Soft power
[7][8] A country's soft power, according to Nye, rests on three resources: "its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when others see them as legitimate and having moral authority).
[16] Additionally, others have argued that more attention needs to be paid towards locating and understanding how actors' attempts at soft power can backfire, leading to reputational damage or loss, or what has been termed 'soft disempowerment'.
Citing Nye's definition, the author writes that, "a country's behaviour in the international platform is not in the least determined by the other parties' attraction in soft power terms.
[19] An initial undertaking to measure soft power through a composite index was published by the Institute for Government (IfG) and the media company Monocle in 2010.
As of 2016/17, the list is calculated using around 50 factors that indicate the use of soft power, including the number of cultural missions (primarily language schools), Olympic medals, the quality of a country's architecture and business brands.
Popular culture and mass media are regularly identified as a source of soft power,[27] as is the spread of a national language or a particular set of normative structures.
[35] The Soviets also employed a substantially large public diplomacy program that included: promoting their high culture, broadcasting, disseminating information about the West, and sponsoring nuclear protests, peace movements, and youth organizations.
[36] A number of non-democratic governments have attempted to use migration as an instrument of soft power: Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser trained and dispatched thousands of teachers across the Arab world in an effort to spread ideas of anti-colonialism and anti-Zionism.
[47] Asia and more recently China have been working to use the potential soft power assets that are present in the admiration of their ancient cultures, arts, fashion and cuisine.
[53] According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Commonwealth Government, Australia maintains a good reputation thanks to “its democracy, rule of law, strong economy, quality education, cutting-edge science, multiculturalism and environmental protections”, enabling to its citizens and institutions to “speak with confidence and credibility in the world stage”.
Small states, such as Qatar, frequently employ soft-power strategies, including the use of al-Jazeera and the hosting of sports events, in their foreign policymaking.
[61][62] Competition amongst states of the Middle East often involves the use of soft power, as in the case of Egyptian-Israeli rivalry over Africa,[63] or Saudi-Iranian relations.
[68][69] In Latin America, Iran’s solidarity with anti-imperialist governments, like Venezuela, strengthens ties based on mutual resistance to U.S. domination, promoting a shared vision of self-determination.
Iran’s ideological message, combining anti-imperialism, Islamic and Shia values, Iranian cultural and historical roots, and cultural diplomacy, has made it a significant actor on the regional and world stage, inspiring and fostering relations with a diverse range of countries committed to challenging Western domination and promoting an alternative vision of global order.
[77][78]According to a 2018 study in the American Sociological Review, France had greater influence on European geopolitics than Britain in the 18th century because of its cultural and symbolic power.
Germans had been understandably wary about depicting a dominant image abroad, the magazine added, but it said that the country's rise should not make everyone else feel uncomfortable.
[85] Additionally, the soft power of India in Africa has been reflected in cultural exchanges, including the influence of Bollywood movies, the spread of yoga practices, and the involvement of the Indian diaspora.
Surveying youth culture and the role of J-pop, manga, anime, video game, fashion, film, automobiles, consumer electronics, architecture, and cuisine, McGray highlighted Japan's considerable soft power, posing the question of what message the country might project.
He also argued that Japan's recession may even have boosted its national cool, due to the partial discrediting of erstwhile rigid social hierarchies and big-business career paths.
[97] In 2015, during remarks welcoming Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the White House, President Barack Obama thanked Japan for its cultural contributions to the United States by saying: This visit is a celebration of the ties of friendship and family that bind our peoples.
[113][114][115] Russia has been developing its soft power by investing in various public diplomacy instruments throughout the 2000s[116] but the term was first used in an official document in 2010 as President Medvedev approved an Addendum to the national Foreign Policy Concept.
[43] In the wake of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in 2018, the BBC reported that "Its extensive diplomatic network reflects both its imperial history as a great power in the 19th Century, as well as its Cold War posture.
It has a multitude of posts in Eastern Europe and former communist allies including China, Vietnam, Cuba and Angola, as well as legacies of the former USSR in Africa and Asia.
[124] Besides increasing the amount of exports, the Korean Wave is used by the government as a soft power tool to engage with the masses of young people all over the world.
[132][133] Developed far beyond YouTube, the most successful K-pop band, BTS, is valued to be worth US$5 billion, generating impressive revenue for South Korea.
[139][140][141] British influence can be observed in the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies, and the UK's culture remains globally influential, particularly in language, literature, music and sport.
[144] Examples of the impact include Franklin D. Roosevelt's four freedoms in Europe to motivate the Allies in World War II; people behind the Iron Curtain listening to the government's foreign propaganda arm Radio Free Europe; newly liberated Afghans in 2001 asking for a copy of the Bill of Rights and young Afghans today surreptitiously watching banned American videos and satellite television broadcasts in the privacy of their homes.
[10] America's early commitment to religious toleration, for example, was a powerful element of its overall appeal to potential immigrants; and American aid in the reconstruction of Europe after World War II was a propaganda victory to show off the prosperity and the generosity of the people of the United States.
[145]Satellite TV is actively promoting American soft power in the Arab world in ways that the United States has been incapable of doing.
The launch of the Arabic-language Alhurra satellite channel in early 2004 to provide news and entertainment in ways more beneficial to the U.S., marked an important turning point in U.S. public diplomacy development.
