Matthew Yglesias » Blame the Power

Dec 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm

Blame the Power

Kevin Drum follows up on the “soft power” issue:

I’ve heard “smart power” bandied about, but I doubt that will catch on. Too jargony. “Non-military power” gets to the nub of things, but doesn’t roll off the tongue very well. So what’s a good alternative word that basically means “mostly non-military”? Anybody care to chime in?

I think the problem is more with the “soft” than with the “power.” The idea is that soft power is attractive rather than coercive, and “power” has such heavy connotations of coercion that you wind up needing to bend over backwards to dispel those connotations with something like “soft.” But what Joseph Nye is talking about when he writes about soft power is something more like brand appeal than a form of “power.”

Comments
47

Filed under: International Relations, National Security,

47 Responses to “Blame the Power”

www.makkale.blogcu.com Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:53 pm
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minderbender Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Presumably Matt thinks the problem is less with the “soft” than with the “power.” Of all the typos, though, the “opposite of what I meant” category has to be the most confusing.
Alex F Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:05 pm
How about “influence” rather than “soft power”? It gets rid of the “soft” and the “power,” is fairly self-explanatory, and doesn’t sound fuzzy or weak at all. Sure it doesn’t explicitly exclude military influence, but I think that’s almost a good thing. You can talk about our influence in the world, and the military aspect is self-evidently a small part of that.
paul Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
if its all about branding and reputation, why not star power?
Why oh why Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
How about “21st Century” power? Because as widely-respected (in Washington) McCain said, countries don’t invade other countries in the 21st century.
Martin Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:20 pm
The obvious tougher term for “soft power” is “Gramscian Hegemony”;) See, e.g., the following from the Wikipedia article on the 20th Century Italian Communist theorist Antonio Gramsci:

“Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the ‘common sense’ values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.”

Just substitute “United States” for “bourgeoisie” and “everybody in the world” for “working-class” and isn’t this what we would really like to achieve by “soft power” if we could? And, weren’t we surprisingly far along toward achieving it if we could have just had enough self-discipline to resist the temptation to torture people?
southpaw Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:23 pm
How about “persuasive power” and “coercive power”? Or even persuasion and coercion?

I don’t see why this has to be so difficult.
Ryan Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Good lord, Matt, you really need to let this go. It’s a perfectly good shorthand term.

“power” has such heavy connotations of coercion

Eh, not when modified with “soft” it doesn’t. That’s why Nye’s modified it!

For Nye, what you call “brand appeal” is not something valued just for its own sake — it enables you (gives you the power, one might say) to do stuff that you want to do. So yes, it’s a form of power and thus the phrase is apt.
Jamie Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Why don’t we call it what they used to call it, “the Carrot”?

If we want to jargon it up, we can call it “Carrot power,” in opposition to “Stick power.”
hee Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
AFAICT, “soft power” = “power of having allies working towards the same goal as we are” based on “moral authority” earned via “actually working with allies towards common goals”. My suggestions based on that…

“virtuous power”
“principled power”
“moral authority”
“judicious authority”
“honorable authority”
“just authority”
Stephen Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
How about “Smart Power”?
hee Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I see questioning about the desire for a better term than “soft power”.

The desire is not based on the need for a more accurate term, or (just) to find a term less assailable as “weak”.

The goal is to come up with an attractive term that makes the policy (which should attractive on its merits) sound attractive, specifically to those who aren’t familiar with it’s merits.

The result helps frame any attack against the merit of the (rebranded) “soft power” approach as an attack against something attractive, which makes the attacker sound foolish (to the less informed).

It’s branding 101, and it should also be politics 101. If this is even a question, the Republicans are still miles ahead of the Dems in this area.
Martin Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I must agree with those who are saying that “soft power” is the term you are looking for. “Branding” IS “soft power,” that’s exactly the kind of thing that’s intended. I haven’t seen an intelligible explanation for why the term “soft power” is problematic.
urbino Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:49 pm
Didn’t we used to call this “influence”? It’s a perfectly good English word. Why invent a new one?
El Cid Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Wouldn’t it be rational to consider “soft power” as, you know, “foreign relations” and “foreign policy,” because most sane people might conceive of things like wars, covert actions, and subversion as something ‘else’.

What is it that most people imagine is being done under the rubric of ‘foreign policy’ or ‘diplomatic meetings’ or ‘high level meetings’ or ‘bilateral talks’ etc. etc.?

Why do we need some idiot reminder that the vast majority of the time what countries do is accomplished by means other than shooting at each other or threatening to do so?
andthenyoufall Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I think “deep power” is good phrasing. “Deep” in the sense that the sources of things that constitute soft/deep power are located at a deeper institutional level, and also operate at a deeper level when they are deployed. (As opposed to “shallow” tanks or aircraft, which can be bought and sold, float on the surface of a map, and will be completely gone once they are withdrawn.)
blah Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:37 pm
How about erect power and flaccid power?
Dan Kervick Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
How about crass power vs. sophisticated power? Or brute power vs. refined power?

