Options
The Development of Japan’s public diplomacy and country branding within the worldwide development of the country’s image policy
Date Issued |
---|
2012 |
This paper reviews the development of Japan’s public diplomacy and country branding practices, comparing them to the Western countries. Analysing three different periods (pre-Cold War, Cold War and post-Cold War), it argues that, during its development starting at the beginning of the 20th century, Japanese public diplomacy always used the ‘Western’ models in the sense of the application of theories and practices relating to the country’s image policy. During the pre-Cold War period Japan was the only non-Western country to institutionalise early external propaganda practices, initially developed by Nazi Germany, the USSR, the USA and the UK. During the 1972-89 (second wave) period, Japan, being an ally of the USA, chose to apply ‘American’ public diplomacy models, also applied by other so-called ‘Capitalist block’ countries. Finally, after the Cold War, the development of Japan’s national image policy underwent the important transformations faced also by other countries. These transformations, on one hand, mark the shift towards the ‘new public diplomacy’ related to the intensification of worldwide information flows, the diminishing role of the state, the threatening notion of the information warfare, and the questioning of established models of public diplomacy. On the other hand, they tended to include country branding practices based on marketing and branding activities.