Power, Soft or Deep? An Attempt at Constructive Criticism

El poder, ¿blando o profundo? Un ensayo de crítica constructiva

Peter Baumann

Swarthmore College, United States of America

Gisela Cramer

Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia

abstract This paper discusses and criticizes Joseph Nye’s account of soft power. First, we set the stage and make some general remarks about the notion of social power. In the main part of this paper we offer a detailed critical discussion of Nye’s conception of soft power. We conclude that it is too unclear and confused to be of much analytical use. However, despite this failure, Nye is aiming at explaining an important but also neglected form of social power: the power to influence the will and not just the behavior of other agents. In the last part of this paper we briefly discuss Steven Lukes’ alternative view of a “third dimension” of power and end with a sketch of a more promising way to account for this neglected form of power.

keywords Social Power; Soft Power; Joseph Nye; Steven Lukes.

resumen El articulo discute y critica las propuestas de Joseph Nye acerca del poder blando. Primero, abrimos la discusión con unos comentarios generales sobre la noción del poder social. En la parte principal de este artículo, ofrecemos una crítica detallada de la concepción del poder blando propuesta por Nye. Concluimos que esta concepción es demasiado opaca y confusa para tener mucho potencial analítico. Sin embargo, a pesar de tal fracaso conceptual, Nye apunta a aclarar una forma muy importante y desatendida del poder social: el poder de influir sobre la voluntad y no solo el comportamiento de otros actores. En la última sección del articulo discutimos brevemente la concepción alternativa propuesta por Steven Lukes acerca de la “tercera dimensión” del poder, y concluimos con el esbozo de una manera más prometedora de dar cuenta de esta forma desatendida del poder social.

palabras clave Poder social; Poder blando; Joseph Nye; Steven Lukes.

Recibido received 07-08-2016

Aprobado approved 08-05-2017

Publicado published 30-06-2017

---

Power is both much desired and of a mixed reputation. Jacob Burckhardt’s remark that power as such is evil (Burckhardt, 1905/1956, p. 25) or Lord Acton’s remark that power “tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Acton, 1907, p. 504) are just the tip of the iceberg of power’s mixed reputation. Whatever the reasons for this, power is usually considered as something rather tangible or hard in some sense. All the more remarkable is the increased interest in recent decades in less hard or more soft forms of power. Nye’s work on soft power has received an enormous amount of attention from politicians, practitioners of public diplomacy as well as political commentators and journalists. One could even suspect that the popularity of talking about soft power is one of its most impressive effects (see Nye, 2011b). However, Nye’s views have not received nearly as much attention from scholars of power. The very success of the term soft power among the wider public seems to suggest that there is a need for it. Yet, since Nye did not clearly define what soft power is, there is also the need for a more systematic scholarly discussion.

We will refrain here from discussing the state of the art of research on power in the field of International Relations. This may seem strange at first sight. After all, Nye introduced the notion of soft power in order to illustrate the capacity of states, that is, mainly the United States, to build and defend positions of leadership in the international system. Yet, the fact is that the mechanisms supposedly at work in Nye’s accounts of soft power are not restricted to the sphere of international relations. Indeed, they refer to social relationships in general.1

We will discuss theoretical alternatives to Nye’s conception (see section “What then?”) but we cannot discuss in any detail but only briefly touch upon other somewhat less closely related theories —like, e.g., those of Gramsci (1971) or the Frankfurt School (as in Horkheimer & Adorno [1969] or Marcuse [1964]), of Bourdieu (1977), Foucault (1983) or Deleuze & Guattari (1972)—. Going more into all these theories would lead us too far away from our main points. Finally, the following can also be seen as raising very basic questions about the nature of power like this one: Is it a resource of agents or is it an aspect of social systems and structures (see the classics Weber, 1921-1922/1978; and Parsons, 1951)? We cannot tackle this question here as it would require a different project of its own.

