US Soft Power and security preferences
Background, Identification of the Research Question and Explanation of Interest
According to Joseph Nye, Soft power is the ability to get what one wants through attraction rather than using coercive force (Nye 2008). Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. Soft power has immensely contributed to the maintenance of US hegemony. The basis of United States (U.S.) soft power was liberal democratic politics, free market economics, and fundamental values such as human rights, in essence, liberalism. Undeniably, following its win for the Cold War, the American liberalism had unparalleled appeal around the world.
It is also imperative to note that a defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies. Of late, soft power has been increasingly used in changing and influencing social and public opinion through relatively less transparent channels and lobbying through powerful political and non-political organizations (Fan, 2008). According to Nye, with soft power, the best propaganda is not propaganda. He also asserted that credibility is the scarcest resource during the Information Age.
Moreover, the American soft power could best be enhanced by a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security, diplomacy, security, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development. According to the 2016/17 Monocle Soft Power Survey ranks, the U.S was ranked as the leading country in soft power. Although the European Union scores the highest for soft power when considered as a whole, the U.S is however ranked the first among sovereign states.
In this regard, the soft power wielded by the U.S has increased my interest in studying the topic to understand how the soft power benefit U.S foreign policy, specifically in terms of global security. The U.S with its soft power in particular has made many countries look upon it, be attracted and appealed to it (Parmar, & Cox, 2010). This is the reason it has been a melting point of different cultures drawn from immigrants. It has also increased its world engagements with other countries through security, trade, war aids and even in humanitarian aids. This makes it a country of interest to study its soft power and how it influences its foreign policy in regard to national security.
Hypothesis
While there could be many research questions in relation to the U.S soft power, this proposal will delve into the exploration of a single hypothesis.
· US soft power increases its hegemony in terms of security in the international system, yet the context of shared values and interest is crucial.
In countries like Saudi Arabia where there are several complex and historical factors that facilitate the process of shaping interest and changing behavior it is more likely that soft power yields positive outcome preferences in terms of security. Those outcomes include shared defense strategies, counterterrorism, war in Yemen and oil. Saudi Arabia has been a good ally to the US in terms of shared goals in the region and this mutual relationship is important to achieve the desired outcomes. Oil policies also have an impact on why soft power in Saudi Arabia might yield positive results in global security.
It is also crucial to note that the context of shared values and interest between the two countries is imperative. Country like Iran is not expected to yield positive outcomes on security due to soft power given the long-lasting conflict between Iran and America since the hostages’ crisis after the Islamic revolution of 1979. A third country like Egypt that fall somewhere in between Saudi Arabia and Iran in terms of security outcomes resulting from US soft power is also essential to consider in the study. Studying such country allow us to omit other variables that might influence security preferences other than US soft power, assuming that the US has an interest in country like Egypt.
Expectations
Given that soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce as is the case with hard power, this study expects to reveal that the soft power has the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. Being non-coercive, it is expected that soft power with its currencies of culture and political values will greatly influence the outcome of global security in the international system. It is also crucial to note that security influence over the international system might be either positive or negative depending on the full context. In countries where the US have similar or shared values it is more likely that soft power yields more positive results than in other countries.
Definition of the Critical Concepts and Analysis
Soft power: is the national resource that can lead to a country’s ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes.
National security: is a collective term that indicates the united states’ policies regarding national defense and foreign relations.
International security: refer to the variety of measures taken by states and international organizations, like, UN and EU in order to ensure mutual safety and survival.
Hard power: is the use of military or economic coercion to get others to change their position (Wilson III, 2008).
Foreign policy instruments: are the forms of pressure and influence available to decision makers that represent an ascending scale of seriousness in terms of the commitment of resources, the impact of third parties and the degree of risk in use.
Foreign policy techniques: refer to the policy options available to decision makers pursuing a given set of objectives.
As noted earlier, soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce as is the case with hard power. Overall, it appears that soft power strategies are more effective in the contemporary international system than hard power strategies. Nye wrote that, when one country gets other countries to want what it wants, this may be called co-optive or soft power, in contrast with the hard or command power of ordering others to do what it wants. It is all about culture and having a national goal to “build our country into a socialist cultural superpower in the context of soft power” (Kondo, 2019). America has always aimed to increase its soft power, give a good American narrative, and better communicating America’s messages to the world.
