionally and descriptively rivalled in a globalising context. Foreign policy, once the theoretically exclusive prerogative of the nation-state, is violated daily by new developments in non-state actorness arising from transnational technical and welfare issues such as trade, finance, labour standards and environmentalism. These books under review introduce the displacement lexicon of transnational politics, global civil society, non-state resistance and complexity into policymaking consciousness; in short, the post-international era. The conclusion proposes to tease out the preliminary outlines of the post-international challenge to foreign policy on the basis of ‘plus non-state’ actor-interest considerations.
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This article seeks to contribute to opening up a space of possibility for the state to become something other than a competitive entity in and through a critical (re)problematisation of 'international competitiveness' as a governmental problem. In more specific terms, it inquires into how international competitiveness was constituted as such a problem in the first place; how both the meaning of international competitiveness and the terms of the 'competitiveness problem' have been transformed by globalisation talk and multilateral efforts at neoliberal global governance; and how the discourse of international competitiveness works to (re)produce the state as a competitive entity on a continuous basis.
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This article argues for a new and broader understanding of reputation as a generally shared belief concerning a referent's character or nature, based on a range of information, associations and social cues. This is in place of the conventional rationalist definition of this concept as the degree to which an actor reliably upholds its commitments, based on a record of past behaviour. A brief literature review shows that this concept is crucial in underpinning a wide range of work in political science and economics premised on strategic interaction. The difference between a rationalist and constructivist understanding of reputation hinges on three points. Firstly, reputation is argued to be a relational concept rather than a property concept. Secondly, reputation is a social fact with an emergent, intersubjective quality, not just a collection of individual beliefs. Thirdly, rather than being an inductively derived objective record of past behaviour, reputation is based on associations, feelings and social cues. The last section of the article applies this broader conceptual understanding to two empirical examples: the importance of international organisations' reputation for their influence over policy-makers, and the way in which small states are classified as tax havens by a reputation test.