In order to set the stage for our discussion of Nye (section “Power, Soft”), we first need to make a few rather general remarks about the notion of power (section “Power”). Following up on our discussion of Nye, we will discuss some alternative accounts of non-hard power before advancing some proposals of our own as to how to analyze this still neglected form of power (section “What then?”). Nye’s notions of power, we suggest, are too befuddled to provide useful tools to analyze the workings of power. Our alternative account, moreover, suggests that this form of non-hard power should be called deep rather than soft.

Power

No agent can accomplish just anything she might want to accomplish. Abilities are limited and obstacles are many. I would like to walk up the mountain in half an hour but I can’t, especially given the strong winds and muddy grounds. A group of friends might try to push a car out of a dig but fail. Agents (individual or collective ones) differ in their abilities to overcome this or that obstacle. The degree to which an agent is able to reach a given goal is often called the power of the agent; we can also follow common practice and call it power-to. Thomas Hobbes talked about power in this sense: “The Power of a Man, (to take it Universally,) is his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good” (1651/1909, p. 66 [41]). Bertrand Russell agreed on the basic idea: “Power may be defined as the production of intended effects” (1938, p. 35). Talcott Parsons is also part of this tradition of thinking about power when he says that power has “to do with the capacity of persons or collectivities ‘to get things done’ effectively” (1963, p. 232; see also below). An agent can have the power to do one thing but lack the power to do another thing. With other words, power-to is relative to specific goals.2

Sometimes the obstacles to an agent’s attainment of goals are presented by other agents. Their behavior might stand in the way: They might have different plans and, what is more, they might act accordingly. There are different ways to secure the cooperation of others. One of them is rational persuasion. You want to get the car out of the dig, which requires that we both push; I am initially unwilling to do anything but you convince me that it is in my interest, too, to get the car out of the dig; convinced by rational argument I decide to cooperate.3

The scope and influence of rational persuasion, however, is quite limited. Very often agents choose other means of securing the cooperation of others. A very prominent one is social power. The police, for instance, typically use force against those they want to capture. A robber in the park typically uses threats in order to make their victim hand over the money. This form of power is essentially social (in a sense to be explained in more detail) and is usually called power-over. A classical definition stems from Max Weber: “'Power' (Macht) is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests” (1921-1922/1978, p. 53).4 Like power-to, power-over is relative to specific goals. Weber’s explanation does not (as we will see) cover all forms of power but it captures core forms. Weber’s explanation has an advantage over alternative explanations. Consider, for instance, Dahl’s classic explanation: “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do” (1957, pp. 202-203). Suppose, A asks B what time it is and B answers “3pm” but would not have said anything had A not asked. Does this mean that A has power over B? This seems incorrect. Dahl’s explanation of the concept of power-over is too broad; it collapses social power into social interaction.5

Power-to can have a social aspect, for instance in the case of collective agents. But the power-to of a collective agent does not as such constitute a case of power-over or social power in a more specific sense. A group of people can achieve some goal (e.g., cook a meal together) without there being any relevant power-over involved. Power-over is social in the specific sense that it enables an agent to secure the cooperation of others even when they initially are unwilling to cooperate.

Power-to can be distributed equally as well as unequally. All full citizens of a country might have an equal power to vote. However, even if powers-to of one kind are distributed unequally this is still not sufficient for the existence of a corresponding power-over. Some people are better singers than others but this does mean that they have power over those others. Even if there is a singing competition where the best singers win based on their singing abilities (their “power to”), this still does not constitute some kind of power over those who don’t win the competition. An unequal distribution of abilities and resources is sufficient for an unequal distribution of the corresponding powers-to but not sufficient for a corresponding power-over. More is required to turn power-to into power-over.

