Museums as Soft Power in Europe: Debates of History
Contemporary international relations have redefined approaches and studies towards sources and instruments of power. In addition to military and economic power which are commonly defined as ‘hard power’, discussions on ‘soft power’ instruments which involve ‘attraction’ instead of coercion has been a popular topic of discussion, Joseph Nye saw soft power as important in order to build positive images of a country which in turn will help the country’s international standing as well (Zhang, 2011). One of the perceived benefits of soft power is that soft power has the ability to reach larger amounts of population, which refers to the general public, and not only political and diplomatic elites (Nye, 2008).
One of the key instruments of soft power is tourism. The development of mass tourism is going on an unprecedented scale, despite of a brief respite caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some countries or regions depend their economies on tourism as a source of their income. Tourism could be an opportunity to promote a country’s cultural, historical and societal aspects to the world, which is seen as important opportunities to compete with other sources of soft power which has been directed against them. (Claro, 2023) For example, Russia has been focusing on promoting itself as a tourist destination to dispel false Hollywood stereotypes about the country (Chugunova, 2020), and Kazakhstan has been also promoting tourism in order to give a true narrative instead of a negative portrayal in the ‘Borat’ movie (Stein, 2020).
Museums are an important media of tourism, including in European countries. Many European countries have museums as top tourist destinations, such as the British Museum in the UK, Musee du Louvre in Paris, Hermitage Museum in Russia, and many others. Museums provide not only cultural, historical and scientific development of a country through artifacts and collections, but in some cases they have also become a political instrument. For example, national historical and military museums has been used to promote narratives considered rightful by the country as well as identifying enemies (which sometimes attract the ire of foreign tourists) as well as the controversy of looted objects by European colonial powers from non-European countries, with many countries demanding their return or at least promoting objective narratives of European colonisation (DW, 2024) .
Overview of Museums in Europe
Based on data from SmartScrapers Research Digital, there are around 27.000 museums in Europe out of a global total of 103.000 (SmartScrapers, 2024). Germany is the European country with the highest number of museums, numbering around 6,741 museums followed by Russia at second place (5,415) and France (4,811). Outside the top three, Italy and the UK round out the top five, followed further by Spain, Sweden, Poland, Switzerland and Belgium rounding out the top ten (Statista, 2023). Out of the world’s top ten visited museums in 2022, seven of them are geographically located in Europe, namely the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay in Paris, Vatican Museums, Natural History Museum in London British Museum, Natural History Museum in Paris, Tate Modern in London and the Mevlana Museum in Konya, Turkiye (Blooloop, 2023). Similarly, in terms of area floor size, five of the world’s largest museums are located in Europe: the Louvre in Paris, the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, the British Museum in London and the Victoria and Albert Museum also in London. (Google Arts and Culture) This disproportionate number of European museums in comparison to other continents give them importance in terms of studying museums as instruments of soft power.
There are several classifications of museum types in Europe. First, the most common is art and culture museums, which generally attract the highest number of tourists. These include the famed Louvre in Paris and Hermitage in St. Petersburg, as well as several other famed national museums in Europe, such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. A second type of museums in Europe is those dedicated to national history, either it be political, societal or cultural histories. This type includes the National Museum of Estonia and State History Museum in Moscow, the Museum of Germany in Berlin, and the Vatican Museums.
A third kind of European museums, often involving sentimental values, are those dedicated to patriotic histories such as foreign occupation and military victories. There are a large amount of museums like this especially in Eastern Europe, such as the Victory Museums in Moscow and Minsk and National Complex ‘Ukraine in the Second World War’ in Kyiv. On the other hand, museums dedicated to darker memories such as Soviet occupation are present in the Baltic states and Georgia. A fourth type of museums are those dedicated to natural sciences, such as Natural History Museums in Vienna and Basel, as well as science centres and planetariums in almost every major European city.
Lastly, but not least, are personal museums dedicated to the biography and works of important figures in European history. For example, the Karl Marx Museum in Trier, Germany, as well as museums dedicated to Russian writers such as Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy in many former Soviet countries. In addition to ‘official’ museums, many historical sites such as castles and churches have become tourist spots in Europe and serve as museums as well, from government buildings such as the Moscow Kremlin and the Buckingham Palace, religious sites such as the St. Peter’s Baslica in the Vatican and La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, to historical imperial castles such as the Schonbrunn and Belvedere in Vienna, the Peterhof in St. Petersburg and the Versailles in Paris.
Museums as Soft Power
In the increasingly interconnected global landscape, tourism plays an mportant role in shaping economies of states. With museums recording hundreds of thousands or even millions of visitors yearly, this could result in museums being a source of huge income for the country. The economic benefits from the museums could be also used to fund tourist programmes, cultural projects, educational and research developments in the country, as well as information dissemination, thus making itself as an example of trickle-down effect where economic benefits eventually reap on many other benefits The role of museum as tourist destinations in contributing to the national economy proves how soft power instruments could eventually affect the hard power of a country, in terms of economic strength (Wisniewska et. al,, 2020). On the other hand, when economic difficulties happen, it is likely that museums also bear out its effect as well. The COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a huge downfall of tourist arrivals in Europe, caused a strain in operationals and budgeting for museums across Europe as they suffer from a lack of visitors and revenue (Prnjat, 2021).
