This report analyses how, and to what extent, international heritage protection approaches can be understood from soft power and cultural relations perspectives. It compares the United Kingdom’s cultural heritage protection approaches globally to those of the United States, the Netherlands, and Norway.
The quantitative analysis in the report demonstrates that although some aspects of cultural relations and soft power are mutually exclusive, there is also a significant overlap between the two approaches. The overlap between cultural relations and various forms of diplomacy can both strengthen and challenge foreign policy establishments to think beyond instrumental foreign policy goals.
Chief among the findings is a similarity among the European approaches, and the weightage placed on public diplomacy in the United States. Key words are analysed in this report for the presence of soft power and cultural relations values in the four countries’ cultural heritage preservation programs. Of the 923 key words selected from the reports for analysis, 106 were exclusively soft power, 113 were exclusively cultural relations, and were both.
Given the multiplicity of actors and meanings involved in cultural protection, this report leans toward conceptual and empirical approaches that address the evolution of cultural protection to connect them with soft power and cultural relations values. In both cases, the report emphasises the presence of shared values, which makes cultural protection especially conducive for both soft power and cultural relations purposes.
