Thinking soft power for a hard world

Jorge Dezcallar's excellent article, 'Lack of ambition', published in these same pages, put his finger on the sore point of the tendency towards solipsism that abounds in Spain, highlighting the imperative need to stop navel-gazing and have the courage to step out of our comfort zone, to open our windows to the world and rediscover that global vocation that once defined us as a country.

Of course, taking our rightful place in the new global order cannot be achieved by imitating the formula of homeopathy, relying on like to counteract like, if administered in miniscule quantities. In other words, we can no longer pretend to believe that with a 'low-cost' policy of international projection we will be able to determine the cultural space that corresponds to us. We Spaniards have shunned the debate on national affirmation in a global world by voluntarily diluting ourselves in Europe. The problem is that, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, Europe does not exist. There is France and Germany, and there is, of course, England, which is so European that English is the European 'lingua franca'. 

That is why these countries, which do believe in themselves, spend respectively EUR 770 million, EUR 340 million and EUR 120 million a year on their film industry, while this year our Institute of Cinematography and Audiovisual Arts is allocating a budget of EUR 12 million in aid to this sector. 

It is difficult to claim to exercise soft power without a solid base. That is, without making culture a matter of state, but also a matter of social and economic interest, as our European neighbours understand, and as the United States itself understands, whose soft power rests on a generous combination of subsidies, tax deductions and protectionist measures, as well as on a network of lobbies that knows how to find pressure groups in countries like ours, who are willing to undermine their own cultural industry to ensure Anglo-Saxon predominance.

Therefore, in order to articulate a soft power strategy, the state's assistance is necessary, but not sufficient. This is because although until recently, traditional diplomacy was the exclusive preserve of states, the dynamism of globalisation and the emergence of the information society has created a situation in which international relations are no longer a state monopoly, but a shared responsibility with civil society as a whole, in which the growing public relevance of multinational companies, NGOs, political movements, academic institutions and lobbies has allowed the development of an asymmetrical para-diplomatic activity, which is no less effective for being heterodox. 

This new contemporary international scenario is conditioned by the fact that it is liquid, instantaneous and ubiquitous, an information-based playing field in which the only constant is volatility. If we want to address this situation seriously, Spain must have an up-to-date public diplomacy that knows how to take advantage of this new global context to promote the dissemination of its values, principles and culture, in order to better serve its national interests by gaining influence in all international spheres and at all levels, weaving a consistent thread that enables coherence between actions and foreign policy discourse.

Spain cannot ignore this new reality, nor the opportunities that derive from it; but to do so, we must take seriously the challenges we face, and understand the consequences of doing nothing. Indeed, not only do global agendas increasingly determine our domestic politics, but in parallel the fragmentation of international actors and the consequent global nature of the issues requires a prompt and proactive response that can only be effective if it involves the coordinated participation of state actors and civil society actors. The diplomatic corps needs to have an agile network of variable geometry to be able to act as a transmission belt for state policies and the advancement of national interests, involving the fourth sector. To be truly relevant on a global scale, we must transcend diplomatic action as usual, moving beyond the old 'information model' - which was based on the elaboration and linear dissemination of messages - to adopt a 'relational model' with which Spanish society as a whole can formulate international relations as a social process of building interactive relations, the key element of which is the involvement of social agents and economic actors in the performance of diplomatic functions.

The need to develop Spain's soft power is a key strategic element not only to reposition ourselves in the space that corresponds to our geostrategic, economic and cultural importance, but also, and crucially, to induce internal cohesion by forging Spain's ambition and influence in a global world from which we cannot isolate ourselves, but rather to gain the perspective that we are losing by remaining obscured in the navel-gazing to which Dezcallar rightly alluded.