The Case for Soft Power

Abstract

The term “soft power” was coined by Professor Joseph Nye, who first introduced it in a book he published in 1990, and in two scholarly articles that came out in the same year.¹ His concept was built on an idea discussed much earlier by two other scholars who talked about “the second face of power.”² Then after 9/11, Professor Nye further refined his concept in several new publications. His book, The Paradox of American Power, which came out in 2003, fully developed the soft power idea, just at a time when the Bush administration was using hard power to bring about regime change in Iraq.³ Nye quickly followed that in 2004 with another book on soft power that devoted an entire chapter to public diplomacy, and another scholarly article summarizing his thesis.⁴