Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion. The phrase was coined by Joseph Nye of Harvard University in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. For example, in 2007, CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao told the 17th Communist Party Congress that China needed to increase its soft power, and the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of the need to enhance American soft power by "a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security--diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development."
In 2010 Annette Lu, former vice-president of the Republic of China on Taiwan, visited South Korea and advocated the ROC's use of soft power as a model for the resolution of international conflicts.
General Wesley Clark when discussing soft power commented that, “it gave us an influence far beyond the hard edge of traditional balance-of-power politics.”
Read more about Soft Power: Description, Making Power Soft, Limitation, Measuring Soft Power, Just Power, Academic Debates Around Soft Power, Relevancy
Famous quotes containing the words soft and/or power:
“Soft men tend to be born from soft countries.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“We have imagined ourselves a special creation, set apart from other humans. In the last twentieth century, we see that our poverty is as absolute as that of the poorest nations. We have attempted to deny the human condition in our quest for power after power. It would be well for us to rejoin the human race, to accept our essential poverty as a gift, and to share our material wealth with those in need.”
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)