Academic Debates Around Soft Power
Academics have engaged in several debates around soft power. These have included:
- Its usefulness (Giulio Gallarotti, Niall Ferguson, Josef Joffe, Robert Kagan, Ken Waltz, Mearsheimer vs Nye, Katzenstein, Janice Bially Mattern, Jacques Hymans, Alexander Vuving, Jan Mellisen)
- How soft power and hard power interact (Giulio Gallarotti, Joseph Nye)
- Whether soft power can be coercive or manipulative, (Janice BIally Mattern, Katzenstein, Duvall & Barnet vs Nye, Vuving)
- How the relationship between structure and agency work (Hymans vs Nye)
- Whether soft balancing is occurring (Wohlforth & Brooks vs Walt et al.)
- Soft power and normative power in Europe (Ian Manners, A Ciambra, Thomas Diez, A Hyde Pryce, Richard Whitman)
- How civil resistance (i.e. non-violent forms of resistance) can often involve certain uses of soft power, but remains a distinct concept (Adam Roberts, Timothy Garton Ash)
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