Soft Power, Football and Culture on the Bilateral Relationship between Argentina and Bangladesh: Opportunities and Challenges for Strategic Engagement

Abstract

The article will examine the influence of soft power on the bilateral relationship between Argentina and Bangladesh, particularly in the wake of the impact of Argentina’s triumph in the 2022 World Cup, which has generated great interest in Bangladesh and led to the reopening of the Argentine embassy in the country. The concepts of soft power and how sporting success can enhance the bilateral link between two small nations. Football will be analyzed as an essential foreign policy element of our cultural soft power and as a window for strategic cooperation in our relationship with Bangladesh. In addition, the experience of the Chinese case, whose soft power tool has sought to improve its presence and relations with foreign nations, will be studied. The research will also discuss the possibility of integrating sports cooperation and bilateral exchange policies into the bilateral agenda, with the presence of football as an element of cultural influence in Asian nations, an area that has been little studied in the literature on Argentine foreign policy.