Eastern Partnership Perspectives of Cultural Diplomacy

Nowadays, Cultural Diplomacy, defined as an exchange of ideas, information and many cultural aspects, has become steadily more important within traditional diplomacy. Therefore, countries can demonstrate their cultural heritage and seek to achieve deeper understanding that leads to strengthening ties between countries. Intentional Cultural Diplomacy has started in the 21st century, and became an example of so called “soft power”, it means the ability to persuade through culture, unique values and believes in contrary to “hard power”, which implies power politics, military and economic threat. Skilful implementation of Cultural Diplomacy is beneficial and promising as it leads to successful development of friendly international relationships and in contrary to traditional forms of diplomacy it changes the public opinion through atmosphere of interest, understanding and appreciation.

The aim of the project is to trigger an international discussion on prospects of development of Eastern Partnership setting new goals in a context of Cultural Diplomacy. We are going to provide analysis of contemporary actions and completed projects and try to anticipate future policy. Moreover, we plan to promote active cooperation and collaboration between EU government and non-profit organizations as well as equivalent organizations from Eastern Partnership participating countries, which held their activities in the area of culture and art.

Important part of the project is an exchange of experience, diagnosis of needs and obstacles existing in the international social and cultural cooperation in order to achieve better quality for future projects as well as broadening the area of influence. The future implementation of project goals will result in a number of intercultural, international initiatives in the field of art and culture but also in the political and economic arena.

As part of the project, on August 29th-31st, Krakow will host an International Expert Conference and MA/PhD Students Co-Conference. All the participants, both speakers and listeners, will have a chance to take part in the workshops on the themes of project management and partnership between cultures.

Following the Conference, papers presented at the sessions, and a summary of the debates will be published in the official electronic proceedings. The Post Conference Report will be a starting point for the further collaboration on the topic. Audio-visual materials will be available at our website.

This project, addressed to professionals from nine former Eastern Bloc countries, aims to set the scene for a debate.

For more information visit: http://conference.iwi.org.pl/en