Summary:
◊ Behind the BUZZ words: public diplomacy, nation branding, public relations for nations
◊ Country promotion as social construction
◊ The making of a public issue: 20 years of (re)branding Romania
◊ Romanian public diplomacy after 1989
◊ A controversial touristic brand: from 'Romania, simply surprising' to 'Explore the Carpathian garden'
◊ After all, can Romania be branded?

Why being Irish or Polish always sounds better in Europe than being Romanian? Benchmarks clearly show that Romania has never been so flourishing as in the first decade of the third millennium. Seldom has Romania been so outward oriented. Today, we fight the most efficient way against corruption. Objectively, we have evolved. Maybe not so rapidly as we would have wanted, but we did.
But what has happened down the road? What was the problem about 'selling' this good image more efficiently? Why haven't we discovered yet our cool factor? This lack of prestige is a double edged sword: one hurts psychologically, the other one strategically. The identity depression that affects all the individuals and the soft power anemia that defines the Romanian state itself are the two symptoms of a disease that has been haunting us for far too long already. Now, we can find the physiopathology of this disease in this book. We have to perfectly understand it before finding a cure.

Vlad Mixich
Journalist Hotnews.ro, Correspondent Deutsche Welle