Abstract
This case study of Canadian cultural diplomacy (1993-2012) tests the hypothesis that the public diplomacy of Canadian governments served the objective of fostering the Canadian identity. We claim that Canada has witnessed a gradual eclipse of cultural diplomacy as a means of "soft power"under the Harper administration.
While the Liberal governments since the 1960s, and especially since 1993, used cultural diplomacy as a domestic policy strategy promoting the narratives of cultural diversity, the Conservative strategy tried to reframe Canadian identity along traditional, more economic and "hard power" neoconservative terms. This article tries to illustrate how changing identity narratives have shaped the foreign policymaking of Canada in the cultural domain.