Soft power in politics, particularly in international politics, is the ability to influence or persuade others through the use of persuasive means, as opposed to the use of force or coercion, which is an aspect of hard power. This process entails the strategic shaping of others' preferences through the use of appealing, non-coercive, and attractive means, using culture, political values, and foreign policies to enact change. In 2012, Joseph Nye of Harvard University explained that with soft power, "the best propaganda is not propaganda", further asserting that during the Information Age, "credibility is the scarcest resource".
Nye popularised the term in his 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. In this book he wrote: "when one country gets other countries to want what it wants might be called co-optive or soft power in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants". He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.
Explanation of concept
The Oxford English Dictionary records the phrase "soft power" (meaning "power (of a nation, state, alliance, etc.) deriving from economic and cultural influence, rather than coercion or military strength") from 1985. - "S. Boonyapratuang Mil. Control in S.E. Asia iii. 72 Musjawarah (decision by discussion) and 'soft power' became the stances of his control." The influential international relations scholar Joseph Nye popularized the concept of "soft power" in the late 1980s. For Nye, power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes you want. There are several ways one can achieve this: one can coerce others with threats; one can induce them with payments; or one can attract and co-opt them to want what one wants. This soft power – getting others to want the outcomes one wants – co-opts people rather than coerces them.
Soft power contrasts with "hard power" – the use of coercion and payment. Soft power can be wielded not just by states but also by all actors in international politics, such as NGOs or international institutions. It is also considered by some an example of the "second face of power" that indirectly allows one to obtain the outcomes one wants. 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)."
Soft power resources are the assets that produce attraction, which often leads to acquiescence. Nye asserts that, "Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive." Angelo Codevilla observed that an often overlooked essential aspect of soft power is that different parts of populations are attracted or repelled by different things, ideas, images, or prospects.Angelo M. Codevilla, "Political Warfare: A Set of Means for Achieving Political Ends", in Waller, ed., Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare (IWP Press, 2008). Soft power is hampered when policies, culture, or values repel others instead of attracting them.
In his book, Nye argues that soft power is a more difficult instrument for governments to wield than hard power for two reasons: many of its critical resources are outside the control of governments, and soft power tends to "work indirectly by shaping the environment for policy, and sometimes takes years to produce the desired outcomes."Lord, Carnes, "Public Diplomacy and Soft Power", in Waller, ed., Strategic Influence: Public Diplomacy, Counterpropaganda and Political Warfare (IWP Press, 2008.) pp. 59–71. The book identifies three broad categories of soft power: "culture", "political values", and "policies."
In The Future of Power (2011), Nye reiterates that soft power is a descriptive, rather than a normative, concept. Therefore, soft power can be wielded for nefarious purposes. "Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all possessed a great deal of soft power in the eyes of their acolytes, but that did not make it good. It is not necessarily better to twist minds than to twist arms." Nye also claims that soft power does not contradict the international relations theory of realism. "Soft power is not a form of idealism or liberalism. It is simply a form of power, one way of getting desired outcomes."
Scholars of religion and international relations have extended the concept to religious soft power. Jeffrey Haynes, among the first to develop the idea beyond an abstract definition, argued that foreign-policy actors, whether secular or religious, seek to use religion as a force in pursuit of their goals. Ahmet Erdi Öztürk has argued that the effective use of religious soft power presupposes an organic historical connection with the religion concerned, so that even a state whose official ideology has changed may deploy religion in its foreign policy — Turkey, officially secular since the founding of the republic yet successor to the Ottoman role in the Islamic world, being a leading example.
Limitations of the concept Soft power has been criticized as being ineffective by authors such as Niall Ferguson in the preface to Colossus. Neorealist and other rationalist and neorationalist authors (with the exception of Stephen Walt) dismiss soft power out of hand as they assert that actors in international relations respond to only two types of incentives: economic incentives and force.
