Brand States: Postmodern Power, Democratic Pluralism, and Design

Simon Anholt, “Branding Places and Nations,” in Brands and Branding, ed. Rita Clifton and John Simmons (New York: Bloomberg Press, 2003), 214

Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: PublicAffairs, 2004), 30.

This thesis was developed in Chantal Mouffe’s books The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993) and On the Political (Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge, 2005).

Peter van Ham, “Place Branding: The State of the Art,” in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616 (March 2008): 130. See →.

Ibid., 132.

It seems like the spirit of Van Ham’s analysis has already translated into Eurobranding. Casually messianic, the French slogan for 2008 EU presidency is l’Europe qui protège (the Europe that protects).

Van Ham, “Place Branding,” 141.

Ibid., 142.

Ibid., 143.

See “Poor Romanian villagers not amused by “Borat” movie success at their expense,” International Herald Tribune, November 14, 2006, http://www.iht.com/articles/ ap/2006/11/14/arts/EU_A-E_MO V_Romania_Borat_Backlash.php (accessed November 1, 2008).

Wally Olins, Trading Identities: Why Countries and Companies are Taking on Each Others' Roles (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 1999).

See Vladimir Kolossov and John O’Loughlin, “Pseudo-States as Harbingers of a New Geopolitics: The Example of the TransDniester Moldovan Republic (TMR),” in Boundaries, Territory and Postmodernity, ed. David Newman (London: Frank Cass, 1999).

See Francis Fukuyama, State Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004).

Wally Olins, "Country code – London," Monocle 1 (September 2007).

Simon Anholt, e-mail message to author, April 2008.

See David Singh Grewal, Network Power: The social dynamics of globalization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 4.

Van Ham, “Place Branding,” 146.

Grewal, Network Power, 106.

Ibid., 107.

Nye, Soft Power, 15.

Van Ham, “Place Branding,” 137.

For a survey of a Miró-style “surrealist” tradition in tourist brands, see Metahaven, “A Nation Brand Paradox,” in HTV 72 (February 2008).

Van Ham, “Place Branding.” 129.

Richard N. Haass, “The Age of Nonpolarity,” in Foreign Affairs 87 (May/June 2008), see → (accessed November 1, 2008).

Mouffe, On the Political, 116.

For example the Paris-based Fondation Europe Plus. Mission: to make Europe more attractive and competitive; see → (accessed 1 November 2008).

See Berlin’s city brand “Be Berlin.”

See U.S. Department of State, "Briefing on U.S. Diplomacy and the War of Ideas," October 28, 2008, → (accessed 1 November 2008).