Good examples of soft power in history

[mr friendly guy]

First lets defined what soft power is
From wiki

Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion. Nye coined the term in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. For example, in 2007, CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao told the 17th Communist Party Congress that China needed to increase its soft power, and the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of the need to enhance American soft power by "a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security – diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development."

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: you can coerce them with threats; you can induce them with payments; or you can attract and co-opt them to want what you want. This soft power – getting others to want the outcomes you want – co-opts people rather than coerces them.[4] It can be contrasted with 'hard power', which is 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.[5] It is also considered the "second face of power" that indirectly allows you to obtain the outcomes you want. 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."[6]

I find it interesting some of the examples they give, eg foreign assistance borders on hard power, since it requires money to render that assistance. I mean from an economical point of view, is there much difference between spending the same amount of money on foreign aid, or outright giving them money in return for being grateful?

But despite this issue, from those definitions we see that soft power being useful must have the following characteristics
a) a side must become more positively disposed towards you
b) Point A occurs because of culture, political values and foreign policies

But going on with that, religious conversion with the converted people subsequently taking a more conciliatory view to you would be counted as soft power in my book. This satisifed criteria A and B. Also if people adopt a country's values because of watching a countries propaganda films would count as well.

The makers of Yellow Red Dawn changing the Chinese soldiers into North Korean soldiers because they are afraid of losing in the Chinese market for future films, is NOT an example of soft power. The reason is the change is not based on a respect for Chinese culture or political values, but because of Chinese economic clout, ie that would count as hard power.

Another counter example, Steppe Barbarians adopting Chinese style trappings to rule their confederation isn't an example of soft power. While they did adopt Chinese culture, they clearly did not become more friendly to the Chinese state because of it, and used these trappings merely as a way to better administer their confederations.

Now that I have gotten the basics of it, I want to know of instances of soft power being effective in history. My gut feeling is that its a hit and miss. In some cases it might work (see below) but in more cases it fails. Now obviously given this, its better to have soft power than not (all other things being equal), on the off chance that it sometimes work, but keep in mind its overrated. Of course I could be totally wrong, hence the purpose of this thread.

Now for some examples. An obvious one is the case of religious conversions. IIRC the Byzantines converted ? the Bulgars to Christianity and they stopped becoming a problem empire afterwards. This of course contrast to the fact that just because you have the same religion, doesn't mean you don't fight each other. This has been borne out time and time again, especially pertinent for the Byzantines during the sacking of Constantinopole by the Crusaders.

So. a) Other examples of soft power b) do you think overral soft power is very effective, or is it more misses than hits.

[Thanas]

The Byzantines and Bulgars would not qualify according to your criteria as they did not convert voluntarily, nor did they become that much more friendly. I think your definitions of soft and hard power are too extreme, the borders between the two are too fleeting to make such radical differentiations.

[mr friendly guy]

Funny you should mention that, because other people have noted the problems with that definition. I am choosing a somewhat extreme case to make it more clear cut to avoid people going, well that's hard power, not soft power.

[Thanas]

There are no clear cut examples as soft and hard power are somewhat interdependent. Without the US military the US would not sell Hollywood DVDs unmolested on the high seas, without US media less foreigners would want to join the uS military. There are very few instances of soft power not being backed by at least a minimum of hard power and in fact the mere existence of a state implies some hard power existing, for a true pacifistic state does not exist.

[mr friendly guy]

There are no clear cut examples as soft and hard power are somewhat interdependent. Without the US military the US would not sell Hollywood DVDs unmolested on the high seas, without US media less foreigners would want to join the uS military. There are very few instances of soft power not being backed by at least a minimum of hard power and in fact the mere existence of a state implies some hard power existing, for a true pacifistic state does not exist.

How about the following examples which are more skewered towards soft power (if not the effectiveness of soft power)?

1. Religious leaders.

The more obvious example might be the Pope, particularly during the reign of Pope John Paul and the conflict with the communist bloc. The only hard economic power required was the money to broadcast his message. The message itself was the soft power. As to how effective it is, that is subject to debate. What I think is more clear cut though, is that there was very little hard power involved.

2. South Korea's entertainment industry.

Yeah someone from SK actually said the future of power in the 21st century is in culture. You might or might not have been aware of the "Korean wave" phenomenon where Korean cultural products such as shows have become very popular in other parts of Asia, including in countries which arguably hold more hard power than them, eg China and Japan. I would argue the ability for Korea to distribute this is hardly dependent on its hard power, because its not like it forces those countries to import them with the barrel of the gun.