In contrast, inequality of abilities and resources is necessary for power-over. Consider Weber’s explanation again. Roughly, A has power over B insofar as A can reach their goal even against B’s resistance. However, if B can reach their goal even against A’s resistance, then A cannot have power over B. Hence, power-over is essentially asymmetry and based on an unequal distribution of the relevant resources and abilities. We get the same result if we generalize Weber’s explanation a bit: Power is the ability of an agent to secure cooperation (or at least prevent disruption) from others for the attainment of their goals even if those others were initially not willing to cooperate (whether they intended to put up active resistance or not). If A and B have conflicting goals and are unwilling initially to cooperate with each other, and if A can still secure B’s cooperation, then it seems to follow that B cannot at the same time be able to secure A’s cooperation.6

Power-over is thus a special case of power-to. For the study of social relations it is a particularly interesting form of power. It is useful and also common practice to use the term social power in the specific sense of power-over. We propose to do the same here.

In order to get a firmer grip on the notion of power-over or of social power it is necessary (as we will see soon) to make a distinction between the preferences and the goals of an agent. Preferences are relatively stable dispositions of agents to rank options or states of affairs according to their desirability for the agent.7 I might prefer having an afternoon stroll through the park when the sun is out to spending the afternoon reading a book when the sun is out; however, when it’s raining I might prefer spending the afternoon reading to strolling through the park. What I will do in the afternoon is not fully determined by my preferences; it also depends on what the circumstances of the situation are or, more precisely, what I take them to be. Given the above preferences I will go out if the sun is out (or more precisely: if I take it to be out) but stay in if I’m assuming or expecting bad weather. My goals (to stroll through the park, to read a chapter at home) are determined by my preferences and my (perceived) circumstances. Goals are a function of preferences in combination with perceived circumstances.8 Goals change with changing situations while the underlying preferences explain why the goals change the way they do, given changed (perceived) circumstances.

We can now distinguish between different forms of social power (power-over). First, there is a very straightforward and blunt form of power: the ability to incapacitate another agent. Only in extreme cases does this involve complete incapacitation in all respects (e.g., by killing the other agent). In the typical and most common cases the incapacitation is restricted to specific actions relevant to the goal of the agent using this kind of power. Suppose A and B are at an auction. A would like to make an offer and raise his arm. B, however, does not want A to make an offer. B is stronger than A and by sheer force keeps A’s arm down. The ability to incarcerate another agent is another example of incapacitating power. Again, this is a specific incapacitation: The incarcerated person cannot leave the room as they please but they can still whistle or think about politics. In the case of incapacitating power the agent “in power” can prevent the other agent from acting in the relevant way. Insofar, the other agent does not even play the role of an agent. According to the explanation given above, power is the ability of an agent to secure cooperation (or prevent disruption) from others for the attainment of their goals even if those others were initially not willing to cooperate. Incapacitating power enables agents to prevent disruption (rather than secure active cooperation).

A second from of social power is based on the use of sanctions. The case of negative sanction is perhaps more salient than the case of positive sanctions; let us look at it first. An agent A has social power over an agent B based on negative sanctions just in case A can credibly and effectively threaten B into acting a certain way. This is relevant in a situation where both have different and conflicting goals: A wants B to do X (e.g., hand over his wallet) rather than Y (keep his wallet) while B initially prefers doing Y to X. A’s credible threat makes B believe that A will bring about negative consequences for B (e.g., being shot at) if B does Y (and will not bring about those negative consequences if B does X). If the threat is effective, B comes to believe that the negative consequences will be so bad for him that according to his underlying preferences (e.g., preferring being alive without the wallet to losing the wallet and perhaps also his life) he changes his goals from Y to X and acts in the way desired by A.9

The case of positive sanctions is parallel. An agent A has social power over an agent B based on positive sanctions just in case A can make a credible and effective offer to B, which motivates B to act in a certain way. Suppose B initially prefers keeping his car to giving it away to A while A has the reverse preferences. A credible offer (e.g., of a good sum of money) makes B believe that A will bring about positive consequences for B (receiving a good sum of money) if B hands over his car (and will not do so if he doesn’t hand over his car). If the offer is effective, B comes to believe that the positive consequences will be so good for him that according to his underlying preferences (e.g., preferring having the money but not the car to keeping the car but missing the money) he changes his goals from keeping to handing over his car and acts in the way desired by A.10

