The critical analysis of “SOFT POWER” concept in international relations

Annotation

The article defines the distinction between three types of powers, provided resources on “soft power” resources as well as determines connection between “soft power” concepts within the International Relations theory and considers the means of soft power implementation in everyday world politics. In order to gain the article’s aim, which are: the attempt to identify the best scientific and methodological approach to measure “soft power” concept, analyse the use of “soft power” concept by countries in order to develop suggestion for particular country, in that case for superpowers that play a vital role today? The other aim is a demand of data collection about the countries’ soft power for comparison and further suggestion for strategic planning as well as for decision-making process in increasing its capacity for long-term strategy. However, there are many difficulties concerned “soft power” measurement. In contrast to “hard power” concept, that could be easily assessed by quantifiable military and economic terms, as amount of army or annual GDP, soft power has a lack of such values. That is why there is a necessity for completely new methods of assessments.

Fortunately, everything can be quantified by using numerical measure, even persuasion and positive attraction. There is even the old cliché ring true “if it can be measured it can and will be managed”. For example, the rapid development of media and advertisingtechnologies in XX century caused the emergence of people’s attention to any broadcasting event. It comes from the logical thesis, in order to predict something; it would be better quantify it and make a tendency. The invention of so-called “content ratings” for wide media stuff and particular TV- ratings provided the ability to predict behavior of potential consumer or audience. Moreover, at  the  present moment the research provide more detailed data about audience that ensure qualitative prediction. The “soft power” in this sense has the same basics for measurement. The attitude of person to a movie is the same as its attitude to particular country, but only the qualitative data are different. Even the “soft power” indices, that have already been created, possess the data of media market research firms as Kantar Media, Gorkana Media Database, and Web Index and so on. Thus, “media market” and “soft power” in the same direction, they try to concentrate the maximum of people’s attention to one particular subject and make it more attractive for them.

So, the analyticalpaper will provide measurable comparative outcomes through critical analysis. There is no necessity to calculate new soft power index or create new concept of this one. There will be simply the collection of numbers of indices according their categories for analyzing countries. Albeit there is a need of quantitative measure for better and most accurate comparison, it simply could be the average of collected indices. The indices that have priority over others are already calculated indices of soft power. There are Monocle’s annual soft power survey and Portland Communications Soft Power 30 Ranking. Then it comes Country Brand Index by Futurebrand, the Anholt-GFK Roper Nation Brand Index, and Brand Finance by Nation Branding Services, Pew’s Global Attitudes Project, and Good Country Index by Simon Anholt, the BBC World Service’s Country Ratings Poll and Best Countries by U.S. News. Other represented indices are concerned according to resources of soft power, which they are representing. For example, for cultural analysis of a country, it should be useful to look at Number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites by UNESCO Statistics. Moreover, as it was clarified in the first chapter of the diploma thesis, soft power mostly concerned to the liberal theory of IR. Therefor analysis should include the data about level of country’s liberal behavior in the framework of internal as well as its external  policy.

Nevertheless, there firstly is a need to focus attention on the nature and sources of soft power, in order to get wider understanding of current soft power theory development, than it has been described by Joseph Nye in his books earlier.

Profound understanding of soft power theory

The soft power definition without exact definitions by the methodological, analytical and other type of works can be failed. In order to avoid such obstacle, there are several definitions of soft power from different sources once again. According to Oxford English Dictionary, Soft power is a persuasive approach to international relations, typically involving the use of economic or cultural influence [1]. According to Collins English Dictionary, the word of power has the next meanings: Ability or capability to do something; Political, financial, social etc. force or influence; Control or dominion or a position of control, dominion or authority [2]. Finally, Joseph Nye define soft power in the various ways: “…the ability to shape the preferences of others”; “.… the  ability to attract, and attraction often leads to acquiescence”; “…the ability to get others to want the outcome you want because of your cultural or ideological appeal”; “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries –admiring values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness –want to follow it” [3, pp. 5-11]. The great number of definition shows soft power is a rather unclear concept. To sum up, the soft power is the influence through attraction.

