After his Liberal Party’s surprise victory in the 2015 federal Canadian election, Justin Trudeau declared that "Canada was back" on the world stage. This comprehensive volume highlights issues in the relationship between articulated visions of Canada as a global actor, nation branding and domestic politics, noting the dangers of the politicization of the branding of Canada. It also provides the political context for thinking about ‘Brand Canada’ in the Trudeau era. The authors explore the Trudeau government’s embrace of political branding and how it plays out in key areas central to the brand, including: Canada’s relations with Indigenous peoples; social media and digital diplomacy; and the importance of the Arctic region for Canada’s brand, even though it is often ignored by politicians and policymakers. The book asks whether the Trudeau government has lived up to its claim that Canada is back, and highlights the challenges that emerge when governments provide optimistic visions for meaningful transformation, but then do not end up leading meaningful change. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political science, particularly those with a focus on Canada. It was originally published as a special issue of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal.

Looking at Canada's public diplomacy abroad through culture, international education, and international broadcasting.

In 2017, Canada will celebrate 150 years of Confederation. Like the 1967 Centennial celebration, the upcoming commemoration can be viewed as a nation-building exercise and an opportunity to redefine or refine Canadian identity. At the centre of the commemoration will be the way the celebration is branded, and at the centre of the branding will be the logo. Within the last 50 years, nation branding has emerged as a prominent marketing phenomenon for both the private and public sectors in many countries across the world. Nation branding, as defined by Melissa Aronczyk in Branding the Nation, refers to the use of traditional advertisement techniques and strategies in making national culture into a marketable and monetizable entity. Using the Centennial and Sesquicentennial celebrations as case studies, I deconstruct the notion of 2Canadian identity3 as a brand, noting the cultural context, political mandate and constructed narratives surrounding the celebrations. A chapter on the Centennial celebration will consist of a Barthesian examination of 1967’s logo, speeches and celebratory events. The Sesquicentennial celebration chapter will focus on the themes and speeches of Canada 150, exploring the rhetorical and visual strategies used in service of governmental nation branding projects.

Nation Branding: Concepts, Issues, Practice provides a theoretical framework, alongside insightful examples from the practice of nation banding, in which the principles of brand strategy and management are applied to countries globally. This new edition has been comprehensively updated and its influential original framework modified to reflect the very latest changes in the field. It remains an accessible blend of theory and practice rich with international examples and contributions. Updates to this edition: New Academic Perspectives and Practitioner Insights in each chapter Updated and new cases from a broad range of nations and cultures Fresh coverage of online branding and social media New material covering the critical and ethical issues of nation branding, including the limitations Updated references and sources Updated online resources, including PowerPoint slides and Instructor Manual with end-of-chapter discussion points and suggested answers This is an essential introduction to nation branding for students of Marketing, Brand Management, Communications, and Public and International Relations, as well as policy makers looking for a rigorous yet applied approach.

"Publicity and the Canadian State is the first sustained study of the contemporary practices of political communication, focusing holistically on the tools of the publicity state and their ideological underpinnings: advertising, public opinion research, marketing, branding, image consulting, and media and information management, as well as related topics such as election law and finance, privacy, think-tank lobbying, and non-election communication campaigns."--Publishers website

Nation branding--a set of ideas rooted in Western marketing--gained popularity in the post-communist world by promising a quick fix for the identity malaise of "transitional" societies. Since 1989, almost every country in Central and Eastern Europe has engaged in nation branding initiatives of varying scope and sophistication. For the first time, this volume collects in one place studies that examine the practices and discourses of the nation branding undertaken in these countries. In addition to documenting various rebranding initiatives, these studies raise important questions about their political and cultural implications.

In the last two years, Canadian society has been marked by political and ideological turmoil. How does an increasingly divided country engage a world that is itself divided and tumultuous? Political instability has been reinforced by international uncertainty: the COVID-19 pandemic, populism, Black Lives Matter, and the chaotic final year of the Trump presidency that increased tensions between the West, China and Russia. Even with a Biden presidency, these issues will continue to influence Canada’s domestic situation and its ability to engage as an effective global actor. Contributors explore issues that cause or reflect these tensions, such as Canada’s willingness to address pressing crises through multilateralism, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Can Canada forge its own path in a turbulent world?

Canadian Foreign Policy, as an academic discipline, is in crisis. Despite its value, CFP is often considered a “stale and pale” subfield of political science with an unfashionably state-centred focus. Canadian Foreign Policy asks why. Practising scholars investigate how they were taught to think about Canada and how they teach the subject themselves. Their inquiry shines a light on issues such as the casualization of academic labour and the relationship between study and policymaking. This nuanced collection offers not only a much-needed assessment of the boundaries, goals, and values of the discipline but also a guide to its revitalization.

This book explores new grounds that public diplomacy is entering today, as domestic publics come to the forefront of the policy – acting both as foreign policy constituencies and public diplomacy actors cooperating with their foreign counterparts. The author discusses the phenomena of public diplomacy’s domestic dimension described as government’s ability to engage its own society in foreign policy practices through information, cooperation and identity-defining. By analysing data from over 80 recorded interviews with Australian, Norwegian and American public diplomacy practitioners, this volume illustrates both successful and unsuccessful models of such cooperation. From Norwegian Peace Diplomacy, through Australia’s ambivalent engagement with Asia, to U.S. Government-sponsored exchange programs, the author argues that governments around the world are slowly accepting a paradigm shift in diplomatic practice from monological/dialogical to a more collaborative public diplomacy. This book is an essential resource for students, scholars, experts and diplomats interested in world’s best-practices of engaging domestic civil society actors in foreign policy statecraft.

This book explores how Vietnam's leadership conceptualises and conducts public diplomacy (PD) and offers a comparative analysis with regional powers. Drawing on social constructivism as its theoretical framework it investigates the rationale behind an authoritarian regime's implementation of public diplomacy to contribute to a better understanding of the broader framework of foreign-domestic policy. This theoretical and practical exploration of Vietnam's PD in cases of cultural diplomacy, South China Sea diplomacy and online activism situates it in the general academic and theoretical discussion on soft power. Key variables to the conceptualisation and conduct of Vietnam's PD, namely national interest, national identity and changing information technologies, especially the Internet and social media, are also thoroughly investigated. With crosscutting themes ranging from politics and international relations to communication studies, it will appeal to students and scholars of identity politics, populism and nationalism.