One thing I learned early on as a foreigner who sometimes appears in the press here in Spain was to never, ever, under any circumstances make a public statement about Catalonian independence. Never! You may remember the former U.S. Ambassador James Costos, who made a seemingly innocuous statement about how if Catalonia separated from Spain, American companies would “make adjustments accordingly.” This kicked up quite a frenzy of speculations about whether this represented an official departure from longstanding U.S. policy until he walked his comments back later that same day on Twitter stating that it is “an internal matter for Spain.”
So, while I have spent years carefully sidestepping the issue, I find it curious that these days, both Catalonian pro-independence leaders and the Spanish government have taken this internal dispute global. Why does Spain care so much about the world's opinion on this?
To be fair, the Catalonian leaders went on the international offensive first in the fall of 2017, bashing Spain's government as undemocratic wherever they could get an interview or op-ed published. It was frustrating to see this well-planned strategy play out in the international press as Rajoy's government mostly sat on their hands. These op-eds and interviews gave the impression that the international media was biased towards Catalonia—a consistent complaint among my friends and students and something I've been hard-pressed to find any real evidence of.
In fact, I ran a media content analysis project with my international political communication students in the winter of 2018. We systematically looked at coverage of the Catalan crisis in the foreign media on the 5 biggest news days during the fall of 2017 in order to uncover bias. Aside from some pieces in the Guardian or the Irish Times, we couldn’t find any. Yes, the Catalans clearly had and have a strategy to publish op-ed pieces in major international newspapers—but this goes in the opinion section, separate from the news reporting on the issue. While it’s important to note that this was a class exercise and not particularly scientific. In fact, it would be nice to see a better and more far reaching study. That said, it did confirm my hunch that the international press was not the problem.
Regardless of any bias—real or perceived—in the international press, the Sanchez government's instinct to defend #MarcaEspaña feels right because, like other countries, Spain wants to have a positive reputation abroad. But does repeatedly pointing out Spain's good rankings on various democracy scales help? Or, how about the recent video of leaders proclaiming Spain’s democracy with the awkward hashtag #everybodysland? (I would have recommended using #everyoneshome, but I wasn’t consulted.) Is this really supposed to make some sort of difference?
The short answer is no, it is very unlikely that it will move public opinion abroad. In order to understand why, it’s important to understand how soft power and the practice of public diplomacy and national branding actually work. For the uninitiated, soft power was conceptualized by the American scholar Joseph Nye. In international relations, there’s hard power, where states get what they want by military threats or economic coercion and then there’s soft power, the power of attraction, that is, the other countries want to do what you want them to do to because of mutual admiration and shared values.
Nye’s theory posits that country A will be better able to execute it’s foreign policy goals with country B, if the people of country B find country A attractive. Spanish embassy across the world all have public diplomacy teams that work to build a better image of Spain in the country they are in through cultural and educational exchanges, messages in the traditional and digital media and the like. Just about all foreign embassies here in Spain are doing the same and Spain’s network of Casas provides a welcome platform for these types of activities, mostly aimed at building mutual understanding over the long term. The theories weak point is that is necessarily rests on the power of domestic public opinion to influence foreign policy. This is a rather shaky foundation since the prevailing belief among public opinion scholars is that most citizens don’t care all that much about foreign policy, let alone pressure their elected officials to go one way or another.
Despite this, an enormous industry has shot up around public diplomacy and nation branding, which are seen as the tools that help countries build soft power. But here we have to note another deeply complicating factor: government are not the only players in the public diplomacy or even nation branding game. It’s a big cacophony of state and non-state actors (multi-national companies, NGOs, international organizations, transnational social movements, terrorist groups, etc.) all jostling to get their voices heard about how a country is and isn’t.
In the end, a country’s reputation has more to do with what that country does than what it says and short term marketing attempts to pretty things up just don't work. China is a great case in point. China has been investing billions of dollars in a “soft power push” public relations offensive throughout the world but it amounts to nothing in light of their well-known repression of freedom of speech and the recent violent protests in Hong Kong. Indeed, Simon Anholt is a British policy advisor famous for developing country branding strategies throughout the world for more than twenty years finally declared that he has not found one case that proves that these activities can actually make any difference. While this is a great call to action for researchers, it’s also a caution for governments spending public dollars: it’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Or, as we say in the US: “you can’t put lipstick on a pig.”
But this isn’t Spain’s case at all. Spain is a recognized full-fledged democracy with press freedom and vibrant government and civic institutions. Like all democracies, it’s not perfect and never will be. It’s messy and constantly evolving. So, it’s a little strange for the government to constantly call attention to democracy rankings. It falls into the old communication advice to never repeat your critics. Richard Nixon said “I’m not a crook”, George H.W. Bush said “I’m not a wimp”, Bill Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, and George W. Bush declared “I am the decider!” See where I’m going with this? It brings to mind the famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"
Rather than saying that Spain is a robust democracy, all the government really needs to do is show it. And beyond that, perhaps explain it in interviews and op-eds. This still won’t have much impact on general public opinion but might reach elite public opinion such as government, business and civic leaders, academics and journalists. I also suspect that the Sanchez government’s democracy campaign has more to do with showing voters that they are out there doing something to defend Spain’s reputation from the onslaught of Catalan attacks.
But the rest, the people who love to come to Spain for the sunshine, paella and wine just don’t care all that much. This is not because they are lazy or uneducated or disrespect Spain in any way, but that they are mostly wrapped up in their own national news bubble. Just like we are here in Spain. Think about it: with all that's going on right now in Spain, how much are you really paying attention to the details Trump impeachment investigation? Or the latest intricacy of Brexit? And these are well-reported issues. How about recent protests in Ecuador? Of course, you dear reader of esglobal, follow international news much more than the average reader and are probably quite aware of these issues. So, you’ll have to try asking around in order to see what I mean.
Another reason why the world is paying minimal attention to what’s going on here in Spain is that the fight over Catalonian independence is extremely complex, so expecting people from other countries to learn enough to form opinions about it is unreasonable. And it is therefore also unreasonable to expect them to pressure their leaders to get riled up about it. Most leaders will not stick their political necks out for an issue that doesn’t necessarily concern them. They’re already on the hot seat for a whole load of domestic issues at any given time.
So, there is little to no international interest in getting involved in such a domestic dispute. Despite what Catalonian leaders assert, this is not a human rights issue. But that is where the line seems to be drawn in terms of justifying any kind of international support or even intervention. Venezuela is a great example of a real human rights crisis and more vigorous international support for the interim government led by Juan Guaidó might have made the difference between holding free and fair elections or letting Nicolas Maduro continue to starve his own people. Further, many countries have their own ongoing disputes over territories that want independence, any support for Catalonia would turn them into hypocrites. It's perfectly logical why Spain won't recognize Kosovo.
Finally, Spain's image by all measures is quite good. The Real Instituto Elcano releases an annual report on the state of Spain's image abroad and consistent with past findings, it is more positive than negative and very strongly marked by stereotypes. While many people chafe at how quickly paella, flamenco and bullfighting comes to foreigner's minds, these are very positive, indeed romantic, stereotypes. Spain's Country RepTrack ranking improved from 17th in 2016 to 12th in 2018. More significantly, there's no evidence that the referendum in the fall of 2017 and the international media around it hurt international public opinion about Spain and I think we’ll see more of the same in regard to the Supreme Court decision and subsequent protests. Catalonian independence leaders can continue to lie about the state of Spain's democracy and the Sanchez government can continue to tout the democracy rankings, but the only argument worth winning is the one taking place within Spain.
This article was published in Spanish in esglobal.