Soft Power as Productive Power

Abstract

How does soft power work? What is the relationship between hard power and soft power? What is the relationship between the sources of soft power and the actual practice of soft power? What, then, does it mean to increase soft power as a foreign policy? These are the key questions on soft power that have been hotly debated ever since Nye coined the term “soft power” in a 1990 publication.1 The questions are interrelated, often complicated and conflated.