Dialogue and Power: Understanding Danish Public Diplomacy Efforts in the Middle East

Abstract:

Dialogue has become the grand new imperative of world politics in recent decades, particularly since 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’. It is also at the forefront of the agenda within the public diplomacy debate.

This article points out that current attempts to capture public diplomacy through ‘soft power’ are of limited value for understanding dialogue as a central component in this field.

The article claims that the notion of soft power should be supplemented with that of discursive power, which allows us to enquire into dialogue as a form of interaction that is able to transform identities.

A case study on Danish-Middle Eastern dialogue activities illustrates that dialogue can be effective public diplomacy.