Soft Power and International Political Marketing

Abstract

Joseph Nye defines soft power as the ability of “getting others to want the outcomes that you want” through persuasion and attraction of one’s ideas or the ability to set the political agenda to shape the preferences of others. Nye further argues that in the international arena, besides the military and economic power, there is a third dimension which is characterized as indirect power, cooptive power, and intangible power in contrary to direct power, coercive power, and tangible power. Nye states, “The ability to establish references tends to be associated with intangible power resources such as culture, ideology and institutions. This dimension can be thought of as soft power, in contrast to the hard command power usually associated with tangible resources like military and economic strength.”

Henry Sun defines international political marketing as following: International Political Marketing seeks to establish, maintain and enhance long-term relations among nation-states, political actors and organizations, so that the objectives of stakeholders involved are met. This is done by mutual exchange and fulfillment of promises through cross-border and cross-culture marketing strategy and management