Marketing Internationalism in an Era of Globalisation : The Swedish-South African Partnership Week, November 1999

The ‘Swedish-South African Partnership Week’ (SSAPW) was held across a number of cities in South Africa in November 1999. Involving a delegation of 800 Swedes and a program of more than 70 events, the purpose was to launch a new bilateral partnership. Funded by the Swedish foreign aid budget and billed as a national manifestation, the SSAPW is interpreted in this study as a staged performance through which social actors made sense of their nation’s place in the international system. Seen from this perspective the SSAPW is analysed as an example of how the Swedish competition state staged globalisation as a national challenge and sought to adapt Swedish national identity accordingly. Specifically, I argue that it articulated a shift from the promotion of internationalist nationalism to what might be termed the ideal of ‘entrepreneurial internationalism’: from a national ideology centred on supporting Swedish popular movements working for solidarity with developing countries, to one promoting the creation of financially sustainable social partnerships within and across national boundaries. Fusing public diplomacy, development communication and export promotion, the SSAPW sought to educate the participating Swedes and Swedish corporations about their new relationship to each other and to the Global South in the post-Cold War world order