01st September 2016 19:54:40 Hours
Commenting on the theme ‘Why Soft Power Matters More Than Ever?’ during the session 1 in the ‘Colombo Defence Seminar - 2016’ at the BMICH, Dr Rashed Uz Zaman, Associate Professor - Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh traced the historical roots to the birth of the ‘Soft Power’ concept and told the gathering that it was merely the ability to make others want what you want.
He served as one panelist in the head table of the Session - I. In his brief power point presentation, he summarized the following perspectives;
The Historiography of Soft Power
In contemporary diplomacy and IR, the concept of soft power is widely accepted
However, soft power existed long before it was put forward as a concept within the framework of IR
Fernand Braudel shows us how Spain emerged as a centre of civilizational diffusion in the 17th century with the elite group in France fully embracing Spain fashion and generally Cervantes novels in particular
The concept of soft power was introduced to the international relations literature by Joseph Nye in the early 1990s
The concept developed through three books: Bound to Lead, published in 1990, The Paradox of the American Power, 2002 and Soft Power, 2004
It all began during the 1980s, when declinist theories had strength and popularity in mainstream IR debates
Nye criticized declinist theories and in the process he first articulated the concept of soft power
Nye defines soft power as the ability to make others want what you want
In this sense, soft power is the opposite of hard power, the ability to make others do what you want
Soft power, which Nye also calls co-optive or indirect power, rests on the attraction a set of ideas exerts, or on the capacity to set political agendas that shape the preferences of others
Related to intangible resources like culture, ideologies and institutions
Nye continued to publish prolifically on the concept of soft power all through the 1990s
In 2002, Nye revisits the theme of soft power in his book The Paradox of American Power
In the changed context, Nye now confronts isolationists and triumphalists
Nye identifies a complex three-dimensional chess game: military (USA), economic (EU, USA and Japan) and transnational where a diversity of state and non-state agents coexist and the debate over polarities is meaningless
If hard power resources can be effective in the military and economic spheres, only soft power can work at the transnational level
Nye’s 2004-book Soft Power is entirely devoted to the theoretical development of the concept and its implications.
Nye reworks the same ideas he has been advocating since 1990, with some updates and corrections. The author deals with issues such as the relations between hard and soft power, the origins and sources of soft power and states’ misuses of their own soft power
Soft Power Matters!
Soft power has become increasingly important and three factors contribute to its popularity:
The appearance of nuclear weapons and the horror of using them made states rethink the use of military power in current international relations
The idea of physically occupying a country and ruling over it seems more difficult than ever
In terms of costs, the economic & cultural means of achieving what a country wants seems to be more effective and viable than coercive actions
The second factor is the popularization of advanced education, which creates a conducive ground for the spread of soft power
Also, with worldwide democratization movement and relaxation of political systems, empowered domestic audiences transform their visions into political reality, forcing states to conform to int’l norms
Promotion of advanced education, increasing educated people, loosening of social structures all help for the pen to be mightier than the sword
The third factor is the strong, penetrating power of information and knowledge, particular in the Information Revolution Age
Information and knowledge undoubtedly flow more easily and quickly than guns, and people’s way of thinking and acting are ultimately influenced by the information and knowledge to which they have access
It is tough to fight coercive intervention and trade sanctions, but harder still to prevent the spread and penetration of public information
In this context, global television and Internet are two most effective means used to promote ideas and norms
BBC, CNN, DW, Al-Jazeera and CCTV International Channel are the big boys in the current global media order. Is it ‘FAIR’?
The world appears to be ‘flat’ rather than a hierarchical bureaucracy where the social organizational structure has been forced to adapt to the flat situation, which makes the use of penetrating soft power easier than physical hard power
Soft Power Matters in More Ways!
Joseph Nye concentrates on the positive attractive aspects of soft power as a foreign policy tool
However, soft power may also be negative rather than positive, and is employed as a tool in domestic policy more than in foreign affairs
Soft power discourse is a useful heuristic device for understanding how policymakers and public intellectuals in different countries are actively constructing ‘Country X’ and a ‘world’ to promote their ideological projects
In other words, soft power is primarily an issue of domestic politics – determining a country’s future direction – and only secondarily about international politics
While such discussions of soft power certainly seek to build favor among foreign audiences, they are also concerned with the identity/security issue of safeguarding regime legitimacy at home
The process entails a dual approach:
The positive view of a benevolent country that embraces the outside world, identity and security are linked in the negative process of drawing symbolic borders between self and Other
Rather than a set of stable ‘essential values’, civilization here is better understood a contingent discourse that takes shape in relation to its opposite: barbarism
As political theorist Walter Benjamin argues: ‘There is no civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.’
In these contingent self/Other relations, whenever we declare something to be civilized, we are simultaneously declaring something else barbaric
Domestic politics thus is tied to foreign relations through this distinction: a positive, civilized inside takes shape only when it is distinguished from a negative outside
Various countries’ current identity/security dynamics operate in much the same way through ‘negative soft power’: the self is defined as ‘civilized’ through the deliberate creation and then exclusion of Others as ‘barbarians’
This process policies what counts as ‘Chinese’, or ‘Russian’ or ‘Bangladesh’ in a way that simultaneously creates imagined Others: ‘America’, ‘Japan’, ‘India’, ‘Pakistan’, ‘the West’ and so on
Soft power is also relevant to the enhancement of regime legitimacy
The international increase in positive attraction that is associated with a rise in soft power makes it easier for the regime to convince its citizens of a rise in status
Evidence of an increase in international recognition and attraction could be used to bolster claim that the regime has successfully improved the country’s international status
This help enhance the cohesion between the political, social, and cultural core of the polity and those on the margins
The Problem of Soft Power
Nye’s claim that soft power is based on attractiveness and seduction
Foreign policy decision making is mediated by domestic political institutions and bureaucracies and filtered through the prism of the national interest
There is very little evidence that states (or the policymakers who act in their name) make decisions because they ‘like’ another state or its leaders. Example: Woodrow Wilson in Europe
Even if one accepts that soft power exists and can affect a state’s foreign policy, it is hard to trace the relationship between soft power and policy outcomes
Questions may be posed about US policies in Cold War Europe and the collapse of Soviet Union and what role soft power had in these events
Are UN peacekeeping operations a manifestation of soft power?
Definitional problem persists!
Soft power now encompasses a wide array of instruments including: multilateral diplomacy; foreign aid; developmental assistance, the provision of international public goods; the exportation of democracy; nation-building including the kitchen sink (military power)
‘Soft power now seems to mean everything.’ – Leslie Gelb
Concluding Thoughts
Following the tried and true path of American marketing mavens, the creators of the original soft power have introduced a (purportedly) new and improved version: ‘smart power’ (or Soft Power 2.0)
Smart power marries hard and soft power (hard power plus soft power = smart power)
Nye’s original definition of soft power focused on the attractive power of a state’s culture and values, and explicitly stated that soft power excludes both coercion and inducement
It is clear, however, that soft power has never existed in such pristine form, not even in the heyday of USA’s post-World War II hegemony
There is always a paradox to hegemony: it both entices and repels
This is why, as many analysts understand – both soft power proponents (including Nye) and sceptics – there is a close correlation between a state’s hard power and its soft power
Perhaps, Theodore Roosevelt had hit the nail on the head when he advised: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”
