Spain’s Casas Network and Public Diplomacy

A new article by María Claver Ruiz, Director General of Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy for Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, appeared in the current issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. The article, Explaining Spain’s Casas: An Instrument of Networked Public Diplomacy, explores the history, functionality, achievements and challenges of Spain’s Casas network, which includes Casa África, Casa América, Casa Árabe, Casa Asia, Casa Mediterráneo and Centro Sefarad-Israel. In the article, Claver Ruiz examines the institutional structure of the Casas; their cultural programming; their use of social media; their relationship to both internal and external publics, including both Spanish civil society and immigrant diasporas in Spain, as well international NGOs and transnational corporations; and finally, their public diplomacy priorities, in order to assess the Casas role as an instrument of Spanish public diplomacy. Claver Ruiz concludes that Spain’s Casas are a “highly fruitful complement to traditional diplomacy” as they encourage multi-stakeholder collaboration and cooperation in the fields of public, cultural and economic diplomacy.

The full article is available here.