What is 'soft' power, and why has it become more important in recent years?
Soft power is the ability to influence other actors by persuading them to follow or agree to norms and aspirations that produce the desired behaviour. It contrasts with ‘hard’ power, in which power is exercised through threats or rewards, typically involving the use of military ‘sticks’ or economic ‘carrots’. Soft power operates through intangible factors such as the popularity of a state’s values and institutions and its moral standing in the world.
Although there is debate about the relative significance of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power, it is often argued that soft power has generally become more important in the modern world. This is seen as a consequence of the growth of global interdependence and freer flows of communication and information. Interdependence encourages states to achieve goals by working together, ‘soft’ power being particularly effective in facilitating co-operation. ‘soft’ power is most often associated with the rise of globalisation and the establishment of ‘complex interdependence’. The limits of ‘hard’ power are evident in the ’war on terror’, in which an emphasis on military force and unilateralism weakened the USA’s ‘soft’ power in terms of its ability to build a wider coalition of support within and beyond the Moslem world.
Soft power is the ability to influence other actors by persuading them to follow or agree to norms and aspirations that produce the desired behaviour. It contrasts with ‘hard’ power, in which power is exercised through threats or rewards, typically involving the use of military ‘sticks’ or economic ‘carrots’. Soft power operates through intangible factors such as the popularity of a state’s values and institutions and its moral standing in the world.
Although there is debate about the relative significance of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power, it is often argued that soft power has generally become more important in the modern world. This is seen as a consequence of the growth of global interdependence and freer flows of communication and information. Interdependence encourages states to achieve goals by working together, ‘soft’ power being particularly effective in facilitating co-operation. ‘soft’ power is most often associated with the rise of globalisation and the establishment of ‘complex interdependence’. The limits of ‘hard’ power are evident in the ’war on terror’, in which an emphasis on military force and unilateralism weakened the USA’s ‘soft’ power in terms of its ability to build a wider coalition of support within and beyond the Moslem world.