Enacting soft power: Cartoons, technoscience diplomacy and the 1890 British Ultimatum to Portugal

This case study appears in: Mays C, Laborie L, Griset P (eds) (2022) Inventing a shared science diplomacy for Europe: Interdisciplinary case studies to think with history. The 1890 British Ultimatum to Portugal is usually presented both in Portuguese and European history as a strictly military, political and diplomatic conflict. In this paper we argue that it was also and above all an instance of (mostly hidden) technoscience diplomacy: that is, behind the direct military, political and diplomatic clash were (veiled) conflicting British and Portuguese claims over railroad infrastructures spanning the African continent and securing its economic resources. We use cartoons as primary sources to look at the events leading to the British Ultimatum from the perspective of a seldom-addressed layer of diplomatic communication: the unofficial visual representation of this diplomatic incident as appropriated by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, a politically committed and versatile Portuguese artist and journalist. We claim that Bordalo Pinheiro’s many cartoons, appearing in his satirical journal Pontos nos ii, acted as an instance of soft power by translating a complex web of technoscientifically driven imperial interests into a simplified nationalistic narrative that effectively persuaded his readers that a political change was needed. This case study highlights how often-disregarded sources such as cartoons may contribute to better understanding the scope of informal diplomacy. It draws attention to the fact that technoscience diplomacy is not always about cooperation nor does it always generate win-win situations: on the contrary, it often discloses strong tensions and asymmetries of power.Diogo, Maria Paula, Urze, Paula & Simões, Ana (2022) Enacting soft power: Cartoons, technoscience diplomacy and the 1890 British Ultimatum to Portugal. In Mays C, Laborie L, Griset P (eds) Inventing a shared science diplomacy for Europe: Interdisciplinary case studies to think with history. Zenodo. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.660085