Examining the geopolitical threat theory by comparing New Zealand’s and Finland’s soft power use

Abstract

ABSTRACT Employing a most-similar case design, the study examines Finland’s and New Zealand’s soft power actions to answer the question, why did Finland use more soft power than New Zealand during 1995–2010? The article focuses on geopolitical threat to reveal why Finland is such a high soft power user, and New Zealand is not, when these two countries should have exhibited similar levels of soft power use. The qualitative analysis finds that a strong perception of a geopolitical threat boosted Finland’s soft power use, while the absence of a similar threat for New Zealand led to a low soft power use.