The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts

By Craig Hayden

Book Overview

The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts provides a comparative assessment of public diplomacy and strategic communication initiatives in order to portray how Joseph Nye's notion of "soft power" has translated into context-specific strategies of international influence. The book examines four cases--Japan, Venezuela, China, and the United States--to illuminate the particular significance of culture, foreign publics, and communication technologies for the foreign policy ambitions of each country.

This study explores the notion of soft power as a set of theoretical arguments about power, and as a reflection of how nation-states perceive what is an increasingly necessary perspective on international relations in an age of ubiquitous global communication flows and encroaching networks of non-state actors. Through an analysis of policy discourse, public diplomacy initiatives, and related programs of strategic influence, soft power in each case represents a localized set of assumptions about the requirements of persuasion, the relevance of foreign audiences to state goals, and the perception of what counts as a soft power resource. This timely analysis provides an unprecedented comparative investigation of the relationship between soft power and public diplomacy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0739142593
• ISBN13: 9780739142592
• Release Date: December 2011
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.2" x 9.0"