Why `Soft Power' Isn't So Soft: Representational Force and the Sociolinguistic Construction of Attraction in World Politics

Abstract

Soft power—the ability to achieve desired outcomes through attraction rather than coercion—has become an important part of scholarly thinking and policy practice with respect to world politics. And yet attraction, the core component of soft power, has been largely neglected in scholarly research. Research has been undertaken, policy suggestions offered, and ethical conclusions about soft power drawn all on the basis of implicit and often unacknowledged assumptions about attraction. As I argue here, this is problematic because neither of the most prominent assumptions— attraction as natural and attraction as constructed through persuasive argument—are feasible or logical in the context of world politics. In fact, as I argue, in the context of world politics it makes far more sense to model attraction as a relationship that is constructed through representational force—a nonphysical but nevertheless coercive form of power that is exercised through language. Insofar as attraction is sociolinguistically constructed through representational force, soft power should be not be understood in juxtaposition to hard power but as a continuation of it by different means. This analytic insight in turn demands some practical and normative reformulations about soft power. ————————————————————————

The role of EFL learners’ demotivation, perceptions of classroom activities, and mastery goal in predicting their language achievement and burnout

“…According to this finding, students who adapt mastery approach towards their learning get high scores which are the indicators of academic achievement. A plethora of studies has conclusively corroborated this finding (e.g., Fatima & Salma, 2012;Leondari & Gonida, 2008;Mattern, 2005;Yildirim, 2004;Zafarmand et al 2014).…”

Mobilization and Radicalization Through Persuasion: Manipulative Techniques in ISIS’ Propaganda

“…In fact if, as Jacques Ellul (2008) noted, "[i]t is with knowledge of the human being, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his automatisms as well as knowledge of social psychology and analytical psychology that propaganda refines its techniques", then ISIS has carried out a masterly refined propaganda, demonstrating a deep knowledge of both psychic mechanisms and the way to opportunistically exploit them. Given that soft power is the "the ability to affect the behavior of others to get the outcomes one wants" (Nye, 2007, p. 389) or, in other words, "a way to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion" (Nye, 1990, p. X), then propaganda's capabilities-which make possible that attraction on which soft power is based on but which Nye left largely under-defined (Mattern, 2005)-can be treated as a proxy for soft power itself. Therefore, having demonstrated the remarkable attractive strength of its propaganda, it can be argued that ISIS' soft power is comparable to that of a state.…”

Toward quantifying soft power: the impact of the proliferation of information technology on governance in the Middle East

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