A Systemic Approach to “Soft Power”

The notion of “power” is one of the key and, at the same time, one of the most controversial in the theory of international relations. The introduction of the conception of “soft power” by J.S. Nye and the scholarly discussions to follow only aggravated the situation of terminological inexactitude, virtually bringing it to the brink of epistemological relativism. The paper attempts to lay down the general framework of a system definition of “soft power”. The definition which would allow, on the one hand, to draw a line between “soft power” and “hard power” and, on the other, to show their intrinsic interdependence within foreign policy activities of an actor on the international scene.

The first section of the paper examines two main approaches to the definition of power, its nature and essence, developed in the Western political science – a resource-oriented and context-oriented (relational) approache. The author highlights the strengths and weaknesses of both and comes to the conclusion, that the latter possesses a higher epistemological potential regarding foreign policy analysis.

In the second section of the paper the author specifies and develops conceptual basics of the context- oriented approach and outlines the prospects to overcome its main setback: theoretically infinite process of the context specification. The author emphasizes the goal-directed character of actors’ behavior on the international scene and, following this line of reasoning, formulates the definition of “soft power” as a specific form of power interaction, aimed at achieving long-term, strategic goals through indirect influence on the response unit, represented by wide sections of the population, specific social groups within it or the structure of international relations in general. The author also stresses the irreducibility of power of an actor to its resources and the inconsistency of the idea of the existence of some special “soft power resources”.

The final section of the paper summarizes the key points of the author’s concept and outlines the main directions of its development and verification.

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