The new Bidoun, on newsstands in April, considers art and patronage, state-sponsored media, cultural diplomacy, revolution and counterrevolution, nation and/or corporate branding, and even potato chips as public relations.

The heart of Soft Power is a suite of conversations that revolve around the question of hidden agendas. As’ad AbuKhalil, the political scientist who blogs as The Angry Arab, discusses the political economy of Al Jazeera and Qatar’s foreign policy with Babak Radboy and E. P. Licursi. Bangalore-based Achal Prabhala and Michael C. Vazquez consider the curious legacy of Cold War magazines funded by the American CIA. And nearly a dozen leading figures in the Egyptian cultural scene, including representatives of human rights organizations, art spaces, and foundations, as well as bloggers, activists, and curators, were invited to reflect on the theme of foreign funding.

But there is Bidoun’s customary dose of long-form narrative, as well. In “The Marble Lawn,” Yasmine El Rashidi provides an unusual vantage onto Saudi Arabia, the Wahhabi heavy in so many stories about the rise of Islamism in post-revolutionary Egypt. Anand Balakrishnan’s “The Serendipity of Sand” considers the ultimate civilizational soft-power gambit — the monumental ruin — and what that might have to do with the zebra’s beguiling stripes. Other features consider sexual politics in the art world (Sarah Rifky’s “Call Me Soft,”) the deification of power (Anna Della Subin’s “Occupy Godhead”), and the rarified world of globo-pundits whose airport-ready books make tidy work of explaining… more or less everything (“Soft Readers Prefer Hard Covers,” by Shumon Basar with Parag Khanna).

In our arts coverage, Kaelen Wilson-Goldie profiles New York-based artist Iman Issa, we take a look at Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s Freedom of Speech Itself at The Showroom in London, and Beiruti Franziska Pierwoss’s ongoing Toyota to Benz project.

Plus: “The Chibsi Challenge,” a taste-travel roundtable discussion of potato crisps, chips, and nation brands, inspired by Sophia Al-Maria; reviews of the archaeology show at SALT Istanbul’s new space; Iranian videos in New York; Haris Epaminonda’s “Mystery at MoMA”; the Athens Biennial in a time of austerity; and Mahmoud Darwish’s bequest.

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