Response to Nye at HuffingtonPost
Joseph Nye added another Hard/Soft Power article here.
I responded with this...
Yes, we should be as good as we say we are. Reputation counts. But I would like to add that Dr. Nye's hard/soft dichotomy strikes me as an overly simplistic approach to power. It makes for a nice sound byte, and may help underscore the importance of reputation, but it obscures what I deem to be a critical link between power and interest.
It is the duty of the President to calculate and advance the national interest. All nation-states, like all people, share three distinct forms of meta-interest... standing, security, and wealth (the pedigree for that formulation traces from Thucydides through Hobbes, and up to Onuf).
The challenge for a smart person, as for a smart President, is to act in ways and structure the circumstances so that the meta-interests of all can be advanced simultaneously. That is, to act so that more signs of respect for freedom on my part leads to more signs of respect for freedom among others. So that more security for my neighbor means more for me. So that a rising tide really does lift all boats, etc.
In correlation with those meta-interests, we may act as guides, gatekeepers, or peers.
Gatekeeping generally corresponds to Nye's idea of classic hard power, but it also accounts for the deployment of economic resources and the kinds of actions that bring about immediate changes in physical reality or the official social status of other agents.
Acting as a guide generally lines up with Nye's concept of soft power, except that Nye often talks about soft-power as if it can be nearly cost free (especially in relation to hard power). In fact, a reputation can be very costly to maintain since the agent becomes obliged to act in congruence with that reputation.
Finally, to act as peer means recognizing that we are not alone, that we act within a world of intersubjective agents, and that we need to collaborate with allies if we hope to get ahead. That introduces other costs, such as sticking to contracts, compromising, and putting some effort into understanding to the needs and wants of others.
The virtue of Nye’s argument is to point out that what he calls “hard power” will not always get us very far, and that excessive reliance on it can be counterproductive. But his celebration of “soft power” fuzzes over how much effort we need to spend on making our values intelligible to others (and even to ourselves), presuming we honestly intend to offer some kind of authentic guidance and moral leadership in the world.
This was added later that day...
@MBadragan
To flesh out what I mean about the powers of gatekeepers in distinction from hard and soft power, consider Nye's proposal that Obama initiate greater US investment in global public goods.
When the US government (or any agent) invests monetary resources and provides technical assistance to those in great need, it demonstrates its gatekeeping power to deploy those resources. The effect of the spending might consequently increase the US reputation (akin to "soft power") among observers, but the act of investment would not count as a use of that reputation. But in Nye's view, the typical aid package (or investment in say, an environmental regime infrastructure) wouldn't count as hard power either. For this reason I think his categories are too fuzzy to serve as robust analytical tools.
Of course, the metaphor of "soft power" serves a purpose. Suppose you think, as I do, that providing aid to needy nations and building up public goods are sensible policies when designed to move us toward the more humane kind of world in which we want to live. Unfortunately, there are many greedy selfish people (including lots of power mad brutes and quite a few Republicans) who don't want to spend money that way. But if we pose the investment in the context of power (as a fuzzy way of both acquiring it and displaying it), perhaps they'll find the idea far more attractive.
So the rhetoric of soft power is itself an example of soft power.
I responded with this...
Yes, we should be as good as we say we are. Reputation counts. But I would like to add that Dr. Nye's hard/soft dichotomy strikes me as an overly simplistic approach to power. It makes for a nice sound byte, and may help underscore the importance of reputation, but it obscures what I deem to be a critical link between power and interest.
It is the duty of the President to calculate and advance the national interest. All nation-states, like all people, share three distinct forms of meta-interest... standing, security, and wealth (the pedigree for that formulation traces from Thucydides through Hobbes, and up to Onuf).
The challenge for a smart person, as for a smart President, is to act in ways and structure the circumstances so that the meta-interests of all can be advanced simultaneously. That is, to act so that more signs of respect for freedom on my part leads to more signs of respect for freedom among others. So that more security for my neighbor means more for me. So that a rising tide really does lift all boats, etc.
In correlation with those meta-interests, we may act as guides, gatekeepers, or peers.
Gatekeeping generally corresponds to Nye's idea of classic hard power, but it also accounts for the deployment of economic resources and the kinds of actions that bring about immediate changes in physical reality or the official social status of other agents.
Acting as a guide generally lines up with Nye's concept of soft power, except that Nye often talks about soft-power as if it can be nearly cost free (especially in relation to hard power). In fact, a reputation can be very costly to maintain since the agent becomes obliged to act in congruence with that reputation.
Finally, to act as peer means recognizing that we are not alone, that we act within a world of intersubjective agents, and that we need to collaborate with allies if we hope to get ahead. That introduces other costs, such as sticking to contracts, compromising, and putting some effort into understanding to the needs and wants of others.
The virtue of Nye’s argument is to point out that what he calls “hard power” will not always get us very far, and that excessive reliance on it can be counterproductive. But his celebration of “soft power” fuzzes over how much effort we need to spend on making our values intelligible to others (and even to ourselves), presuming we honestly intend to offer some kind of authentic guidance and moral leadership in the world.
This was added later that day...
@MBadragan
To flesh out what I mean about the powers of gatekeepers in distinction from hard and soft power, consider Nye's proposal that Obama initiate greater US investment in global public goods.
When the US government (or any agent) invests monetary resources and provides technical assistance to those in great need, it demonstrates its gatekeeping power to deploy those resources. The effect of the spending might consequently increase the US reputation (akin to "soft power") among observers, but the act of investment would not count as a use of that reputation. But in Nye's view, the typical aid package (or investment in say, an environmental regime infrastructure) wouldn't count as hard power either. For this reason I think his categories are too fuzzy to serve as robust analytical tools.
Of course, the metaphor of "soft power" serves a purpose. Suppose you think, as I do, that providing aid to needy nations and building up public goods are sensible policies when designed to move us toward the more humane kind of world in which we want to live. Unfortunately, there are many greedy selfish people (including lots of power mad brutes and quite a few Republicans) who don't want to spend money that way. But if we pose the investment in the context of power (as a fuzzy way of both acquiring it and displaying it), perhaps they'll find the idea far more attractive.
So the rhetoric of soft power is itself an example of soft power.
posted by Flywheel at 9:16 AM
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