Talk:Soft power/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Doctor Who example

I question the relevance of this strange, unsourced anecdote. It's painfully out of context with the rest of the article. Will remove if there are no objections. --Nydas 17:11, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

soft power idea derived from the Chinese?

I really don't know. But when I first heard the phrases "soft power" and "hard power" I thought they were some literal and otherwise silly translations of the the Chinese words "gang li" and "ruan li" (Am I write?) I am really surprised. Maybe the Chinese stole the ideas from the West.

I belive it was in a book of the same name, I have it somewhere around but I remmeber the author claiming to have coined the word in 19xx wolfie 13:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC) I just rea dthe article its mentioned. lol


europeans advocated that strogly.in fact they beleave that soft power is superior and thus have small armys.--Ruber chiken 13:54, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Blockquotes

The blockquotes really bug me - they're the type of thing that could be summarized and borrowed from to a lesser extent. Theshibboleth 02:00, 19 January 2006 (UTC)


Maybe we could use Nye's recent summary of soft power: 

  "Soft power is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payment.     
  That attraction can come from culture (where it is attractive), but also from policies that may  
  include military forces".

The reference is from the April/May 2006 issue of The Diplomat[1], an Australian magazine (QLDer86 10:52, 10 December 2006 (UTC)).

better still "soft power is the ability to get other to want what you want" - Samuel P. Huntington

A link to an article criticizing Nye's concept of soft power

Dear readers, I noticed there are no links to any criticism of Nye's concept of soft power. All links (whether references or further reading) merely re-hash the traditional definition of soft power, according to Nye. Here is an article actually tackling the concept itself: http://www.thetalent.org/Indice/Show/Articoli-HTML/frm-main.php?show=122. I believe this does provide more information about the meaning and implications of Nye's concept. Do you agree to the adding of a link to this article in the references or further reading section? Thanks for letting me know.Taleinfo 16:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

As there were no objections regarding the above, I have posted the link to an article criticising the concept of soft power as understood by Nye.Taleinfo 11:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

About the usefulness of the concept

I would introduce the following critique:

"Soft power" basically refers to what a long time ago is known as "hegemony". This means that the idea may be useful, but there is a prior expression for it, so there is no need of a new one. D. Cordobale (July 13, 2006)
While it may be the case that there is some overlap between hegemony and Nye's concept of Soft Power, Nye's term has come into common usage (at least within lay or dilettantish circles)and thus probably ought be discussed independent of the hegemony discussion. shidobu 17:07, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Hegemony seems to be more along the lines of primus inter pares, while soft power doesn't make any statement about the relative power of the group exerting soft power - a weaker state can exert soft power over a stronger state, while a weak state could not be a hegemon... Konamaiki (talk) 20:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Communist party is the party for elites

Dr John Lee, a visiting fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, and author of the book Will China Fail, examines China's authoritarian regime, which would flex its economic muscle at will.

Dr. Lee wrote on April 4, 2009 on the Sydney Morning Herald:

...many in Australia see it as a self-serving regime using the prosperity of the country to cling to power. Even when maximising profits, there is a suspicion state-controlled firms exist primarily to extend (communist)party power and influence.

Dr.Lee stated that since Beijing regime's ultimate goal is "comprehensive national power", the government ...regards all Chinese economic and social organizations as potential instruments of state.

Dr.Lee further concluded:

State-controlled firms produce barely a quarter of China's output, but draw more than three-quarters of all domestic capital. Of about 1500 companies listed on China's two stock exchanges, fewer than 50 are genuinely private. The Communist Party is the party for elites.

[1]

I've removed the section above. It's not relevant. --Duncan (talk) 13:43, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

China's build

Hey. China's section should 1, be reduced as what is posted right now can be under 1 section. 2, soft power in general needs to be expanded on. This article is on soft power, not countries trying to build soft power. There should be sections of countries with soft power examples, but not give special attention to specific countries and try to say how awesome they are. The China section could be summarized in a paragraph, and give give examples of other countries notable soft power things like US and India's Hollywood and Bollywood, and the EU's high standard of living, etc. But the article is primarily about soft power, not specific countries soft power. Deavenger (talk) 23:04, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Improvements

Any chance of an overhaul and some more examples? The article is very badly arranged. Estrellador* 21:53, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I started in on some changes, I think some critical context is still needed; I'm not sure what other kinds of examples to offer, since the concept itself can be rather vague. MC MasterChef 02:16, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'd say that Sweden have some soft power over the political lefte wing in Norway and some other european nations because of their long periodes with an elected left wing goverment. They've also had no wars since the norwegian independance war of 1814 (Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden after losing the napolian war and then Norway tried to gain independance) They also accept the highest number of refugees of any nordic country and still seam to manage allright. But then I might not be the right person to ask as I'm left wing and live in Norway and our culture is rather similar with the swedish one.. Luredreier 17:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Shutup. Estrellador* 19:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

ouch wolfie 14:03, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Radical Overhaul

This whole article is extremely poor for such an important topic. Here are my recommendations:

1) Get rid entirely of the China section. Why China is selected particularly for comment is baffling and the country has no more significance to Soft Power as a concept than any other country.

