Soft Power and the Future of U.S. Foreign Policy

The political scientist Joseph Nye famously defined the “soft power” of a country as the ability to shape the behavior of others through attraction rather than coercion or payment. The authors of this collection of essays reflect on the character, changing role, and significance of American soft power in recent years. They are in wide agreement that the Trump administration’s rejection of multilateralism and the concurrent political turbulence in the United States damaged the country’s image abroad. Several authors note that the Biden administration’s eagerness to return to multilateralism is a sign that it understands the value of soft power. The book’s most interesting debates focus on soft power as a facet of the U.S.-Chinese rivalry, which will increasingly hinge on both countries’ capacities to attract allies and partners. The book makes clear that a lot of U.S. soft power resides in civil society, in American universities, media, and technology companies. The rise of China, which does not have a civil society to rival that of the United States, will test the importance of soft power in the long-term global contest for influence.