Hard Versus Soft Power
Some political scientists distinguish between two types of power: Hard and Soft. The former is coercive while the latter is attractive.
Hard power refers to coercive tactics: the threat or use of armed forces, economic pressure or sanctions, assassination and subterfuge, or other forms of intimidation. Hard power is generally associated to the stronger of nations, as the ability to change the domestic affairs of other nations through military threats. Realists and neorealists, such as John Mearsheimer, are advocates of the use of such power for the balancing of the international system.
Joseph Nye is the leading proponent and theorist of soft power. Instruments of soft power include debates on cultural values, dialogues on ideology, the attempt to influence through good example, and the appeal to commonly accepted human values. Means of exercising soft power include diplomacy, dissemination of information, analysis, propaganda, and cultural programming to achieve political ends.
Read more about this topic: Power (international Relations)
Famous quotes containing the words hard, soft and/or power:
“Going down for the last time, the last breath lying,
I grapple with eels like ropes—it’s ether, it’s queer
and then, at last, it’s done. Now the scavengers arrive,
the hard crawlers who come to clean up the ocean floor.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.”
—Derek Mahon (b. 1941)
“I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post which any human power can give.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)