Throughout the readings and discussions we have had these past months I have started to think more and more how these terms we use have an impact on the political discourse. I have to say that when it comes to international relations this is a problem because as we know international relations are not fixed, not the politics, its relations or even the actors.
When we look at soft power as is explained by Joseph Nye “The soft power of a country rests primarily 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 they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority)”. This related back to the previous power play in the world when there main international players were the nation states and their ability to build lasting and strong relationships were crucial for their hard power relations. With other words historically soft power at times was crucial for nation-states to keep its position and be able to have a say in anything regarding the international agenda.
As we have moved forward in time and more players has got a place on the international arena and also since hard power is not as critical as before since wars between nation-states has diminished during the last decade.
So what can we talk from all this and maybe more so who is doing the public diplomacy in the 21st century? Is it really the advocates chosen by the nation-state or should we even consider the deeds of the civil society to have a role producing soft power for the nation-state and if so how does that change the role for those people that actually hold a position within the field of public diplomacy.
What I wanted to do with this post is not only to raise the question who is producing the soft power from the nation-state and also how we should consider these “fixed” terms like – soft-power. Maybe international scholars need to be more on top on the fact that these terms might be regarded more like a process then a fixed term in by doing so also be able to see the change.
I would agree that we need to re-examine the term "soft power" and exactly who is producing it. In today's world, with so many outlets available to both send and receive messages, people's ideas about foreign policy and foreign cultures aren't just being formed by governments, but by anyone with a strong broadband signal. The civil society absolutely needs to be taken into consideration as producing soft power--mostly because members of the civil society are the ones who determine if soft power is working or not.
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