Introduction

In our globalised world of constant communication, widespread competition, and high image-saturation, few aspects of life remain unbranded. The goals of this chapter are to introduce nation-branding as a salient practice of international politics and to argue that too little has been done to foreground and theorise its political implications. The idea of branding has been around for centuries as a means to distinguish between the goods and services of different producers. Building on these ideas, public relations and policy advisor Simon Anholt was among the first to draw attention to the relevance of branding in international politics by explicitly linking concepts ‘brand’ and ‘nation’. While van Ham’s essay is frequently quoted as a conceptual milestone in nation-branding research, his invitation has only resulted in little new theorising that goes beyond the dismissive attitude of side-lining branding as a “shallow substitute for more substantive political projects”. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.