In both cases of sanction-based social power it is essential that the other person understands and acts accordingly. Threats or offers fail if the addressee panics, loses his mind or faints. In both cases the agent using power influences the goals of the other agent but not their underlying preferences: They are given as fixed. Sanction-based power is one form of the ability of an agent to bring about and secure cooperation from others; it is quite different from incapacitating power.11

There are further forms of power, apart from incapacitating or sanctioning power, which are certainly not coercive. The two forms of power mentioned so far have in common that the preferences of the other person remain unaffected. A third possibility worth exploring is that one agent has power insofar as he can change the underlying preferences of the other person so that the possibility of conflict doesn’t even arise in the first place (and coercion is certainly absent from the start). So, what about this third form of social power?12 Here is where, following Nye, “soft” power comes in.

Power, Soft

The term soft power has been coined and made popular (much more outside of academia than inside it) since the late 1980s by Joseph S. Nye. The basic concept it expresses, however, is much older. Nye develops it into a more detailed, albeit not very systematic, view or conception of power, which deserves a closer look. Nye is applying this conception to international relations but it concerns social phenomena much more generally.13

Nye makes some general remarks about the nature of soft power: it is the “ability to shape what others want” (1991, p. 267, footnote 11), “the ability to shape the preferences of others” (2004a, p. 5; see also 2008, p. 29, 2011a, p. 20, 1990). These explanations are still very broad and vague. Nye adds more content when he points out that soft power “comes from preference formation” (2011a, p. 16) and deals with “establishing preferences” (2011a, 11). Soft power hence does not only influence pre-existing preferences but also creates new preferences. Nye adds, more specifically, that soft power is “the ability to affect others’ preferences so that they want what you want and you need not command them to change” (2011a, p. 11; see also 1991, p. 31, 2004a, pp. 2, 5). This is fine as a general explanation but one wonders how soft power works. It is certainly a form of power-to but the crucial question is whether it is a form of power-over (see above).

Nye throws some additional light on things when he compares and contrasts soft power with two other forms of power, the two forms of hard power: “But there are several ways to affect the behavior of others. You can coerce them with threats; you can induce them with payments; or you can attract and co-opt them to want what you want” (2004a, p. 2, see also 2004a, p. x).14 He mentions military power and economic power in contrast to soft power (see Nye, 2004a, pp. 7, 30-31; see also Mead, 2004 and Nye, 2007, p. 165); these are important cases of power based on threats or offers (see Nye, 2008, pp. 27, 29), or on carrots or sticks (see Nye, 2004a, pp. 10-11, 2011a, pp. 11, 16). The use of carrots and sticks is costly and risky in several ways; soft power, in contrast, is supposedly not that costly or risky and therefore a valuable alternative for an agent who wants to secure the cooperation of others.

The contrast between soft power and sanction-based power (both positive and negative) is useful but it still leaves many questions over. First, Nye seems to leave out incapacitating power (see above); at least it is not clear how he would categorize this form of power. More importantly: The contrast with hard power helps us to see what soft power isn’t but we are still lacking a more informative account of what it is and how it works.

But let us not give up too soon. There are some other general hints as to the nature of soft power in Nye’s texts. More recently, and perhaps in response to critics who complained about the vagueness of his earlier writings, he added: “Fully defined, soft power is the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of framing the agenda, persuading, and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred outcomes” (Nye, 2011a, pp. 20-21; see similarly 2011a, pp. 93-94 and 16 where he speaks of agenda-setting rather than of framing the agenda).15

