ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), full of good intentions but often fuzzy and imprecise in its conceptual terminology, as one of the earliest actors and platforms for action in the field of multilateral cultural diplomacy. The organisation is approached both in terms of its place among those organisations that provide the architecture of international society, and the peculiar identity problems manifested through the clashes between its cultural role and its political engagements. From this starting point, the chapter traces the grand narratives that shape the UNESCO system through the paradoxical notion of the organisation’s one world ideal. It discusses UNESCO as a continuation of the cultural internationalist tradition, and addresses UNESCO’s role in the international arena through the persuasive powers it possesses, suggesting that the organisation’s goal to influence the minds of man can be conceptualised through the notion of peace propaganda.