Soft power has appeared as an alternative to raw power politics and that is the reason it is often embraced by ethically-minded scholars and policymakers. But soft power is a descriptive rather than a normative concept. Like any form of power, it can be wielded for good or bad purposes. While soft power can be used with bad intentions and wreak horrible consequences, it differs in terms of means. It is on this dimension that the U.S might construct a normative preference for greater use of soft power. This is the reason as to why the term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen.
Independent and Dependent Variables
It is notable that the topic of interest is soft power and its influence on U.S foreign policy in terms of international security. Therefore, the independent variable in this case is soft power which is measured by its recourses and currencies. The dependent variables on the other hand are foreign relations, foreign policies and foreign influence, which are measured by actors’ policy outcomes, preferences, and voting in international organizations in the realm of the international security. It is worth noting that the dependent variables are what will be measured and affected during the study. Undeniably, the dependent variables of foreign influence over security respond to the independent variable of soft power resources and its applications in some countries.
Literature Review
It is imperative to note that Joseph Nye introduced the concept of soft power in the late 1980s. According to Nye, (1990), power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes you want. There are several ways how this can be achieved. One of these ways is coercing them with threats. Another way is inducing them with payments. The final way is that, a country can attract and co-opt others to want what it wants. Soft power gets other countries to want the outcomes a country wielding the soft power wants in any given field. This is co-opting people rather than coercing them.
It is imperative to note that soft power can be contrasted with ‘hard power’, which is the use of coercion and payment. Hard power used to be the ultimate source of security in the global arena. Nevertheless, the changing nature of actors’ in the international system in an era of globalization and post-worldwar2 has a noticed shift in power resources. It however does not mean that hard power sources have been eradicated witnessing the amount of conflict in many regions around the world. Therefore, soft power can be wielded not just by states but also by all actors in international politics, such as NGOs or international institutions. Nye believes that it was the “second face of power” that indirectly allows the U.S to obtain the outcomes it wants. A country's soft power, according to Nye, rests on three resources: “its culture or in places where it is attractive to others, its political values or when it lives up to them at home and abroad, and its foreign policies or when others see them as legitimate and having moral authority”.
It can best be noted that the U.S may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries admire its values, emulate its example, aspire to its level of prosperity and openness and want to follow it. In this sense, it is also important to set the agenda and attract others in world politics, and not only to force them to change their behavior by threatening military force or economic sanctions (Nye Jr, 2004). This soft power or getting others to want the outcomes that the U.S wants to co-opt people rather than coerce them.
It is also imperative to note that soft power resources are the assets that produce attraction which often leads to acquiescence. Nye asserts that, Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like global security, democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive. Further, Angelo Codevilla as noted by Khawaja, (2006), observed that an often-overlooked essential aspect of soft power is that different parts of populations are attracted or repelled by different things, ideas, images, or prospects. More importantly to note is that, soft power is hindered when policies, culture, or values repel others instead of attracting them.
Stuenkel, (2016) further argues that soft power is a more difficult instrument for governments to wield than hard power for two reasons. Many of its critical resources are outside the control of governments, and soft power tends to “work indirectly by shaping the environment for policy”, and sometimes it takes years to produce the desired outcomes, even in terms of global security. As noted earlier, soft power can be categorized into three broad categories that include; culture, political values, and policies.
Moreover, Nye, (2004), reiterates that soft power is a descriptive, rather than a normative, concept. However, soft power can be wielded for corrupt purposes. For instance, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao just to mention a few all possessed a great deal of soft power in the eyes of their aides, but that did not make it good. Therefore, it is not necessarily better to twist minds than to twist arms. Soft power does not contradict the international relations theory of realism. Overall, it can be seen that soft power is not a form of idealism or liberalism but simply a form of power or a way of getting desired outcomes.
The success of soft power heavily depends on the actor's reputation within the international community, as well as the flow of information between actors. Thus, soft power is often associated with the rise of globalization and neoliberal international relations theory. Popular culture and mass media are regularly identified as a source of soft power as is the spread of a national language or a particular set of normative structures. Ilgen, (2016), notes that, a nation like the U.S with a large amount of soft power inspires others to acculturate, avoiding the need for expensive hard power expenditures. More particularly, international news is crucial in shaping the image and reputation of foreign countries. The high prominence of the U.S in international news, for example, has been linked to its immense soft power.