Let us start with agenda-setting or framing (see also Nye, 1991, p. 31, 267 footnote 11, 2004a, p. 5). This idea goes back to classic works by Peter Bachrach and Morton Baratz (1962, 1963) who argued that one form of social power consists in the ability to prevent the discussion of, or the making of decisions concerning particular topics and issues (in contrast to the ability of having one’s way when there is deliberation and decision-making). Following Steven Lukes (1974, 2005) this form of power has often been referred to as the second dimension or the second face of power (Nye, 2011a, p. 13 has some brief remarks on Lukes). Nye explicitly includes this second face of power as one aspect of soft power (see Nye, 1991, p. 31, 2010a, p. 17, 2010b, p. 217).16

It is plausible to consider the setting or framing of agendas as one more form of social power. It is different from both incapacitating and sanction-based power. What is unclear is in what way agenda-setting can shape or establish preferences of other agents —which is an essential trait of soft power, according to Nye—. So, why should one consider it to be an aspect of soft power then? Lukes (1974, 2005) is more helpful here. He distinguished clearly and with good reasons between what he calls the second and the third face, i.e., preference shaping power. That, for instance, the United States’ delegates in NATO’s North Atlantic Council prevent discussion or even deliberation about certain topics does not mean or entail that any member would have a different position on these topics if it were discussed (do people’s views change just because there is debate?). The preferences of the involved agents don’t change because of that; not even their goals change because of that (see above). It is unfortunate that Nye doesn’t say much about agenda-setting and very little if anything that explains why it should be considered to be an aspect of soft power.17 To be sure, Nye mentions “the ability to manipulate the agenda of political choices in a manner that make actors fail to express some preferences because they seem to be too unrealistic” (1991, p. 267, footnote 11) but this is only about the expression of preferences not about their modification or change. The relation to soft power remains unclear.

The second of the three basic resources of soft power that Nye mentions is persuasion. Now, there is persuasion and persuasion: persuasion by rational argument and persuasion by (at least partly) other means. What Nye usually calls persuasion includes both rational arguments and non-rational ways of convincing others (see2011a, pp. 93-94, 2008, pp. 31, 38-39, 157, footnote 9). Rational persuasion can certainly change the goals of the persuaded agent, and perhaps also their underlying preferences. But if the change is rational, then it is not clear at all in what sense this change should be considered an effect of power. It simply does not seem to be a case of power-over. It is certainly a case of power-to but this is neither here nor there: If A rationally persuades B of something then A has a power to persuade but B has a power to be persuaded (acknowledging the quality of a good argument and accepting it on that basis requires abilities at least as sophisticated as presenting good arguments). If you, the better driver, drive and I, the better mapreader, read the map, then we have different powers-to but this fact does not seem to imply anything relevant to social power between us. Similar things hold for power to persuade and power to be persuaded. Jürgen Habermas (2001, p. 23) aptly speaks in such contexts of the “unforced force of the better argument”.

Non-rational forms of persuasion are different. Nye mentions indoctrination, propaganda, ideology, rhetoric, brainwashing, manipulation, etc. (2008, pp. 142-143). These are good candidates for power over the preferences of other agents. However, the big challenge here is to explain how exactly these mechanisms work and in what sense they constitute mechanisms of power. What is more, these seem to contradict the notion of soft. Unfortunately, Nye himself does not engage in this exercise but prefers to focus more on the sunny side of persuasion (see below).

All this leaves us with “attraction” as the third main mechanism or resource of soft power (see also Nye, 2008, pp. 27, 29, 31 and 2011a, pp. 91-93). Nye mentions a whole set of more specific and quite disparate resources of soft power. In order to make constructive sense of all this, we need to distill the essential core from his different remarks. Here are a couple of quotes from Nye to work with:

The soft power of a country rests primarily on three resources: its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority). (Nye, 2004a, p. 11, see also p. 8; see also almost exactly the formulation in Nye, 2011a, p. 84).

Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive. (Nye, 2004a, p. x).18

A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries-admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness-want to follow it. (Nye 2004a, p. 5; he mentions leading by example several times: see Nye, 2008, pp. 29, 143).

