Comparative Report
International cultural institutes (ICI) are the most visible expression of a country's efforts to share its culture with an international audience. They are often the first point of contact for people wishing to learn about the culture and language of another country, or even to travel there to work or study. Cultural institutes operate at the interface between culture and foreign policy, with an inherent tension between cultural practitioners, who often promote culture for its own sake, and state funders, who often seek to instrumentalise culture for foreign policy purposes. There is a shift of some country's external cultural policy (ECP) toward a more commercialised stance, which has increased the cultural trade.
