soft power

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the ability of a state or actor to attract, co-opt, and influence others through the appeal of its values, culture, institutions, and policies rather than through military coercion or economic inducements — the distinction between hard power (getting others to do what you want through force or payments) and soft power (getting others to want what you want through attraction and persuasion); the concept was coined and developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard, who argued in Bound to Lead (1990) and later works that America's cultural attractiveness, its values of democracy and freedom, and the perceived legitimacy of its international institutions constituted a major resource of international influence that military and economic metrics of power failed to capture; soft power resources include a country's cultural exports — films, music, food, language — its universities, its media, its diaspora communities, and the perceived justice and consistency of its foreign policy; China's investment in Confucius Institutes, the BBC World Service, and the global popularity of Korean pop culture as an instrument of South Korean influence are all discussed through the soft power framework

Examples

• The United States exercised enormous soft power in the Cold War through jazz, Hollywood, and the appeal of its consumer culture to audiences behind the Iron Curtain.
• China's Belt and Road Initiative combines hard power infrastructure financing with soft power goals of building goodwill and political influence.