2) Section on the academic debate around Soft Power. This would include a) Its usefulness (cf Niall Ferguson, Josef Joffe, Robert Kagan, Ken Waltz, Mearscheimer vs Nye, Katzenstein, Janice Bially Mattern, Jacques Hymans, Alexander Vuving, Jan Mellisen etc) b) Whether Soft Power can be coercive/manipulative, (cf Janice BIally Mattern, Katzenstein, Duvall & Barnet vs Nye, Vuving) c) How the relationship between structure and agency work (Hymans vs Nye) d) Whether Soft Balancing is occurring (Wohlforth & Brooks vs Walt et al)

3) Section on sources of Soft Power for individual nations/instutitions. A discussion is in Nye Soft Power, the Means to success in World Politics, 'Others' Soft Power' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.9.143.150 (talk) 11:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Additional Further Reading Sources

These should be considered for addition:

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/149966.pdf http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/5/0/2/1/1/p502113_index.html http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/5/0/1/4/8/p501480_index.html http://the-diplomat.com/asean-beat/2011/07/12/singapores-art-soft-power/ http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/9/9/4/3/p499431_index.html

Also, the section should be organized by topics. The list is long and without categorization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luckylois (talk • contribs) 00:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Better context for section opening

"Soft power, then, represents the third behavioral way of getting the outcomes you want. Soft power is contrasted with hard power, which has historically been the predominant realist measure of national power, through quantitative metrics such as population size, concrete military assets, or a nation's gross domestic product. But having such resources does not always produce the desired outcomes, as the United States discovered in the Vietnam War. The extent of attraction can be measured by public opinion polls, by elite interviews, and case studies."

Starting this section by introducing soft power as the "third behaviorial way" is confusing, especially since the next sentence moves into a binary between hard and soft. I assume the other two "behavioral ways" are from this section:

"Soft power has been criticized as being ineffective by authors such as Niall Ferguson in the preface to Colossus. Neorealist and other rationalist and neorationalist authors (with the exception of Stephen Walt) would generally disregard soft power since they assume for theoretical purposes that actors in international relations respond to only two types of incentives: economic incentives and force."

However, I don't know anything about soft power. Can someone please clarify?

--Tommy.rousse (talk) 12:57, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

'European' soft power?

By that the article surely means the British? China considers the British the pre-eminent soft power of the western world through its language, culture and diplomatic experience garnered from Empire. 82.31.236.245 (talk) 21:43, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

UK ranking first in 2012

The United Kingdom has been ranked first in soft power in 2012 by the Monocle magazine.

FCO

Shouldn't these rankings be given in the article somewhere? David (talk) 22:14, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Incomplete?

The article does not mention resistence to soft power (like anti-globalism etc), and this looks like its drawback. Also, it appears badly written: first, it contains much of advice and argument instead of information on concepts and people's argumentation, second, passages like '[...] were ultimately successful in creating the favorable conditions that led to the collapse of the Soviet empire' just cannot be a neutral point of view under any reasonable definition thereof. By the way, dissemination of disinformation (in plain terms, lie) of the West by Soviet media is mentioned, but the same kind of activity by American authorities is not; not to say that not every disfavourable information of something has to be a lie. - 92.100.176.247 (talk) 11:41, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

John Paul II killed Communism?

The article asserts

Pope John Paul II visited Poland in 1979, he struck what turned out to be a mortal blow to its Communist regime, to the Soviet Empire, and ultimately to Communism.

The claim is sourced to an article I don't have easy access to, which may or may not assert this so boldly. Even if it does, though, it's a fairly expansive claim to be making on the basis of one journal article somewhere. Has Communism really been defeated once and for all? I think that claim is likely to be controversial. And if it has, I'm sure we can find sources that attribute the killing blow to someone else (for example, Ronald Reagan is a popular choice and doubtless someone could name him as the slayer and find an RS to back it up). --Trovatore (talk) 06:31, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Especially since the question whether Communism has ever took place anywhere in the world is controversial by itself. As far as I know, even the USSR authorities never claimed that their (and my) country had built Communism; instead, they promised that the country will be able to build Communism in the future. (The latter, by the way, in the 1990s had become a popular subject for jokes, but here's no place to talk of it, so I skip). As we know, it did not, with different opinions on the question why (mine is that Communism and fools cannot coexist, but fools were stronger than Communism, so it happened that they beat it before it born; for example, forbidding free speech was a foolish way of action). Just a remark; with the goal to show how various many people's opinions can be. - 92.100.176.247 (talk) 11:54, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Inclusion of a new 'Soft Power 30' index?

