Imagined community and governance of Catalonian cultural action abroad: midway between corporatism and social participation

Abstract

Benedict Anderson (1993) defined nation as “an imagined political
community — and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign”,
and stressed the importance of cultural roots for the establishment of
this national consciousness. Cultural diplomacy, organized by nationstates
since the early 20th century and politically structured on the basis
of this sovereign and imagined space, sought to extend the influence of
countries through the promotion of national culture on the international
scenario. This article examines, by contrasting Anderson ideas, the impact
of nationalism on the organization of a corporatist structure for the
governance of Catalan foreign cultural action between 1980 and 2014.