Soft power: The role of culture in a hyper-globalised world

Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently gave a speech on the need to reform his department to meet the world “as it is … not as we wish it to be”. In this “increasingly volatile world”, with the “number of conflicts higher than at any time since 1945” and European security “on a knife-edge”, he laid out two strategic priorities: tackling unauthorised migration and boosting economic growth.

In terms of the latter, the creative industries were praised, not only from a production and export perspective, but because of their “power to attract” and “influence”.

Cue the launch of the new UK Soft Power Council, co-chaired with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, and pitched to boost “prosperity at home” as well as enhance the country’s “standing abroad”.

This is a welcome announcement for those in the creative industries. Once again, the economic value of their work is recognised (hello 1990s, old friend!). At the same time, it lapses into a familiar instrumental pattern, this time with an added international relations agenda.

Not just tech unicorns

AI was noted as having a role to play in diplomacy but now all eyes are on China’s DeepSeek model, released last week, rapidly overtaking ChatGPT as the most popular free app in Apple’s US and UK app store and triggering a $1 trillion sell-off of US tech stocks.

DeepSeek’s quality is comparable with its Western rivals, but been developed at a fraction of the cost and is vastly cheaper to operate. China’s flexing of its technological prowess has been hailed a sputnik moment, leaving British officials scrambling to scrutinise its security implications while neatly showing the relationship between soft power and the global market.

Under the last Conservative government, soft power was reduced to the selling of market-friendly goods for global consumption. As the former government lurched from one political blunder – and Prime Minister – to another, interest in soft power dwindled before quietly being dropped.

It now returns, but gone is the self-congratulatory GREAT campaign, replaced by a vision more akin to Joseph Nye’s original concept: combining culture with foreign policy and domestic political values. For the Foreign Secretary, soft power is a cornerstone of foreign policy, with hints of cultural diplomacy, international aid and global partnerships.

Yet it is about more than just tech unicorns. Equally important is how a country governs itself and how it treats others. Lammy’s version of soft power aims to project Britain’s values and leadership globally, to influence and shape international norms, but what are these values and norms?

And whose are they anyway? And what will we provide global leadership on? And where does the cultural sector fit within this vision? More to the point, what is this country of ours anyway and who gets to decide and define it? Our government, our political leaders, our much-loved institutions, or our people?

Foreign policy threatens freedoms

On foreign policy, the government calls for a “ceasefire now” while supplying the very weapons that commit the genocide that is livestreamed into our handsets. Defence contractor and FTSE 100 company BAE systems proudly announces record annual sales of £25 billion due to the increase in conflicts that Lammy warns us of.

In his speech, he uses the word “progressive” 16 times, asserting that “what matters is not just what Britain says but what it does”. As the world watches, we might wonder what is progressive about villainising peaceful climate protestors or handing out draconian prison sentences for non-violent acts of civil disobedience?

Starmer’s Border Security Command and Lammy’s talk of “irregular migration” lack the snappiness of Stop the Boats, but speak to the same illiberal sentiment. Government policy threatens the very freedoms that it lectures other countries on.

This week our leaders cite bats and newts as bad for the economy as they hinder the agenda of growth at all costs on a planet with finite resources. Our institutions don’t fare much better.

What are we hoping to harness?

Last year, Arts Council England warned cultural organisations that making political statements about Israel’s assault on Gaza could jeopardise their funding. Yet, according to colleagues in the sector, statements about Ukraine were positively encouraged, if not directed. Our cultural institutions have been notably silent on Palestine.

And what do our audiences want? The brief ripple of cheers for the Just Stop Oil protestors who disrupted The Tempest was encouraging but lost against the jeers of “F*ck Off!” as a blank-faced Sigourney Weaver was led off stage.

We know all too well the unshifting demographic of our arts audiences (overwhelmingly white, educated, middle-aged and middle-class) and we know that they know that there are no museums or theatres on a dead Earth.

But really, if we – the progressive liberals that make culture, consume it and keep it alive – can’t tolerate a splat of soup on the protective glass of a painting to raise awareness of impending planetary collapse then who are we, and what soft power are Lammy and his colleagues hoping to harness?

Diminishing democracy

A recent report from Channel 4 revealed 52% of British Gen Z believe the UK should be a dictatorship. This follows another survey that found 20% of 18–45-year-old Britons would prefer “strong leaders appointed without elections”, rather than democracy.

The human rights watchdog Freedom House has been tracking democracy for fifty years. It’s 2024 report shows a decline in global freedom for the 18th consecutive year, with political rights and civil liberties diminishing in a further 52 countries, including in some democracies. This research isn’t about how people think and feel about democracy. It is about an actual decline globally in people’s freedom.

As democracy and its values have diminished, illiberal right-wing populist nationalism has risen. This research shows that its increase in Western democracies is not a recent shift or new phenomenon; and it shows no sign of stopping.

Penalising the British Council

If Lammy’s agenda is to support peace and prosperity for the people of the UK, then look no further than the British Council. For decades, it has been promoting British culture, building connections and generating trust to strengthen the UK’s position worldwide, all the while bringing money into the economy.

Yet its future hangs in the balance. It was severely impacted by Covid as much of its international exchange programmes, scholarships, artistic collaborations and English language teaching and exam services were shut down. It closed its operations in over 20 countries and cut thousands of jobs to save costs.

Yet now it has to justify its existence once more as it struggles to pay back the £197 million loan that was provided by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office to bail it out. This was loaned without a pre-defined repayment plan, and the government is charging interest at the commercial rate of £14 million a year. This sounds more like the unsavoury tactics of a loan shark than a government sponsor.

The Foreign Office gave the British Council £162.5 million last year in grant-in-aid, yet it delivers over £1 billion annually of soft power activity to over 100 countries.

In other words, for every £1 of subsidy, it makes £5. Only 15% of its income is from the government, with the remaining 85% earned through partnership agreements, contracts, philanthropy, teaching and exams. Alliance Française, its French equivalent, receives 90% of its funding from the state while its German counterpart, the Goethe-Institut, receives 75%.

Over the years, the British Council has been under sustained pressure to grow and diversify its earned income, yet the commercial terms of the loan punish its self-sufficiency. If anything, Covid exposed its over-reliance on commercial income rather than stable government funding, leaving it vulnerable to future crises.

At the point when David Lammy is reaffirming the importance of soft power and convening a new group to prioritise it, he penalises the very organisation that has been doing it every day for 90 years. In a hyper-globalised world, having influence on the world stage is a competitive arena and a British Council in retreat is a blow to the UK.

The new Soft Power Council not only operates against the backdrop of a volatile world at a time when democracy is in peril but was set up in response. It would seem a strange moment to allow the British Council to die.

From competition to collaboration

In an era of polycrisis, where multiple crises occur simultaneously or in quick succession, challenges are compounded and impacts amplified as various crises intersect and interact. Traditional systems of governance, too often siloed and reactive, are unable to manage such complexity.

International cooperation is needed, and this could be reflected by a shift in soft power – away from notions of competition to something more collaborative. Creative individuals and cultural organisations are perfectly placed to lead the way.

They have the brains to envisage a better future; the platforms to project their imaginings of what that might look like; and the global networks to share this bold vision, encouraging not only action but justice and accountability. This presents a vital opportunity for the Soft Power Council.