Role Of Soft Power Research Articles

The Return of Geopolitics in the Era of Soft Power: Rereading Rudolf Kjellén on Geopolitical Imaginary and Competitive Identity

This paper looks at how Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922) conceived of the relationship between nature and culture, between material and immaterial power as well as the role of soft power, geopolitical imaginary and competitive identity in off-setting potentially unfavourable geopolitical conditions for small and medium-sized states. It is argued that with regard to small states, Kjellén did not maintain a consistent separation between “soft” cultural resources of power and “hard” laws of nature. Rather, he placed the mutually constitutive tension between geography (nature) and politics (culture) at the centre of his politico-scientific analysis, arguing that active “biopolitics” could supplement geopolitics. In Kjellén’s conception, cultural and natural resources are instruments of an otherwise integrated notion of power which challenges the contemporary separation between hard and soft power.

Theorizing the Role of Soft Power in Enabling Cooperation

How do social ventures acquire resources and facilitate cooperation from stakeholders with divergent values and interests? We conducted an in-depth, qualitative study of a small, autonomous social ...

If not by tanks, then by banks? The role of soft power in Putin's foreign policy

This article considers the benefits of the recently developed concept of ‘soft power’ in understanding Russia's foreign policy. It argues that claims that Moscow is exercising a form of soft power imperialism in the former Soviet region cannot be fully supported by the existing evidence. To differentiate between the imperialist and stabilising objectives of Russian foreign policy the article analyses the Russian domestic discourse on exploiting soft power in foreign policy. It then compares the views of different schools of thought with Vladimir Putin's philosophy and foreign policy record. Finally, it selects for closer investigation Russia's policy in the Caucasus.