Gorgeous but dangerous: Comparing Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town’s soft-power struggles
| Published date | 01 December 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020231165523 |
| Author | Janis van der Westhuizen |
| Date | 01 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020231165523
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Gorgeous but dangerous:
Comparing Rio de Janeiro and
Cape Town’s soft-power
struggles
Janis van der Westhuizen
Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Abstract
How do deeply unequal cities in the Global South project soft power, and what are the
tensionsand contradictions that emerge whenthey do? Cities’strategies to enhancetheir
international appeal can be gauged through three interlocking or complementary ap-
proaches: first, leveraging the strategic value of events and associated services; second,
developing iconic architecture and mega-projects; and third, making themselves at-
tractive to the so-called “creative class.”Drawing on a brief comparative analysis of Rio
de Janeiro and Cape Town, these strategies are assessed in relation to the dynamics of
soft power and soft disempowerment. Although Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town share
formidable resources to generate soft power, their societal complexities of crime and
violence cast a heavy disempowering shadow on their innovative soft power strategies.
Keywords
Cities and soft power, Rio de Janeiro, Cape Town, soft empowerment, soft
disempowerment, aspiring cities, Global South
Despite the ubiquity of Joseph Nye’s now infamous concept of soft power,
1,2
few
studies have applied it to the realm of cities. Yet, spatially, it is from cities that various
Corresponding author:
Janis van der Westhuizen, Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch, Merriman Rd,
Stellenbosch, 7602, South Africa.
Email: jvdw2@sun.ac.za
1. A big obrigado to Soren Scholvin, Magno Klein, Derica Lambrechts and David Black, as well as to the
anonymous reviewers, for their valuable comments on earlier drafts.
2. Joseph S. Nye Jr., Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York:Public Affairs, 2004).
2022, Vol. 77(4) 674–692
forms of soft power are projected—be it through hosting mega-events or creating
world-famous museums and other iconic tourist experiences. Moreover, as shared
global challenges such as climate change, infectious pandemics, urban violence, and
political extremism increasingly require localized responses, cities are becoming
pivotal players in global governance.
Amongst cities in the Global South, those with “global city”aspirations are also
those whose inequalities are probably most visible, both within the cities and between
the city and its region.
3
Whilst Shanghai may flourish, much of rural China may not
share in its prosperity. Similarly, the emergence of global cities in the advanced in-
dustrialized world coincided with the emerging power of Big Tech firms and created
what Joel Kotkin calls “the coming of neo- feudalism.”For Kotkin, spiraling property
values have made property ownership for working- and even middle-class families in
many OECD cities out of reach to all but the “high-tech oligarchs,”thus creating “neo-
feudal cities.”
4
Cities are often first in line to manage the consequences of these in-
equalities. Thus it is no surprise that many cities seek both additional revenue streams
and means of projecting their international appeal: filming movies and advertisements,
welcoming multinationals and expats, and hosting tourists, major conferences, and
mega-events.
Whereas a growing literature echoes the role of cities in relation to global gov-
ernance,
5
not much has been written on the soft power of cities. The few works that do
so
6
focus indirectly on museums or diplomacy.
7
Yet it is justified to consider the soft
power of cities as an analytically distinct category from their associated nation-states .
Cities do not always kowtow to their national governments. In 2017, for example, the
city council for Berkeley, California ruled that any firm to benefit from or do business in
support of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration bill towards Mexico will be required to
forfeit all contracts with the city.
8
In the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, drug gang leaders
imposed COVID-19 restrictions, defying Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s refusal to
do so at the federal level.
9
In some deeply divided societies, focusing on cities rather
3. Noah Toly, “Brexit, global cities and the future of world order,”Globalizations 14, no. 1 (2017): 144.
4. Joel Kotkin, The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class (New York: Encounter
Books, 2020), 139.
5. Sohaela Amiri and Efe Sevin, City Diplomacy: Current Trends and Future Prospects (London and New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
6. A notable exception is Efe Sevin, “The missing link: cities and soft power of nations,”International
Journal of Diplomacy and Economy 7, no. 1 (2021): 9–32.
7. Gail Lord and Ngaire Blankenberg, eds., Cities, Museums and Soft Power (Washington, DC: American
Alliance of Museums Press, 2015); Raffaele Marchetti, City Diplomacy: From City States to Global Cities
(Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2021).
8. Alissa Greenberg, “Berkeley, Calif., to avoid business withcompanies involved in building Trump’s wall,”
The WashingtonPost, 17 March 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/03/
17/berkeley-calif-to-boycott-companies-involved-in-building-trumps-wall/ (accessed 17 February 2023).
9. Andres Schipani and Bryan Harris, “Drug gangs in Brazil’s favelas enforce coronavirus lockdown,”
Financial Times, 27 March 2020, https://www.ft.com/content/aaef1591-2fc5-4e6f-ab84-0e83b5a146ca
(accessed 17 February 2023).
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van der Westhuizen
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