In addition to economic benefits, museums can importantly shape the perception of identity, both in its inward and outward projection. Inward, museums could be a source of patriotism and pride in a country;s cultural achievements,diversity, and history (Aronsson, 2014). Many military-themed museums in Europe focus on bringing patriotic sentiments or national remembrance, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe generally more affected by the war. This could influence internal domestic sentiments of patriotism as well as love and appreciation for the country, including among schoolchildren who are traditionally introduced to such museums for school-era group tours. For outward projection, museums could be seen as a way of showing the ‘richness of its culture’ and creating favourable image of the country, especially in facing foreign stereotypes (Coombes, 1988). The Louvre in Paris and the Roman museums have been seen as a source of national pride for French and Italian culture. In the current geopolitical landscape, Russia’s tourism account on X (formerly Twitter) have uploaded content related to Russia’s rich museum heritage as a way of showing Russian ‘civilisation’ at a time when negative campaign against Russia has been undergoing by portraying Russia as an ‘uncivilised’ country. In this regard, museums are seen as a way to project ‘identity’ and ‘discourse’ when competing narratives and discourses affect a country’s international perception.
Museums and Political Controversies
With museums’ role as historically strong institutions in shaping a nations’ culture, it is understandable that political bitter disputes and memories have come as a result of museum exhibitions. A pressing issue in European museums nowadays are the presence of looted and stolen objects from non-European countries during colonization. Many museums, such as in the UK, France, Belgium and Netherlands display stolen artifacts from African, Asian and Latin American countries, including macabre ones such as the head of Banjar hero now kept in the Wereldmuseum in Leiden, the Netherlands (Khairul, 2024). There have been various petitions of return regarding these objects, which include sacred cultural heritage. Some concrete steps of return have been initiated, despite still facing criticism in various policy circles - such as the Dutch decision to return some statutes back to Indonesia in 2023 and the return of artifacts to Congo by Belgium from the AfricaMuseum in Brussels (Hope, 2021).
Another contentious issue in museums are narratives of history portrayed in the museums, especially those related to war and patriotic efforts. For example, after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many Russian museums built exhibitions dedicated to ‘Nazism in Ukraine’ by promoting Russian narratives about alleged neo-Nazism in Ukraine and showing war trophies from the battlefield. Similar exhibitions have also been taken against NATO, seeing NATO as an instrument of American hegemony which brings death and destruction in various places such as Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya (Meduza, 2022).
Speaking of how historical and political narratives are brought into play by museum exhibitions, it could be seen that the soft power of the museums would extend to its hard power perceptions as well, especially military ones. Museums are seen as a media to promote narratives, which support a country’s political or military stance. Power projections are visible, such as by how European countries try to promote their ‘lost empire’ among Third World countries. In theories of international relations, despite its focus on attraction, museums could be seen as an extending hand of state power, including hard power (Muscat, 2020).
When it comes to international relations in Europe, museums could be seen as a way to promote patriotic and, to some extent, nationalist sentiments. These sentiments also play a part in affecting relations between European countries as well as non-European ones, such as strained relations between Austria and Mexico due to Austria keeping a crown from Mexico’s Aztec king in the Weltmuseum in Vienna (Greenberger, 2021), and how relations between Poland and the Baltic states with Russia are intertwined with historical narratives of Russia as an occupier, which is evident in ‘occupation museums’ in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius as well as narratives of World War II which equate the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in those three cities a s well as Poland’s World War II museums in Gdansk and Warsaw (Velmet, 2011). On the other hand, Russia has used its museums to promote its narratives of the Soviet Union as a hero in World War II, and blaming nationalism as well as Russophobia on Eastern European states which try to provide a differing worldview, especially equating communism with Nazism as the culprit of the war.
Conclusion: Museums as Agents of Socialisation to Promote Soft Power
In conclusion, it is evident that museums could be considered as soft power instruments in a country’s foreign policy, especially in European countries. This is evident in several concrete ways which prove their soft power capability. First is the ability for museums to reach a large audience of the public, both through the large numbers of visitors to museums annually as well as through social media pages in order to attract more visitors in the future. Second, the relation between museums and the state are important. While there are some museums owned by government agencies and some others owned by private entities, it is very common that museums are promoted and supported by the state because of its role in introducing a country’s cultural, historical and societal aspects, therefore fulfilling themselves as agents of socialisation. Socialisation is an important aspect of soft power, due to the role of identities, ideas and perceptions in shaping constructions of power (Lee, 2019).
Third, the role of museums as soft power are evident in the way that they try to promote a favourable image of the country, either by disproving narratives it considers to be false, or showing the cultural and scientific might of the country. It is hard not to consider political gains that could be achieved through museums. And lastly, by being sources of political socialisation, museums could fuel dispute and political controversies between countries, such as competing narratives of a dark historical period (especially World War II) or a source of contention of past colonial legacy regarding stolen and looted objects from the developing world. To conclude, it could be evident that despite of the controversies, the role of museums are important in keeping European countries’ relevance and soft power in the current global order. For Indonesia, as a country with massive cultural heritage, Indonesia should also focus on developing its museums as soft power instruments, not only in the capital, but also in various regions across Indonesia.