National Reputation Management and the Competition State

Abstract

The paper deals with the national reputation programmes of Denmark and Norway in the period 2005–2010. The first section demonstrates how national reputation management emerged as a part of the globalization discourse and illustrates its hybrid character. The paper then gives a short overview of the two approaches, nation branding and public diplomacy. In the next section, national reputation management efforts in Denmark and Norway are compared according to three variables: how they were launched in response to globalization, the role of consultants, and the countries’ different institutional settings. The article concludes with a discussion of how the elements of national reputation management interact in the initiatives of the two countries and how this relates to the general change in the relationship between nation-states on the global scene. The paper concludes that Norway and Denmark represent two different variations of a new, hybrid national reputation management. In the Norwegian case, the political and cultural spheres infiltrated the commercial sphere, while in Denmark, the commercial sphere infiltrated the cultural and political spheres

KEYWORDS:

• culture
• economics
• politics
• identity
• branding

Notes

1. Approximately 40 % of the budget is used to support events in Denmark that are supposed to attract foreign interests, like the Climate Conference in 2009 and the International Design Week. In contrast, only 7% of the budget is spent on public diplomacy. In the Danish case, the idea is to focus on the marketing of Denmark. From 2012 to 2015 the allocation for public diplomacy activities has been reduced to 2.5% of the budget.

2. See Smith (2001) for an outline of this literature.

3. See http://www.brandingdanmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/15AC814C-3018-44AD-84B3-5C5ED62A6433/0/ActionPlan.pdf.

4. The documents on Norwegian national reputation management are downloaded from www.regjeringen.no.

5. The settlement was for 2007–2010, but has provisionally been extended to 2112.

6. See http://www.brandingdanmark.dk/NR/rdonlyres/15AC814C-3018-44AD-84B3-5C5ED62A6433/0/ActionPlan.pdf.

7. See: http://www.um.dk/en/menu/aboutus/publicdiplomacy/whatispublicdiplomacy.

8. See for instance the parliamentary debate on the report to the Parliament on Norwegian foreign policy, which included several perspectives on the efforts to strengthen Norway's national reputation (Stortingsmelding nr 15 2008–2009, 122 ff., 171. www.stortinget.no).

9. http://www.brandingdanmark.dk/danmark/da-dk/menu/markedsfoering-af-danmark/markedsfoeringspanel/kommissorium/kommissorium.htm#.