Cultural diplomacy of selected countries in a comparative perspective

Anotace: The objective of the present paper is to analyse and compare activities and actors of cultural diplomacy of Slovakia, Austria, China and the US. Since cultural diplomacy is a rather complex phenomenon, we predominantly focus on the targets and activities conducted by official cultural institutes. Besides, we look at the countries´ participation in international organisations pursuing common cultural policy. The research is supported by both domestic and foreign scientific sources and official websites of ministries, cultural institutes, statistical offices and similar. The outcome of the research are recommendations for improvement of cultural diplomacy practices of the selected countries. We conclude that the numbers of official entities responsible for cultural diplomacies of respective countries differ considerably. However, their agendas are similar.