More seriously, my understanding was that Nye’s term “soft power” refers to certain specific kinds of non-military power, not all non-military power. And there are many varieties of non-military power, some that are just as coercive as military power, but use coercive means other than tools of death and physical destruction.

So if the point is just to have a very generic term for all non-military power, what’s wrong with “non-military power”?
sjk Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Rather than dream up ways to awe us with your mighty brand or wrap us in the cotton wool of your soft power, you could, you know, talk to us.

signed,
non-american.
Dan Kervick Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
you could, you know, talk to us.

I hereby dub that “elocutionary power.” All the world must now bow before the exceptional and exemplary elocutionary excellence of our Mighty Words.
hee Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I like andthenyoufall’s “deep power” phrasing best of anything that’s been raised so far. It’s more expansive and sounds effective.

For all the praise over “soft power”, it really does fail to do anything beyond distinguishing itself from “hard power”. It’s an accurate term, but limiting, as it does nothing to persuade anyone not already convinced of its merits. if you don’t know anything about either of these terms, “soft power” fails by comparison, and therefore loses the battle of the soundbite.

Unf. it’s NOT self-evident to lots of americans that the Iraq venture was bad on the fundamentals – many Americans believe the Iraq war has been managed badly, without seeing how it was a really really REALLY bad idea to begin with. I.e., their conventional wisdom STILL lines up with the thinking that puts “hard power” first.

We need to get the attention of those Americans in order to show them that there are more effective ways for the US to act (i.e. the policies currently referred to as “soft power”), and better branding is a means to getting their attention. It’s an early step, but an important one.

In other words, the long-term goal is to change the course of conventional wisdom on foreign policy; given that, it just makes sense to use labels that aren’t framed by the existing (failed) structures, but look beyond the present while referencing values that everyone – in particular the people who you want to persuade (and by definition disagree with to some degree) – can feel comfortable with.

It’s not just about being right, it’s going way beyond that and persuading people to change their minds to your point of view, which is a lot harder.
El Cid Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Hell, we need to extend this concept into our personal lives. Every time we interact with anyone else in any fashion in which we could possibly have some interest at stake, and in which we aren’t threatening violence, we need to clearly state that we are using “soft power”.
sjk Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm
“So long as I’m the president, my measure of success is victory — and success.” –George W. Bush, on Iraq, Washington, D.C., April 17, 2008

Now that is some “elocutionary power” I can believe in!
Kineslaw Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
How about “integrated power”? To me one of the issues is that we are differentiating between military power and diplomatic power. In truth, even our soft power is backed up by our military power.

Integrated power reflects this and also gets Americans in the habit of viewing foreign affairs more holistically, not talk to some people and bomb others. Instead, both State and the Pentagon are working together to solve problems, instead of at cross purposes.
El Cid Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:55 pm
What about power power? And when power power is deployed successfully, then maybe we can have a record of power power power. And if our power power power comes up against some other nation’s power power power, then we might have to have a power power power power play.

By this point in the conversation the power fetishists in the U.S. foreign policy establishment, though, would be fainting in joy from the repetition of their beloved word.
Tribunus Plebis Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 12:11 am
I’ll give you two specific examples of soft power — which is most definitely a form of power: (1) In the 1980s, activists and governments around the world pressured corporations and other governments to impose economic sanctions against the South African white apartheid regime, which they did; as a result of that plus strikes, boycotts and other mostly nonviolent resistance by black South Africans, the apartheid state became “ungovernable” and finally agreed to negotiations with Nelson Mandela, who won the ensuing election. If the U.S. and its allies applied sufficient pressure on India, one of the chief international backers of the Burmese regime today, to reduce their support, and gave enough assistance to oppositionists inside Burma, that repressive regime wouldn’t be able to survive. (2) Iran’s ruling mullahs are split between business-minded moderates who’d prefer better relations with the U.S., and religious hardliners like Ahmadinejad who’d just as soon vaporize Israel if he had the chance. If Obama offered the Iranian regime a “grand bargain,” i.e. full diplomatic relations and an end to sanctions, if it agreed to comply with all IAEA demands on nuclear inspections and restrictions and to sign the equivalent of the Helsinki Accords (guaranteeing human rights), the Iranian people would deliriously support the offer and the Iranian government would be split apart, quite possibly handing a huge opening to Iranian reformists and moderates who would embrace such a deal. Possible outcomes? A wholesale change in Iranian-American relations, with far less possibility of a future nuclear crisis, or internal political disarray that could induce substantial changes, fracturing the present dominance of the hardliners.
Ed Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 9:05 am
I don’t have a problem with the term, just with the concept. Is it supposed to extend to any power wielded by the United States that is non-military? Or just any power wielded by the US government that is non-military (which would exclude, for example, most movies)? Or certain types of non-military power? Or the general deference as Top Nation accorded to the US?

The concept is too all-encompassing to be useful.
jkruse Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Constructive power.
Sean Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Persuasion through high-minded diplomacy that does not rule out the use of force?

Sounds like Jedi Powers to me.
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Blame the Power

47 Responses to “Blame the Power”

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