International relations

Abstract

In the wake of an unmanaged global pandemic and a shift into populist politics of division, the United States has faced considerable pressure on its capacity for influence on a global stage. US soft power is challenged by an increasingly fractious, multipolar world of competing interests, interdependencies, and identity-based conflict. This condition of soft power decline provides an opportunity to reconsider the theoretical assumptions and methods used to assess the role of soft power in foreign affairs - not just for the US but more broadly for the concept. It also provides an opening to reconsider the utility of soft power’s theoretical assumptions for the practical ways through which states seek to influence, such as public diplomacy and other forms of strategic communication. The central argument of this chapter is that if soft power is largely contingent on the characteristics of the relation between the agent and the subject or target of soft power activity, then the conceptual framework should accommodate the diverse routes to influence, which can be advanced through outcomes-oriented study of public diplomacy programs and campaigns.