Shouldn't this alternate soft power index also be included in this article? Better to include two sources than just the one Monocle source? I'm not great at editing tables into articles, so could anyone else be kind enough to do this? http://softpower30.portland-communications.com/ranking & http://www.portland-communications.com/the-soft-power-30 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.46.169 (talk) 06:17, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Copyright

Large parts of updates by User:Kimi wu, such as the following, include paragraphs copied directly from the source:

This is not acceptable. Please see WP:COPYVIO and WP:COPYPASTE for guidance.

Other issues exist with these recent edits, please see WP:VERIFY, WP:OR, WP:POV and WP:PEACOCK for guidance. Whizz40 (talk) 20:57, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

France

Greetings dear Wikipedian fellows,

I just added some info about France and its soft power (I personnally believe that it might have been a great blunder to have failed to mention it for so long, but that has hopefully been corrected).

However, as I am not a porfessionnal encyclopedist (nor do I have English as my native language), there may be some things to change in those new paragraphs.

Regards, --Huiva (talk) 22:20, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Measurement section

Welcome views from other editors on the tables in this section. I would not think they should contain extensive quotes from primary sources. the purpose is to show the results of the methodologies described; comparison and contrast of different sources - the leading countries are fairly consistent but with some differences in order and composition. the tail of the list is not significant is addressing this. There really is no need even for the top 15, the full list can be included in the external links section or via references. Whizz40 (talk) 16:34, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Further to the message left at User talk:Muzithebunny#Soft Power earlier in the week, putting forward some rationale for why lengthly quotes from primary sources are beneficial to the article and the reader would be helpful. The EU is listed first in the ranking on page 24 of the Elcano report with the highest score and the splits at the bottom of page 26 show the EU scores highest for soft presence. A separate cite by the report's authors supports this and has an editorial comment which states the EU comes first in the report [4]. This result takes up a whole section in the source and has wp:relevance to the article. Including the EU in the table is consistent with List of countries by GDP (nominal) and many similar examples. Welcome the views of other editors because the article should be based on consensus. Whizz40 (talk) 07:02, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
@Muzithebunny: If other editors have no objections to including the top 15 in the tables then I am happy compromise on that, noting my reservations. The specific pages supporting the soft presence score for the EU are noted above and cited inline with the article text. The emphasis in the article should reflect the sources, preferably secondary sources, rather than the point one or more editors think is the most important from the source. The cite above, which I restored in the article, is a review by the authors of their own report and a comment from a secondary source. Both of these emphasize the EU as leading, the EU takes up a chapter in the report in which graphs 2.1 and 2.5 show it scores higher than the US for soft presence. This is what the article should reflect about this source, unless there are other secondary sources which emphasize something different. Clearly both points, the EU scoring highest and the US ranking first by sovereign state, can easily be included in the article which is the way it is worded now consistent with the sources. Hopefully this is agreeable for you and most editors. Whizz40 (talk) 05:58, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
@Muzithebunny: If a reader was to look at the table you presented, with the U.S. at the top and no mention of the EU, they would come away with a completely different impression than if they had read the source, or read what the authors wrote about their report, or read what another organisation commented on the report. Therefore this is not written from a WP:NPOV. The source gives the figures for the soft presence scores: EU soft presence scores 52.2% of 1214.9, U.S. soft presence scores 46.8% of 1099.6 (pages 24 and 26) and per WP:CALC this is acceptable in policy therefore it is verifiable. The sources extensively argue the EU comes first and do not make this argument for the U.S.. Presenting the U.S. as coming first without including the EU is therefore misleading readers about this source. Including the E.U. in the table is necessary in order to reflect the sources in a neutral way. Whizz40 (talk) 07:09, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

South Korea

This section may rely too much on combining primary sources. Welcome views from other editors. Whizz40 (talk) 18:38, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

It would be better to remove South Korea as an example of soft power, Koreans said that their soft power was GANGNAM STYLE's in the first place as the video with more views, but now things has changed. The song in the future will be very irrelevant.AlfaRocket (talk) 16:55, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

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  1. ^ "Soft power, hard choices". Sydney Morning Herald. April 4 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-28. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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