How effective it is, is another matter since its provoked some anti Korean sentiment in some quarters and had the opposite effect to the idea behind soft power.

My point is though, that there are most probably a few examples of power which would lend itself to be more classified as soft rather than hard power, although many more cases of the latter exist.

[Thanas]

But how can you count China's economic clout and fear of it promoting rewrites of movies as hard power but sale of entertainment products as soft power? Both are economical based. It is not as if Korea is not using market forces in their favor any more or less than China does in the above examples.

[mr friendly guy]

But how can you count China's economic clout and fear of it promoting rewrites of movies as hard power but sale of entertainment products as soft power? Both are economical based. It is not as if Korea is not using market forces in their favor any more or less than China does in the above examples.

Ah, I see the confusion now. In answer to your question - two broad reasons.

1. I will start with the weaker reason, but also the one that is easier to elaborate. Its the difference between coercion and enticement. After all the "spirit" of soft power is that people want to emulate you, rather than support you because you used some type of force or bribe. The Chinese case happened of a fear (whether real or not) that the Chinese government will retaliate via commercial means, eg ban not just Red Dawn but future films from that company. By contrast the sale of Korean shows is motivated by desire to have that product rather than fear that the SK government will do something to you if you don't buy it.

2. The second reason is that the soft power component in the Korean example is not so much the numbers of products they sell, but the product itself. Whereas The numbers are just a way to keep score. For example Country A and Country B both make entertainment movies which have a subtle underlying message which says "my country is awesome." Now suppose the first country sold more units than the second one. Does this mean that country A movies are an example of soft power, but country B's are not? I would argue not. I would say both are examples of soft power, but country A's may be more effective. Or to put it another way, the number of sales or the fact they are allowed to sell is irrelevant to whether its an example of soft power, but relevant to gauging how effective it is.

The Chinese case did not involve them promoting a cultural product. To use soft and hard power terms, the Chinese used hard power (fear of economic boycott) to counteract US soft power ( a cultural product).

[Thanas]

I am not convinced that this is in any way a meaningful distinction. For example, by your definition the sale of opium would be soft power as chinese were enticed to buy it. Yet it also was hard power by threatening the chinese with internal strife and economic pressure as well as robbing them of their positive silver trade balance. The same is true for any commercial product where withdrawing it would produce any hardship. I am not convinced that such a categorization would be of any help in historical analysis.

I think it would be better to categorize hard power as active coercion and soft power as non-active co-option. Meaning both the examples of people acting out of fear for reprisal and people adopting the same values by choice would be soft power, whereas one state putting pressure on another would be hard power. To use your initial example:
- China by its mere existence as a market causing a studio to change a movie = soft power, as China did nothing
- China putting pressure on a movie studio to change stuff by threatening to ban them = hard power.

[mr friendly guy]

I agree that the concept of soft power can become nebulous precisely as you noted because of the interaction of hard and soft power. Where does soft power end and hard power begin? However when people use the term soft power, presumably they are referring to Nye's definition. To make this question more relevant, I am obligated to use a definition of soft power as close to that definition. Intuitively I would consider certain things which don't fit Nye's category "soft power" as well. However if we both take our personal definitions, the discussion while interesting would most probably have no relevance to other people's discussion of soft power.

Going on, if we use Nye's definition of soft power requiring three resources - culture, its political values, and its foreign policies (when others see them as legitimate and having moral authority), then its hard to consider the sale of opium as falling into any of those 3 categories. So in a sense, while its sale was not coerced, it also fails to fit into the other criteria of soft power.

What people who talk about soft power do is give examples, but IMO they don't show how "effective" these are. Which is mainly what I am interested in. Whether soft power as defined by Nye's definition (nebulous and all) is actually effective.

[Thanas]

To be honest, I am not really interested in those discussions as the most successful examples of soft power (German nobles adopting Roman way of life) would be considered hard power according to the above definition but nobody in the field does consider them to be that way. In fact, Roman culture probably is the best soft power there ever was, but it won't be soft power according to your definition.

I am not sure if you are reading or interpreting Nye's definition the right way or if his definition even fits anything outside the modern world.

