When assessing the world’s rising powers, we often focus on the most evident forms of strength – military, economic and diplomatic. But, does a country’s soft power impact the global balance of power?
The term soft power was coined by Joseph S. Nye Jr., a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School (and rumored new United States Ambassador to Japan). Power is the ability to influence the actions of others and soft power is the power of attraction (as opposed to coercion or payment). Culture, moral and social values and legitimate policies provide countries with authority. A phrase popular in the new Obama administration is smart power, the balance of hard and soft capabilities.
Following the rise of anti-Americanism and disproportionate use of hard power, one might expect the soft power of the United States to be at an all-time low. Apparently not in Asia. A recent survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs surprisingly found that the United States “is the region’s undisputed soft-power leader.” Thomas Wright from the Chicago Council commented that “the center of gravity in international politics is moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The United States is the leading source of soft power in Asia.” Despite China’s rise, the US outpolled the emerging giant in every country surveyed.
“The United States ranks first in terms of overall soft power in China, Japan, and South Korea, and second (next to Japan) in Indonesia and Vietnam. All countries rank the United States above China in soft power.”
(And the study was completed before Barack Obama was elected president, so any increase in popularity following the voting was not detected.)
Of course different forms of power often go hand-in-hand. Economic resources buy military muscle and people are attracted to success. So, is soft power relevant when measuring global dominance? The debate continues…
Photo from China Photos/Getty Images.
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3 Comments So Far»
Great piece, though I’d like to know more about how ‘Soft Power’ was actually measured as by its nature, that is a difficult thing to do. This just points out the strength of US presence in not only Asia, but in the world. With all the talk about US decline, we need to keep some perspective. Another measure of soft and hard power is how much attention is paid to a country’s internal politics and the 2008 US election proved the breadth of US influence worldwide as seemingly every nation and people around the globe was paying attention or had an opinion. As much as China, India, Brazil, etc are Rising Powers, attention paid to their changing of domestic power is not even close. I think if you asked most Russians, Egyptians, Chinese, Brazilians who the current President of China or India is, and I don’t think you’d get that many right answers. And of course everyone knows who Bush and Obama are.
Great points, Pat. Soft power is difficult to measure, even with polling (which is how the Chicago Council conducted its survey).
In Foreign Policy, Joseph S. Nye Jr. provides an interesting argument for the measurement of soft power.
Thanks David. Though I agree with many of Nye’s points the term ’soft power’ is still too ambiguous to me. Columnists and talking heads will forever take about ‘America is losing soft power’ or ‘the US needs to get back to soft power’ without ever explaining what this means. I was also frustrated during the Obama election to continually hear about how his election and presence alone would help US soft power. As much as I want to read about US standing in the world rising in public opinion polls, I would rather hear about hard improvements in global security and commerce. I discussed this RP blog piece and the Turkey one on Great Power Politics yesterday by the way.
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