Weak State, Powerful Culture: The Emergence of Spanish Cultural Diplomacy, 1914–1936

Abstract

This article explores the historical factors that allowed a weak state like Spain to have cultural influence in other European countries during the interwar period. Drawing on archival material from several countries, I argue that Spain could not promote systematically its culture in the early 1920s, but that it gained in soft power because of Western European countries’ new interest first in Spanish neutrality and then in the Latin American market. When the Spanish state developed an active cultural diplomacy in the late 1920s, it was able to derive benefit from the work that other countries had already done to promote Spanish language and culture.