Abstract:

The paper aims to present notions of cultural diplomacy (CD) and international cultural relations (ICR) in light of communication theories. Such perspective provides us with a tool of “intercultural communication competencies”, employed to estimate quality of performance of cultural events, organized as part of cultural diplomacy activities perpetuated primarily by the states but also by other actors such as European Union. The analysis underlines the fact that both CD and ICR may be properly conducted only if they are treated as intercultural communication tools and its political, economic or social success depends on its efficacy measured on course of their practical implementation. The framework aims to prove that countries facilitating international cultural relations approach tend to incorporate more constituent items of intercultural communication competencies than these using traditional cultural diplomacy.