Cultural Diplomacy and Soft Power: critical analysis and methodological application

The increase in research of cultural issues in International Relations reveals that the interpretations of associated concepts present many dissonances, sometimes being used in an overlapping or mistaken way. This article focuses particularly on the concepts of cultural diplomacy and soft power and conducts a critical theoretical-methodological analysis of the contents and limits of each concept's use. To this end, we recovered the definitions offered by the literature for the concepts, contextualizing them with the political-historical intentions around their creation and use, both in their origins and today. We analyzed problems in the application of the concepts, both regarding the agents involved in its practical application and the nature and selection of the content mobilized. To contribute methodologically to future work, we elaborated possible research structures linked to both concepts.