Branding the nation: Mediating space, value, and identity in the context of global culture

This dissertation is an in-depth examination of the phenomenon of nation branding and its role in expressing contemporary conditions of national space, value and identity in a Western context. The study situates nation branding as a conceptual and practical response to perceived problems of national identity in the context of globalization. Conceived by its proponents as a form of "global nationalism," whereby a country's interests are best served if it adopts a profitable role within a global framework, nation branding purports to offer national leaders the means to communicate a modern version of territorial identity in both domestic and international spheres of influence.;To address the constellation of conditions that have given rise to this phenomenon, the study pays particular attention to the discursive, institutional and political-economic transformations of business-based strategies in the maintenance and perpetuation of national identity. In particular, it analyzes how the discursive construction of the concepts of globalization and neoliberalism embed certain assumptions that structure decisions in national policy arenas and in practical activities. It analyzes the rise of a particular category of expert knowledge as well as the articulation of narratives and tropes that reinforce these assumptions.;To balance this contemporary portrait, the study also adopts a recent historical perspective, situating the phenomenon as a logical extension of earlier (late nineteenth and early twentieth-century) forms of social thought, cultural communication and community formation.;This general perspective is deepened by three case studies, in Canada, Quebec, and Poland. Each case study draws on in-depth interviews, government policy scripts, and business industry documents to demonstrate how the practice of nation branding intersects with those of the national imaginary.;The study's findings suggest that despite the increased focus on the global as the dialogical referent to the nation, nation branding actually reinforces the need for the national form. Unlike certain scholars of the global who argue that "we need to think ourselves beyond the nation," this study argues that the nation-state remains a necessary and relevant unit of recognition, collective understanding, and legitimacy.