Revising the soft power concept: what are the means and mechanisms of soft power?

The power of attraction (soft power), as developed by Joseph Nye, has been increasingly discussed in international relations literature and policy, yet soft power has not been fully utilized because of under‐specified tools and mechanisms by which soft power influences international actors. This article revises the concept of soft power by generating a continuum of power based on the tools useful for implementing different degrees of soft or hard power. In addition, the article describes two mechanisms through which soft power influences international actors, beginning the call for exploration of other such mechanisms. Reconceptualizing soft power in terms of objects that are controlled and utilized by policy‐makers, such as agenda‐setting and framing, provides us with more useful analytical variables to understand international relations and to provide policy recommendations.

[1]  C. D. J. Oudraat,et al.  Managing Global Issues: Lessons Learned , 2012 .

[2]  J. Joachim.  Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights , 2007 .

[3]  M. Finnemore,et al.  International Norm Dynamics and Political Change , 1998, International Organization.

[4]  John J. Mearsheimer,et al.  The False Promise of International Institutions , 1994 .

[5]  Robert O. Keohane,et al.  Power and interdependence , 1977 .

[6]  Peter C. Ordeshook,et al.  Agendas and the Control of Political Outcomes , 1987, American Political Science Review.

[7]  G. Ikenberry,et al.  After Victory , 2018 .

[8]  S. Kaufman.  Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War , 2001 .

[9]  Edith Brown Weiss,et al.  Engaging countries : strengthening compliance with international environmental accords , 1998 .

[10]  David Collier,et al.  Conceptual “Stretching” Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis , 1993, American Political Science Review.

[11]  R. Carpenter,et al.  Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Theorizing Issue Emergence and Nonemergence in Transnational Advocacy Networks , 2007 .

[12]  Kenneth A. Rodman.  International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Resources and the Environment . By Oran R. Young. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. 248p. $32.50 cloth, $10.95 paper. , 1990 .

[13]  Leigh Armistead,et al.  Information Operations: Warfare and the Hard Reality of Soft Power , 2004 .

[14]  James Mahoney,et al.  Two-Level Theories and Fuzzy-Set Analysis , 2005 .

[15]  F. Kratochwil,et al.  Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs , 1989 .

[16]  John W. Kingdon.  Agendas, alternatives, and public policies , 1984 .

[17]  O. Young.  Creating Regimes: Arctic Accords and International Governance , 1998 .

[18]  Nassim Nicholas Taleb,et al.  The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable , 2007 .

[19]  David Austen-Smith,et al.  Sophisticated Sincerity: Voting Over Endogenous Agendas , 1987, American Political Science Review.

[20]  Giulio M. Gallarotti,et al.  Cosmopolitan Power in International Relations: Frontmatter , 2010 .

[21]  P. Bachrach,et al.  Two Faces of Power , 1962, American Political Science Review.

[22]  F. Wassermann.  The Melian Dialogue , 1947 .

[23]  J. Morin,et al.  Global Environmental Politics , 2020 .

[24]  Christian Wagner.  From Hard Power to Soft Power? Ideas, Interaction, Institutions, and Images in India's South Asia Policy , 2005 .

[25]  K. Shepsle.  Institutional Arrangements and Equilibrium in Multidimensional Voting Models , 1979 .

[26]  P. Berger,et al.  Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace , 1950 .

[27]  Detlef F. Sprinz,et al.  The interest-based explanation of international environmental policy , 1994, International Organization.

[28]  N. Tannenwald.  The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Normative Basis of Nuclear Non-Use , 1999, International Organization.

[29]  E. Hafner-Burton.  Sticks and Stones: Naming and Shaming the Human Rights Enforcement Problem , 2008, International Organization.

[30]  Inis L. Claude,et al.  Power and International Relations , 1962 .

[31]  Alan Chong,et al.  Soft Power in Foreign Policy , 2007 .