It  is uncertain  how attraction  or  attractiveness  leads  to power  or  influence  in the  perspective  of  a nation.

Itissignificanttoconsider:

• Who really possesses it: government, NGOs, commercial organizations or certain individuals? Does a country’s culture or customs, geographic landscape or nature also have soft power?
• What are the sources of soft power? Simply the content of soft
• To whom is it soft power? Soft power, like a brand or label, requires target auditory to work for.

The nature of soft power particularly defined by its sources. Nye distinguishes three basic source of soft power, which are political values, culture and foreign policy. “The attractiveness of its culture, the appeal of its domestic political and social values, and the style and substance of its foreign policies” [4, p. 6]. Political values are not just the source of soft power because they include hard power attributes, such as economic ones. Moreover, they have close connection with a country’s foreign policy, which either includes hard power attributes. Even now, there is a huge presence of military power making hard power more relevant in the digital age. So, culture is the only one element that stays away from hard power. It has wide range of attributes and sub-sources allowing evaluating soft power in a more accurate way. According to Nye they are: foreign immigrants, international students, tourists, sport, entertainment industry, Nobel Prize winners, living standards, humanitarian aids, number of Internet hosts, public diplomacy importance and development [4, pp. 57-63]. It is necessary to notice the attributes are not the power per se, but theoretically for power. The main problem of cultural source is difference of it. Every country has its own unique culture which cannot be comparing. It requires accurate selection of sub-sources existing in every country.

The difficulties of measurement soft power come from its sources. There is a lack of methodology for evaluation of people’s attitude. Some survey about country’s attractiveness is not able to provide the level of soft power. It is just a one part of sub-sources range. Tangible and intangible sub-sources arrange the complex of soft power capacity. However sub-sources can be different from country to country. Comparison of country’s soft power capability require standard of methodological approach to measurement. The lack of the standard makes soft power less important and useful for government to operate with. That is why hard power still has the priority over soft power, despite the changing of world policy making toward more peaceful than military. So, the measurement standard of soft power capability is the necessity. In order to predict something, there is a need to make qualitative analysis and forecast and the evaluation is required for this purpose.

Nowadays, there are numbers of countries’ rankings evaluating soft power capability. The main disadvantage   is the different methodology for measurement. It is the reason of different results. So it becomes hard  to understand who really has the largest soft power’s capacity. Comparison and averaging of the results lead to more appropriate outcome, but this way does not provide accurate data. The planning of soft power in order to gain some opportunities is almost impossible. The lack of precise measurement is not the only reason of soft power’s low priority in the governance. Gaining of noticeable results takes a lot of time. Good attitude and attraction are the something that build long but cost less. It is like an image creating day by day and ruining in a moment. That  is why the rational approach or rationalism does not take soft power into account. Realism is still standing for hard power priority even though hard power becomes less appropriate for policy making.

Measurements of soft power capability In order to make a qualitative and structured collection of information about certain country, there is a  necessity to use the same consequence of data collection for each country. Before that, it should be defined the type of information to collect for analysis. As it was mentioned above, the resources of soft power are: culture, political values and foreign policy. However, Nye’s approach of resources could not provide enough information  to analyze a country’s soft power. The data should include more than three categories of resources for accurate analysis. Moreover, the sub-sources given by Nye require more accurate revision. Nevertheless, his suggestion about nature of soft power is the basic for the methodology of every survey describing next.

Monocle Soft Power Ranks.The first attempt to calculate soft power had been undertaken by monthly periodical Monocle with the British Institute for Government in 2010.The necessity of such calculation was induced by the raised importance of soft power controlling in the last decade. The existing surveys - like the  Gallup Global Attitudes Survey – primarily based on public opinion. There was not any methodological  composite metrics that could make complex and accurate approach to calculation. Moreover, delay between data collection and its final appearance as the results could not take into account the changes of respondents’ attitude. That is why such kind of surveys could not provide accurate information about countries’ soft power.

