ANALYSIS - Are the East and South challenging soft power index?

By Dr. Senem Cevik

- The writer is a lecturer in International Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She is the co-editor of Turkey’s Public Diplomacy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

CALIFORNIA (AA) - International relations scholar Joseph Nye, world renowned for coining the term “soft power”, argues that a country’s culture, politics, and foreign policy are resources that carry the ability to attract global audiences. The concept of soft power became particularly popular following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War. The advent of new communication technologies and emerging role of non-state actors in the international scene gave further importance to new variations of power. Countries have come to the realization that hard power alone can no longer deliver the desired policy goals, and have instead shifted their attention to building relationships and engaging in complex communication activities. Soft power, which both emerged from and was once dominated by the West, has now become a form of power that is sought out by non-traditional actors. This move from West to East and the global south is evident in countries such as Korea, India, Turkey, and Mexico, among others.

Despite the high importance given to soft power, an overarching understanding of soft power resources and the way in which they may be employed does not exist. Moreover, it is still very difficult to measure the outcomes of soft power, and since its inception in the late 1980s, there have been countless debates on its concept and measurements. For three consecutive years Portland Consulting designed a soft power ranking, and in 2017, Portland partnered with the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy in publishing the Soft Power 30 Report.

The results came in at a critically complex time during which we witnessed the rise of new powers, the decline of old powers, and perhaps a significant change in global leadership styles through their infusion in populist rhetoric. As the report argues, we are in a multidimensional, interdependent, and very complex and unpredictable world. Over the past few years, more countries have started to look inward than ever before. Amongst many factors, the onset of the global refugee crisis, rise of globalization, and economic setbacks have caused a number of European countries to focus on their domestic affairs. The 2016 Brexit referendum, a symptom of this global phenomenon, was followed by a new isolationist decisive moment that was seen with the policies of the U.S. President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, since the unfolding of the crisis in Ukraine, relations between the U.S. and Russia deteriorated to an all-time low. The U.S. and Russia are currently locked in a conflict on various fronts, such as the civil war in Syria, and many other issues including election hacking and sanctions. Under all these circumstances, there is an alarming trend in states exerting and building on their hard power.

Within this unpredictable political framework, the top five countries within the Soft Power 30 were not surprising. According to the 2017 report, France is the overall leader in the soft power ranking, followed by the U.K. and then the U.S. Due to the fact that the polling and analysis were conducted shortly after the French elections, the optimistic atmosphere created by Emmanuel Macron’s victory, as well as the leadership personality assigned to him, gave France a large boost in the rankings. On the other hand, the rise of France as the leading soft power in the world does not necessarily translate to a long-term success or may not even signify its preeminence. In fact, the decline of the U.S. in global public opinion, such as their intention to pull out of the Paris climate accord, the “America First” foreign policy doctrine, the executive order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the executive order to stop refugee admissions dubbed the “Muslim Ban”, all contributed to this result. Therefore, it may actually have been what America did wrong, rather than what France did right, that resulted in their two-place drop. As the Soft Power 30 report indicates, leaders’ success does not have a lasting effect, and the atmosphere created by Macron’s victory can fade as it did with Justin Trudeau in Canada. Similarly, the unexpected Brexit referendum is a shadow for the United Kingdom. However, it appears that Brexit was not as decisive in the way the U.K. is perceived globally, which can perhaps be traced back to the well-established brand name the U.K. has created for itself.

A noteworthy trend is the rise of Asia, namely China, which demonstrates a steady rise since 2015 from 30 to 25. While the U.S. announced withdrawal from trade and environmental accords, China, on the contrary, is advocating both free trade and combating climate change. Together with the One Belt, One Read Initiative, and massive infrastructure investments in Africa, China is successfully leveraging hard and soft power. A more global and open China is slowly filling the vacuum created by the U.S. withdrawal.

Although even the most comprehensive set of soft power assets can be easily undermined by bad foreign policy and poor messaging, these are fairly relative terms in the volatile world we live in today. In fact, policy and governance are rather changeable and are contingent on soft power, a liberal concept in essence, which is currently being challenged by the nascent influence of countries with restraining governance styles. Nonetheless, they enjoy a degree of admiration within certain audiences. For instance, China’s culture could be perceived as attractive and its governance style very unattractive by an audience in Scandinavian countries, whereas in countries in East Africa, where China has a significant presence, China’s governance style may not negatively impact its soft power.

This brings about two important questions. The first of these is one of validity: That is, whether soft power is still generated by way of good governance in the liberal order or whether the top-ranking countries are rather enjoying their soft power by way of their cultural resources. As China is on the path to advocating issues such as globalization and environmentalism which are traditionally supported by leading Western countries, the role governance plays in determining soft power can come under question. The second question is whether all countries that are polled for the study have a unified opinion on select countries. What may be deemed appealing for one country, may, in fact, be unthinkable for another. For instance, countries outside the spectrum of the soft power index, such as Cuba, enjoy a certain degree of appeal and admiration in a number of Latin American countries and nations across the globe that embrace an anti-imperialist narrative. Therefore, a cross-regional approach in analyzing and ranking soft power could generate more objective results in determining influence. Soft power is well anchored within the Western approach to governance and culture but nonetheless, recent global developments will continue to challenge the direct correlation between soft power and the Western approach to governance, which is simultaneously being eroded by the actions of a number of Western countries across Europe and the U.S. propelled by the rising far right.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu Agency.