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Soft power is a term used in international relations theory to describe the ability of a political body, such as a state, to indirectly influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies through cultural or ideological means. The term was first coined by Harvard University professor Joseph Nye, who remains its most prominent proponent, 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. While its usefulness as a descriptive theory has not gone unchallenged, soft power has since entered popular political discourse as a way of distinguishing the subtle effects of culture, values and ideas on others' behavior from more direct coercive measures, such as military action (hard power) or economic incentives. In Nye's words,

The basic concept of power is the ability to influence others to get them to do what you want. There are three major ways to do that: one is to threaten them with sticks; the second is to pay them with carrots; the third is to attract them or co-opt them, so that they want what you want. If you can get others to be attracted, to want what you want, it costs you much less in carrots and sticks. [1]

Soft power, then, represents the third 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 resources from which soft power behavior is derived are culture (when it is attractive to others), values (when there is no hypocrisy in their application) and foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others). Unless these conditions are present, culture and ideas do not necessarily produce the attraction that is essential for soft power behavior. The extent of attraction can be measured by public opinion polls, by elite interviews, and case studies. Nye argues that soft power is more than influence, since influence can also rest on the hard power of threats or payments. And soft power is more than just persuasion or the ability to move people by argument, though that is an important part of it. It is also the ability to attract, and attraction often leads to acquiescence.

If I am persuaded to go along with your purposes without any explicit threat or exchange taking place—in short, if my behavior is determined by an observable but intangible attraction—soft power is at work. Soft power uses a different type of currency—not force, not money—to engender cooperation. It uses an attraction to shared values, and the justness and duty of contributing to the achievement of those values. [2]

The success of soft power heavily depends on the actor’s reputation within the international community, as well as the flow of information between actors. Thus, soft power is often associated with the rise of globalization and neoliberal international relations theory. Popular culture and media is regularly identified as a source of soft power, as is the spread of a national language, or a particular set of normative structures; a nation with a large amount of soft power and the good will that engenders it inspire others to acculturate, avoiding the need for expensive hard power expenditures.

Some authors portray the difference between hard and soft power as realism vs. idealism, but that is mistaken. Traditional realists were not indifferent to the importance of ideas. In fact, in 1939 E. H. Carr described international power in three categories: military, economic, and power over opinion. Much of this subtlety was lost by the neo-realists in their desire to make power measurable for their structural judgments. They committed what might be called “the concrete fallacy.” Power was reduced to measurable, tangible resources. It was something that could be dropped on your foot or on cities, rather than something that might change your mind about wanting to drop anything in the first place.

As Machiavelli, the ultimate realist, described five centuries ago, it may be better for a prince to be feared than loved, but the prince is in greatest danger when he is hated. There is no contradiction between realism and soft power. Soft power is not a form of idealism or liberalism. It is a simply a form of power, one way of getting desired outcomes. Legitimacy is a power reality. Competitive struggles over legitimacy are part of enhancing or depriving actors of soft power. And not just states are involved. Corporations, institutions, NGOs, and transnational terrorist networks often have soft power of their own. Incorporating soft power into a government strategy is more difficult than may first appear. For one thing, as mentioned above, success in terms of outcomes is more in the control of the subject than is often the case with hard power. A second problem is that the results often take a long time, and most politicians and publics are impatient to see a prompt return on their investments. Third, the instruments of soft power are not fully under the control of governments. While governments control policy, culture and values are embedded in civil societies. Moreover, soft power depends upon credibility, and when governments are seen as manipulative and information is perceived as propaganda, credibility is destroyed. Finally, there are some situations where soft power provides very little leverage. It is difficult, for example, to see how soft power would solve the current dispute over North Korea’s nuclear weapons. On the other hand, when a government is concerned about what Arnold Wolfers described as milieu goals, or general value objectives, such as promotion of democracy, human rights, and freedom, it may often be the case that soft power turns out to be superior to hard power. We need more research on particular cases which illuminate the interplay of hard and soft power in successful strategies, and success can be judged both in terms of effectiveness as well as ethical values.

• The Benefits of Soft Power
• The Word Spy: Soft Power

• Keohane, Robert and Joseph Nye. "Power, Interdependence and the Information Age" from Conflict After the Cold War
• Jentleson, Bruce. "Principles: The Coming of a Democratic Century?" from American Foreign Policy: The Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century
• Nye, Joseph. Propaganda Isn't the Way: Soft Power
• Nye, Joseph, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics
• John McCormick The European Superpower (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). Argues that the European Union has used soft power effectively to emerge as an alternative and as a competitor to the heavy reliance of the US on hard power.
• Matthew Fraser, Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire (St. Martin's Press, 2005). Analysis is focused on the pop culture aspect of soft power, such as movies, television, pop music, Disneyland, and American fast-food brands including Coca-Cola and McDonald's.

Power in international relations v • d • e
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Further geopolitics	African Century | American Century | Asian Century | British Moment | Chinese Century | European Century | Indian Century | Pacific Century
Types of power	Soft power | Hard power | Political power | Power (sociology) | Machtpolitik | Realpolitik | Power projection | Polarity in international relations
Other	G8+5 | BRIC | BRIMC | Historical powers | Next Eleven | Energy superpower | Power transition theory | Second superpower | SCO | Superpower collapse | Superpower disengagement