The composite approach of Monocle’s rank is the collection of sources and sub-sources for more accurate outcome. Firstly, Monocle based its research on three pillars of soft power given by Nye. However, for exact results three pillars are not enough. That is why Monocle tried to enhanced categories of resources till five: Education and Business and Innovation were added (Scheme 1).

Scheme 1. Component parts of soft power Source: The Institute for Government. The New Prsuaders: An international ranking of soft power. London: Monocle; 2010

“Nye has previously pointed to three primary resources that generate soft power: culture, political values, and foreign policy. Our index takes these three pillars as a foundation, but expands on them with a framework that assesses countries’ soft power based on five categories: Business/Innovation, Culture, Government Diplomacy, and Education. The framework of categories was built on a survey of existing literature on soft power” [5, p. 3].Moreover, there was attempt to combine objective and subjective data. The subjective data being provided by an expert panel that assessed countries according to six different factors. It includes: reputation of embassies and diplomats; appeal of soft power icons; quality of national airline; cultural output; cuisine;  and  international political leadership [5, p. 4]. The percentage of objective and subjective data sorts with 70 to 30 per cent of total weighting of the index.

The limitations and weaknesses of index made the necessity for further development of methodology. The subjective data and soft power nature are most difficult for measurement. Then, bi-lateral dynamics  of  international relations made the full and accurate comparison of countries almost impossible. In the end, the main disadvantage of survey is impossibility to capture flashpoint events in real-time because of the rapid changing of world politics dynamic. Despite the limitations, the Monocle Soft Power Index built the ground for further development of soft power measurement methodology. It is like a first attempt for standardization of soft power calculation methodology.

The index was calculated by using of metrics. Each sub-index has its own set of metrics. The Table 1 provides information with metrics of each 5 sub-indices and subjective metrics panel.

Table 1. Sub-indices metrics 

In order to gain accurate calculation, the data of each metrics were normalized. This is necessary for comparison of data across various indicators. The countries for the index were selected in a rational way. The  survey could be useless hard for realization without major powers’ including. Moreover, in order to avoid the  accent on the major powers only, the several countries from every geopolitical region were selected. The selection process included major OECD countries, the emerging BRIC nations and several smaller countries that have carved out a reputation exceeding their size [5, p. 8].

In conclusion, on the other hand, smart power too complex to be examined at the present moment. Theoretical basis of the phenomenon is too weak to make any calculation. Despite the existing of World Power Index, which has close notion with smart power, it does not provide the most accurate information. And the reason of it is shortage of level of soft power development. Simply, before having deeply study of smart power, it is better to develop soft power scientific engagement.

The framework of IR has been included in diploma thesis in order to find out the direct and indirect correlation among powers. The framework has been introduced as the background where the powers’ positions were situated. It does not mean that the soft power is the liberal theory of IR, or hard power stands under realism point of view. The scheme 1 had provided understanding of the position of powers in the framework of IR theories. These positions were described by a power’s nature. The difference of both powers is deserved a peculiar attention. Hard and soft powers cannot be strictly divided. They have some common points with other level of “hardness”. That is why such analysis was a necessity in order to avoid mixing of notions. The sticker division is available; the more accurate analysis provides outcomes.

References:

1. Oxford Dictionary of OUP Oxford. avaliable at: www.oxforddictionaries.com
2. Butterfield Collins English Dictionary. New York: HarperCollins, avaliable at: www.collinsdictionary.com, 2003. 3 Joseph S. Nye J. Soft Power. The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs, 2014.
3. Nye The benefit of soft power. HBS Working Knowledge, 2014.
4. The Institute for The New Prsuaders: An international ranking of soft power. London: Monocle, 2010.