[mr friendly guy]

I could be wrong in my interpretation, but I believe with the definition given and the examples shown (on the wiki page) would be consistent with my interpretation. Although I am interested in why you think assimilation into a culture (and by extension becoming part of the political institution) be considered hard power under my definition. I would have thought it fits under the criteria of culture and to a lesser extent political values at the very least. Is it because the reason they assimilated is because of "bribery." That is the Romans said you join us and get these goodies? That is it required a small amount of hard power to make it work.

In which case I would suggest that the definition of soft power itself is quite blurry when contrasted to hard power in some circumstances. Or that soft power examples themselves require hard power to go hand in hand, which would sort of answer how useful soft power is in and of itself (using that definition of soft power of course ).

[Tribble]

IMO the current Canada-US relationship could be an example, especially using Thanas' definition. Canada shares a (very long) border with the world's superpower and is heavily influenced by it. And this isn't due to the American government putting pressure on Canada to conform. Hell, we are so completely ignored by the US that whenever we're mentioned by them (even in passing) it'll be the top story of the week. I'm not even kidding.

We eat the same food, wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, have the same language (apart from Quebec), watch the same movies, follow the same celebrities, drive the same cars, work for the same companies... the list goes on and on. I mean, really, our lifestyles are practically identical apart from the fact that we go to Tim Hortons and our national sport is hockey (and even then there are a lot more American teams than Canadian ones). IMO American "soft power" has a very significant impact on Canadian society.

However, this relationship may demonstrate the limits of modern "soft power". Despite the USA's cultural and economic dominance, less than 10% of Canadians want Canada to join the Union. Perhaps this is because many current US issues (gun control, gay rights, universal healthcare, abortion etc) have already been more or less dealt with up here, and were concerned that if we joined the US those issues would have to be raised again.

[Thanas]

I could be wrong in my interpretation, but I believe with the definition given and the examples shown (on the wiki page) would be consistent with my interpretation. Although I am interested in why you think assimilation into a culture (and by extension becoming part of the political institution) be considered hard power under my definition. I would have thought it fits under the criteria of culture and to a lesser extent political values at the very least. Is it because the reason they assimilated is because of "bribery." That is the Romans said you join us and get these goodies? That is it required a small amount of hard power to make it work.

I am not talking about subjects to Rome, I am talking of the "independent" tribes on the Roman frontier, who liked to be Roman educated, Roman clothed and consuming Roman products. This ensured that they kept friendly due to trade and to keeping those connections open. It doesn't fit with policies - they sure as hell did not regard Roman frontier policies as just. Nor did they adopt the Roman political system or found Roman political values superior. And yet this is the image I am getting whenever we talk about soft power - "barbarians" becoming civilized of their own will and therefore accepting Roman supremacy and being less hostile to Rome. And it certainly is referred that way in the field.

Yet under the above definition it would not be soft power because they did not believe in Roman foreign policy, which I find ludicrous.

[mr friendly guy]

Just to make sure I understand you, but do you interpret the definition of soft power I posted above as requiring one side to respond to all the 3 resources Nye speaks of? From your example the "barbarians" responded to only the cultural aspects, but did not follow the foreign policy nor its political institutions of Rome, ie only 1 out of the 3.

[Thanas]

Yes. Otherwise I don't think the definition is that workable and those three resources should be more examples of sources where it can be derived from. Not that I think it is that workable in the first place because IMO having a huge market should count as part of soft power (and hard power depending on the situation). Because trade and markets lead to exchanges, which automatically lead to the two sides becoming more friendly towards each other or at least not doing things that can be construed as being antagonistic.

[mr friendly guy]

To be honest I just assumed the 3 resources were the sources of soft power, and you don't need all three at the same time. Otherwise the examples in wiki would not be counted as soft power.

[Thanas]

The wikipedia article is beyond useless, but which examples and why not?

[mr friendly guy]

Well they listed an example of Chinese soft power as another country admiring its political system. Thats only at best one out of the three (no cultural and no comment on its foreign policy).

They also listed South Korean cultural products such as shows. Most SK shows I know of do not promote its political system or foreign policy. They are usually some soap operish type of shows.

[Thanas]

These two examples are a bit second-rate compared to the bigger examples. And I would argue that those thinks are interdependable - you don't get a political system without cultural factors and the export of culture requires a political system to allow and promote such exports. I still think it is far better to distinguish between active methods and passive influences as the primary distinguishing element between hard and soft power. Otherwise you run the risk of excluding a lot of soft power and then going "hahah soft power is useless" as you have defined nearly everything as hard power from the start. That would be kinda pointless.

