Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 136

the world. And they’re putting that into operation, in effect, by bridging
the east and the west through this partnership.” Supporters of the Helsinki
Guggenheim also invoke a similar argument about the prospect of bridging
difference and fostering dialogue.
Whether museums can effectively function as cultural diplomats is an
empirical question for another study. Nonetheless, that museum satellites
evoke aspects of cultural diplomacy complicates efforts to categorize them
as transnational actors. It drives home the fact that museums do not fit easily
into the standard categories that we use.
Conclusions
The satellite museum has emerged in recent years as a distinctive transnational
actor. It straddles many of the standard categories in the field and bleeds
into others that are not traditionally part of that conversation. Drawing on
Risse’s (����) two dimensions, the structure of museum branches evokes
both formal organizations and looser networks. In terms of motivations,
museum satellites exhibit attributes of both for-profit and non-profit actors.
Museum satellites are also unique transnational actors in terms of their
purpose and influence. Transnational actor studies, including those devoted
to activist networks and epistemic communities, often focus on direct policy
impact. Indeed, Downie notes that the “principal question most scholars
seek to answer” about transnational actors is, “under what conditions do
transnational actors influence policy outcomes?” (Downie ����:���). While
museum satellites exhibit all the attributes of a transnational actor, they do
not share this objective. Their impact can be quite significant—stimulating
economic development; contributing in positive and negative ways to
meaning-making, identity formation, and narratives about nationalism
and place; shaping the physical landscape—but it is not typically a policy
influence.
This preliminary analysis, then, delivers a clearer understanding of what
museums are not as opposed to what they are. While a useful first step, it
invites a shift away from an inquiry into what museums are toward what they
do. What are the practices that define their activity? It is likely in subjecting
specific examples of museum satellites to this kind of analysis that we can
gain greater purchase on their unique brand of transnational activity. Future
research should reflect this orientation.
135