Contribution to UK soft power
24 September 2012
- In the 21st century, a 24/7 networked world means that an increasing amount of important international connections take place outside traditional state-to-state relations. Connections between people are more important than ever.
- We connect UK teachers, learners, artists, sportspeople, scientists and policymakers with their counterparts around the world, building ties between people, whatever the state of relations between governments.
- Our entrepreneurial ‘mixed economy’ model with operational independence from UK government enables us to extend our work for the UK commercially through teaching and qualifications and by bidding for and winning educational and development contracts.
- Widely respected by other countries, the British Council model showcases the UK’s entrepreneurial ‘mixed economy’ approach to education and culture and extends the UK’s cultural relations at no additional cost to the UK taxpayer.
- Our work in English, the arts, education and society increases the UK’s international attractiveness. It also strengthens the UK’s reputation across the world as an open, vibrant country, with a thriving cultural scene and a world-class education sector.
- The British Council makes a major contribution to the UK’s soft power by creating international opportunities and building trust between people around the world.
Research by Chatham House recently placed the English language, education and culture as the top three factors in supporting the UK’s overseas reputation.
Each year, our work directly involves more than 30 million people worldwide and reaches nearly 600 million people through digital media, radio and television.
Research has shown a clear correlation between increased levels of trust in a country and an increase in a person’s inclination to do business with, visit, or study in that country.
Soft power is being prioritised as a foreign policy tool in other countries. China has opened 300 Confucius Institutes since 2004 and aims to have 1,000 institutes in operation by 2020.
Many of the challenges facing today’s governments are transnational. Networks of people across nation states can build a platform on which collective action can be taken more effectively.
The UK is recognised as one of the world’s most adept soft power states. In a recent global ranking of soft power by the Institute for Government, the British Council was singled out as ‘a tremendous source of British soft power’.
Our work targets international leaders, influencers and aspirants. Their participation in British Council programmes gives them an instinctive understanding of the UK’s position on issues, creates useful contacts, as well as a space for persuasion and influence.
The late Sir Anthony Parsons, British Diplomat: 'It is really dazzlingly obvious … [i]f you are thoroughly familiar with someone else’s language and literature, if you know and love his country, its cities, its arts, its people, you will be instinctively disposed … to support him actively when you consider him right and to avoid punishing him too fiercely when you regard him as being wrong'.
Joe Nye on Soft Power ‘The concept is not new. It is human behaviour. … [T]he British Council discovered it and has been practising it effectively since 1934.’
Philip Seib, Director of Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California, called the British Council ’probably the world’s best cultural diplomacy agency’.
*Definition: An economic system combining private and public enterprise