Limitations of the Soft Power
Soft power has been criticized as being ineffective. Neorealist and other rationalist authors dismiss soft power out of hand as they assert that actors in international relations respond to only two types of incentives: economic incentives and force. Imperatively, as a concept, it can be difficult to distinguish between soft from hard power. Though military and economic force was not used to pressure other states to join its coalition, a kind of force which is representational force was used (Nye Jr, 2004). Therefore, this kind of force threatens the identity of its partners, forcing them to comply or risk being labelled as evil. This being the case, soft power is therefore not so soft. Rationalist merely see this as an implied threat, and that direct economic or military sanctions would likely follow from being ‘against us’. In cultural studies, the concept, soft power is often used for culture. It is however argued that soft power cannot replace culture, but it is only a subset of culture. Additionally, the outcome of soft power in countries like Russia, Iran and North Korea, where US culture lies pole apart from their norms and cultures, might not be as effective as in other countries.
Research Method and Design
Soft power and its influence in U.S foreign policy in terms of global security will best be approached through a multiple case study. Undeniably, security in foreign policy has been a well-researched concept and as such, it has been developed greatly. One of the complications of soft power literature is that it focuses on the influence attempt and/or the outcome of soft power and not the capabilities (Wilson III, 2008). Both of those can be difficult to measure, especially the agenda setting and preferences setting powers as we cannot know for sure what lead to the changed preferences or to the renewed agenda in other countries. In this regard, studying soft power from the international perspective will allow me to objectively scrutinize its foreign policy outcome over security.
I will start my research with the conceptualization of soft power as a national resource and identify the element resources. Then I will choose 3 countries of interest that I will assume they have had experienced US soft power in some way. Countries I expect that US soft power resources might have influenced security outcomes preferences are like, Israel and Saudi Arabia. On the other hand, countries like Iran and Russia who have had a long cultural and political struggle with the US are expected to yield negative results in security outcome preferences in regard to US recourses. I will nevertheless restrict the study to Saudi Arabia and Iran. Additionally, I will also choose a third swing country case that might lean either way to test whether change in security preferences was actually due to US soft power recourses, like Egypt.
Data Collection
There is currently only one international Soft Power Index, “THE NEW PERSUADERS: An International Ranking of Soft Power 2010.” This was created by Jonathan McClory with the goal in mind to study the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) ranking in the world in terms of soft power and to find out what the UK’s strategic partner countries are doing in soft power in relation to foreign policy (Ivanov, 2018).
Conclusion on the Viability of the Qualitative Research Design/Study
In conclusion, with the aid of the multiple case study design which is the most viable given the nature of the data which is qualitative, soft power will be measured through a composite index or ranking. The Soft Power Index will combine a range of statistical metrics and subjective panel scores to measure the soft power resources. The metrics will be organized according to a framework of five sub-indices including culture, diplomacy, education, business/innovation, and government. Although the well measure the soft power resources, this does not translate directly into ability to influence as change in preference in the international system might be due to other reasons, specifically under the dialogue over national security. This is a possible problem of the study that I try to solve given the complex nature of actors’ in the international system and their unexpected behavior to survive and obtain their nations’ security.
References
Fan, Y. (2008). Soft power: Power of attraction or confusion? Place Branding and P
Ilgen, T. L. (Ed.). (2016). Hard power, soft power and the future of transatlantic relations. Routledge.
Ivanov, E. V. (2018). RUSSIAN “SOFT POWER” IMPACT ON RELATIONS WITH THE US AND THE EU. Скиф. Вопросы студенческой науки, (4 (20)).
Khawaja, I. (2006). Symposium: Angelo Codevilla's No Victory, No Peace. Reason Papers, 28, 7-18.
Kondo, D. (2019). Soft Power :( Auto) ethnography, Racial Affect, and Dramaturgical Critique. American Quarterly, 71(1), 265-285.
Nye, J. S. (1990). Soft power. Foreign policy, (80), 153-171.
Nye Jr, J. S. (2004). Soft power and American foreign policy. Political science quarterly, 119(2), 255-270.
Nye Jr, J. S. (2004). Soft power: The means to success in world politics. Public affairs.
Nye Jr, J. S. (2008). Public diplomacy and soft power. The annals of the American academy of political and social science, 616(1), 94-109.
Parmar, I., & Cox, M. (Eds.). (2010). Soft power and US foreign policy: theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives. Routledge.
Stuenkel, O. (2016). Do the BRICS possess soft power? Journal of Political Power, 9(3), 353 367.
Wilson III, E. J. (2008). Hard power, soft power, smart power. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 616(1), 110-124.
Hasanlari
USsoftpower.docx
0
