Cultural Diplomacy

According to Arndt’s article on the hush hush of cultural diplomacy it seems as though this aspect of diplomacy is being swept under the rug even though its role in PD is an important one. As a student of international communications however, it is hard for me to understand why the US government would not take a stronger stance in putting more money into cultural diplomacy and implementing cultural programs around the world. If this is what many other countries value and are doing, perhaps the US needs to figure out a way to assess what makes up American culture (something that many people actually have a hard time describing) and imitate the rest of the world in portraying that culture proudly as a way to gain mutual respect. One would think that culture would be a foundation for other PD efforts especially when we want to focus on our relationship with high context countries- countries that are more intrigued by ‘who’ a person is than what they do. Cultural factors demonstrate what we find important, and can describe the way we think, which is also important to relationship building with other countries. The first step is recognizing the importance of cultural diplomacy. The second step would be to understand HOW to effectively implement cultural diplomacy around the world. Kovach offers a new way to present ourselves culturally on two levels: human and symbolic.