As a concept, it can be difficult to distinguish soft power from hard power. For example, Janice Bially Mattern argues that George W. Bush's use of the phrase "you are either with us or with the terrorists" was in fact an exercise of hard power. Though military and economic force was not used to pressure other states to join its coalition, a kind of force – representational force – was used. This kind of force threatens the identity of its partners, forcing them to comply or risk being labeled as evil. This being the case, soft power is therefore not so soft. Page 586.
There are also recent articles about the concept's neglect of its defensive use. Since Nye's approach "mainly focuses on how to get others to do your bidding", some researchers argued that rising powers, such as China, are creating new approaches to soft power, thus using it defensively.
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'.
Amit Kumar Gupta has written on what he regards as a flaw in the definition provided by Nye, and has made an effort to redefine the concept. 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. Every country weighs its interest and follows its convictions before taking any decision." Gupta proposes the terms "positive soft power" and "negative soft power" to replace Nye's definition.
Measurement 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. The IfG-Monocle Soft Power Index, created by then IfG senior researcher Jonathan McClory, combined a range of statistical metrics and subjective panel scores to measure the soft power resources of 26 countries. The metrics were organized according to a framework of five sub-indices including culture, diplomacy, education, business/innovation, and government. The index is said to measure the soft power resources of countries, and does not translate directly into ability influence. Monocle has published an annual Soft Power Survey since then. 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.
The Soft Power 30, which includes a foreword by Joseph Nye, is a ranking of countries' soft power produced and published by the media company Portland in 2015. The ranking is based on "the quality of a country's political institutions, the extent of their cultural appeal, the strength of their diplomatic network, the global reputation of their higher education system, the attractiveness of their economic model, and a country's digital engagement with the world."
The Elcano Global Presence Report scores the EU first for soft presence. Soft power, then, represents the third behavioral way of getting the outcomes you want. Soft power is contrasted with hard power, which has historically been the predominant realist measure of national power, through quantitative metrics such as population size, concrete military assets, or a nation's gross domestic product. But having such resources does not always produce the desired outcomes, as the United States discovered in the Vietnam War.
The success of soft power heavily depends on the actor's reputation within the international community, as well as the flow of information between actors. Thus, soft power is often associated with the rise of globalization and neoliberal international relations theory. Popular culture and mass media are regularly identified as a source of soft power, as is the spread of a national language or a particular set of normative structures. More particularly, international news was found crucial in shaping the image and reputation of foreign countries.
Brand Finance'sGlobal Soft Power 2026 ISSF'sWorld Soft Power Index 2026Monocle'sSoft Power Survey 2022 IMFGlobal Soft Power Index 2021 Rank Country 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Rank Country 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Rank Country 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Rank Country 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Research Academics have engaged in several debates around soft power. These have included: Its usefulness (Giulio Gallarotti, Niall Ferguson, Josef Joffe, Robert Kagan, Ken Waltz, Mearsheimer vs Nye, Katzenstein, Janice Bially Mattern, Jacques Hymans, Alexander Vuving, Jan Mellisen) How soft power and hard power interact (Giulio Gallarotti, Joseph Nye) How soft power can be operationalized (Hendrik W. Ohnesorge) Whether soft power can be coercive or manipulative, (Janice Bially Mattern, Katzenstein, Duvall & Barnet vs Nye, Vuving) How the relationship between structure and agency work (Hymans vs Nye) Whether soft balancing is occurring (Wohlforth & Brooks vs Walt et al..) Soft power and normative power in Europe (Ian Manners, A Ciambra, Thomas Diez, A Hyde Pryce, Richard Whitman) How civil resistance (i.e., non-violent forms of resistance) can often involve certain uses of soft power, but remains a distinct concept (Adam Roberts, Timothy Garton Ash) The role of personalities and charismatic leadership in soft power (Hendrik W. Ohnesorge) Soft power in U.S. foreign policy and transatlantic relations (Hendrik W. Ohnesorge)
Examples
Worldwide