[32]  T. Risse.  “Let's Argue!”: Communicative Action in World Politics , 2000, International Organization.

[33]  G. Brady.  Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , 1993 .

[34]  T. Birkland.  After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events , 1997 .

[35]  Francesca Polletta,et al.  Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics , 1998 .

[36]  R. Dahl.  The concept of power , 2007 .

[37]  J. Lule.  Creating Fear: News and the Construction of Crisis , 2004 .

[38]  Ken Conca,et al.  Green Planet Blues: Environmental Politics From Stockholm To Rio , 1995 .

[39]  P. Haas.  Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination , 1992, International Organization.

[40]  D. Stone,et al.  Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas , 1989, Anthologie Kulturpolitik.

[41]  W. Riker.  The art of political manipulation , 1987 .

[42]  E. Boyle,et al.  International discourse and local politics: Anti-female-genital-cutting laws in Egypt, Tanzania, and the United States , 2001 .

[43]  David A. Lake,et al.  The international spread of ethnic conflict : fear, diffusion, and escalation , 1998 .

[44]  Jeffrey T. Checkel.  The Constructive Turn in International Relations Theory , 1998, World Politics.

[45]  M. Mazarr.  The Iraq War and Agenda Setting , 2007 .

[46]  Gary Goertz,et al.  Social Science Concepts: A User's Guide , 2005 .

[47]  William Reno,et al.  When States Fail: Causes and Consequences , 2005, Perspectives on Politics.

[48]  M. Cameron,et al.  To walk without fear: the global movement to ban landmines , 1998 .

[49]  J. Nye,et al.  Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics , 2004 .

[50]  Hans J. Morgenthau,et al.  Politics among nations;: The struggle for power and peace , 1948 .

[51]  Gary W. Jenkins.  Soft Power, Strategic Security, and International Philanthropy , 2006 .

[52]  Edwin Borchard,et al.  The Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations , 1942 .

[53]  E. E. Schattschneider.  The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America , 1960 .

[54]  M. Zürn.  The Rise of International Environmental Politics: A Review of Current Research , 1998, World Politics.

[55]  D. Snow,et al.  Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment , 2000 .

[56]  Johan P. Olsen,et al.  The Logic of Appropriateness , 2008 .

[57]  Steven G. Lmngston.  The Politics of International Agenda-Setting: Reagan and North-South Relations , 1992 .

[58]  Nicholas Khoo,et al.  Charm offensive: how China's soft power is transforming the world , 2008 .

[59]  G. M. Gallarotti,et al.  Cosmopolitan Power in International Relations: A Synthesis of Realism, Neoliberalism, and Constructivism , 2010 .

[60]  Andreas Hasenclever,et al.  Theories of International Regimes , 1997 .

[61]  Amitav Acharya,et al.  How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism , 2004, International Organization.

[62]  R. McKelvey.  Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models and some implications for agenda control , 1976 .

[63]  J. Ruggie.  What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge , 1998, International Organization.

[64]  Between Regimes and Realism--Transnational Agenda Setting: Soviet Compliance With CSCE Human Rights Norms , 1995 .

[65]  L. A. Goodman,et al.  Social Choice and Individual Values , 1951 .

[66]  C. Epstein.  The Power of Words in International Relations: Birth of an Anti-Whaling Discourse , 2008 .

[67]  Barry R. Posen,et al.  The security dilemma and ethnic conflict , 1993 .

[68]  F. Kratochwil.  Rules, Norms, and Decisions: Index , 1989 .

[69]  Steven B. Rothman.  Explaining the international agenda: Frames and power in politics , 2009 .

[70]  R. Rotberg.  When States Fail: Causes and Consequences , 2004 .

[71]  M. Brett‐Crowther.  Unveiling the Whale: Discourses on Whales and Whaling , 2010 .

[72]  R. Axelrod.  An Evolutionary Approach to Norms , 1986, American Political Science Review.