New Dimensions of Soft Power in the 21st Century

Abstract

Joseph S. Nye, who is considered one of the most influential scholars on the US politics, has attracted a great attention with his concept of “soft power” in the 1980s. Since then, the term of “soft power” has been used by many academics and politicians with different emphasis. Based on the claim that hard power elements are insufficient alone to reach the goals in modern age, the soft power theory needs to be reinterpreted with the addition of new dimensions in the 21st century. Now it is possible to discuss the use of soft power as a necessity, rather than just a preference for influencing different societies by creating admiration. The 21st century has brought up many new problems and practices to the international agenda. Although the pandemic Covid-19 is the most striking among them, the intertwining of regional wars and cooperations, global warming, environmental issues, migrations and terrorism have both changed the traditional ways of establishing relations between states and created global areas of struggle outside the states. Now the international community and the world public opinion have started to determine their admirable preferences based on the extent of support given to global cooperation and solidarity rather than strong armies or good movies. Using a literature review, this paper aims to draw attention to the new dimensions of soft power in the changing image of the 21st century.