[mr friendly guy]

Don't have time to go into further details, however if you think those links are interdependable, then you aren't the only one. Joseph Nye himself notes it.

There’s no doubt that a successful economy is an important source of attraction. Sometimes in real-world situations, it is difficult to distinguish what part of an economic relationship is comprised of hard and soft power. European leaders describe other countries’ desire to accede to the European Union (EU) as a sign of Europe’s soft power. Turkey today is making changes in its human rights policies and domestic law to adjust to EU standards. How much of this change is driven by the economic inducement of market access, and how much by the attractiveness of Europe’s successful economic and political system? It’s clear that some Turks are replying more to the hard power of inducement, whereas others are attracted to the European model of human rights and economic freedom.

http://bedlambeat.blogspot.com.au/2008/ ... power.html

This problem is built into the very definition of soft power.

[Thanas]

If the definition as is does not work, then one should work to isolate what is the deciding element. The most important element to me seems to be a) passive stance on part of the benefactor b) not part of what is traditionally considered leverage, i.e. economic measures, tools of war, information etc. I have no problem with such a definition, but obvious problems with the one you espouse, which is far too restricting and does not include the best examples of soft power in the past. It would be like conducting a study of naval dominance and then leaving the British and Spanish Navies out of it.

[mr friendly guy]

The thing is, Nye mentions soft power can be wielded just like hard power (albeit with more difficulty). Which makes it hard to consider it in purely passive terms. Moreover I believe under my interpretation (ie relying on one of the 3 resources but not necessarily requiring all 3), your Roman example would still be soft power. It however does demonstrate the limits of soft power.

What I do get from you is that this definition renders most tools a state has as being hard power. I have no problems with that because frankly if soft power was as frequent and obvious as hard power, it wouldn't have taken us so long to comment on it.

This doesn't mean soft power is useless, just maybe that it only has uses in selective situations.

[Thanas]

Why not? Dozens of writers have said similar things without explicitly mentioning soft power or calling it by a variety of other terms, like "influence, lure, superior society, Glanzkraft, image" etc. They definitely mean soft power.

I disagree that if a state does nothing then that doing nothing can be seen as hard power.

[fgalkin]

It seems to me that the "soft power" definition is deliberately loaded as to make the actions of Western nations (here defined as "liberal democracies in the Western tradition") seem as "soft" power, while categorizing a similar action by non-Western powers as "hard power." Case in point- the Red Dawn example, with American studios changing the enemy in a movie out of a desire to gain access to China's audience in a desire from profit is classified as "hard" power. While aggressively promoting the products of one's entertainment industry abroad(as in the South Korean example, or Hollywood) is somehow "soft" power.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[mr friendly guy]

Why not? Dozens of writers have said similar things without explicitly mentioning soft power or calling it by a variety of other terms, like "influence, lure, superior society, Glanzkraft, image" etc. They definitely mean soft power.

I disagree that if a state does nothing then that doing nothing can be seen as hard power.

I will concede the part about soft power not being so noticeable before. My observation is that a lot of historical examples would which would fit the hard power definition, so my initial thought that soft power is only useful in limited situations might still apply. For every Pope that convinced Attila not to attack (and there are other reasons why he stopped his attack rather being impressed by the power of religion) there are many more where the conflict was ended with hard power (pay offs, military victories etc).

It seems to me that the "soft power" definition is deliberately loaded as to make the actions of Western nations (here defined as "liberal democracies in the Western tradition") seem as "soft" power, while categorizing a similar action by non-Western powers as "hard power." Case in point- the Red Dawn example, with American studios changing the enemy in a movie out of a desire to gain access to China's audience in a desire from profit is classified as "hard" power. While aggressively promoting the products of one's entertainment industry abroad(as in the South Korean example, or Hollywood) is somehow "soft" power.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Keep in mind the Chinese example is my own based on the definition given, while the SK one was one listed by wiki and used by SK authorities themselves. If China said your Red Dawn film is hurtful to our feelings and not fitting for our cultural greatness and the film company agreed, yeah that would most probably count as soft power. On the other hand, if China promotes its films it would also be counted as soft power too.