Soft Power e Nation Branding: o poder de modificar a percepção internacional através da educação e do futebol no Catar (1995 - 2021)

Abstract

Few countries have changed their Nation Brand in a short period like Qatar. To better understand what motivated this turn of the State of Qatar, it is necessary to study its history from when the Ottoman Empire dominated the Arabian Peninsula, passing the events in the region until its independence and the last three rulers. The purpose of this work is to analyze the Qatari initiatives in education and sport, more specifically soccer, instruments so that the international perception was reformulated. For this, the notions of soft power Nation branding, and historical contextualization of the small Emirado will be used to understand the events that made Qatar need to improve its image before the international society. To this end, bibliographical research and news from government portals, news from the region, and media outlets specialized in football will be used as sources of information. It is expected to understand how advances in power projection with Qatar Foundation, Education City and Qatar Sports Investment interfere and contribute to the projection of soft power Qatari as a Nation branding strategy of its shaken international image. Since the well-known human rights violations and the notorious reputation of being a conservative petromonarchy have tarnished Qatar’s international image, thus clouding plans to enhance its international image.