Collection 

Perspectives on soft power

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Open
Submission deadline

Since its conceptualisation in the 1980s by Joseph Nye, the term ‘soft power’–the ability of states to persuade others to do what they want without force or coercion–has been widely invoked in foreign policy discussions. While proponents highlight the successful applications of soft power in confronting critical regional or global issues, others point to its limitations in contrast to those of ‘hard power’ approaches, such as military intervention, coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions.

This thematic Collection explores all aspects of soft power, from approaches to framing foreign-policy agendas, to the strategies that countries use to persuade and elicit positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes.

Contributions are invited from a range of disciplines and perspectives, including, but not restricted to: diplomacy, international relations, security studies, international economics and law, sociology and anthropology.

Given the new and emerging incarnations of soft power in the era of ‘new media’, submissions from the following fields are also welcomed: communications studies, cross-cultural sociology, global business and marketing studies, and information technology management.

Articles exploring the following key themes and others of relevance will be considered:

  • Evolving definitions of soft power
  • Instruments of soft power and their use (e.g., public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy and financial aid)
  • Country- and region-specific case studies
  • Interplay between soft and hard power
  • Infrastructure dynamics to support soft power (e.g., informational technology, social media)
  • Implications and outcomes of soft power
  • Future of soft power and ‘smart power’

Read Joseph Nye's reflections on "Soft Power" since its conception.

This is an open Collection - as such there is no closing date for submissions. 

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Various different hands attempt to grab at an image of the globe.

Editors

The Collection will publish original research Articles, Reviews and Comments (full details on content types can be found here). Papers will be published in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications as soon as they are accepted and then collected together and promoted on the Collection homepage. All Guest Edited Collections are associated with a call for papers and are managed by one or more of our Editorial Board Members and the journal's Editors.

This Collection welcomes submissions from all authors – and not by invitation only – on the condition that the manuscripts fall within the scope of the Collection and of Humanities & Social Sciences Communications more generally. See our editorial process page for more details.

All submissions are subject to the same peer review process and editorial standards as regular Humanities & Social Sciences Communications Articles, including the journal’s policy on competing interests. The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions, which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests. See our journal policies and submission guidelines for more details.

This Collection is not supported by sponsorship.