Or you can appeal to a sense of attraction, love, or duty in our relationship and appeal to our shared values about the justness of contributing to those shared values and purposes. (Nye, 2004a, p. 7; see also 2008, pp. 30-31).

Nye also mentions “the attraction of one’s ideas” (Nye, 1991, p. 31), the appeal of one’s “culture, ideology, and institutions” (Nye, 1991, p. 32; see in addition Nye, 2011a, p. 21; see also 1991, p. 267, footnote 11 where he mentions the legitimacy of institutions, and 2004a, pp. 10-11 or 2008, p. 157, footnote 9 where he mentions the legitimacy of a country’s power; see 2003, p. 74 on credibility and legitimacy), an “attractive personality” (2004a, p. 6; see also 2008, p. 30), the procuring of public goods (see Nye, 2010b, p. 225), “a positive domestic model, a successful economy, and a competent military” (2011a, p. 99; see also 2007, pp. 165-168), the “universalism” of a country’s culture or values (see 1991, p. 33 and 2004a, p. 11), charisma (see 2008, pp. 38-40, 53, 53-61, chapter 3),19 connections with others, expertise and control of information (see 2008, p. 157, footnote 9; Nye refers vaguely to French & Raven [1959] without additional comments).20

How can one group and categorize the items in this mixed bag? Since Nye doesn’t do it himself, his readers should feel free to do it. Here is an attempt. First, we can leave a couple of the many factors Nye mentions aside. He uses the term seduction a few times but we take it that he just means attraction by it. For consistency’s sake, we assume that he doesn’t have a darker sense of seduction in mind, which includes manipulation and deception.21 Some of French and Raven’s bases of power he briefly mentions also have an unclear relation to soft power. Connections with others are certainly useful and contribute to one’s power-to. It is not clear, however, how they can contribute to power-over; in particular, it is not plausible that connections with others change the preferences of others (those one is connected to or others). Expertise is also a very important and useful resource. It may very well attract others into a cooperative relation but this would rather make it a (positive) sanction than a resource for affecting other people’s preferences. Finally, information control: This is very plausibly a resource of power. The interesting question here is whether it is a resource of soft power or, more generally, a resource of power concerning the preferences of others. Unfortunately, Nye does not develop this point (or the other two) at all, hence we drop them for now but will return to the role of information later).22

Most of the remaining factors Nye mentions apply to collective agents, especially countries and states, or they apply rather to them than to individual agents. In some cases one can find analogues in relations between individuals but we will go with Nye’s focus on collective agents here.

This leaves us with two main (basic or primary) categories of attraction: normative attraction and non-normative attraction. Normative attraction would result from (in increasing strength of normative urgency):

(a) the belief in the legitimacy23 (by others) of a country’s policies and institutions as well of the country’s power itself;

(b) the attractiveness (to others) of a country’s values, especially political values like democracy, human rights or room for individual opportunities (under the condition that the country takes those values seriously or is perceived in such a way);24

(c) the (perceived) moral authority of a country’s policies.

These three aspects are closely connected with each other but also different. I can believe in the legitimacy of the traffic police’s order to leave the right lane without believing that the order itself is based on values. And some people believe in the value of the arts without giving them moral status.

Starting with legitimacy (a) one wonders how a country’s power itself, not just its policies and institutions, can be legitimate in the international community. One might even think of legitimacy in Weber’s sense of Herrschaft (see Weber, 1921-1922/1978, pp. 53-54, 212-216, 941-948; see the brief mention in Nye, 2008, pp. 37-38) here. Perhaps Nye would want to argue (he is not explicit on this point) that the legitimacy of a country’s power consists in the legitimacy of its institutions and policies, more precisely: its international policies and the international institutions with which it is identified. But in what sense can such policies or institutions be seen as legitimate? In what sense can NATO or the IMF be seen as legitimate? Or the US war in Afghanistan beginning in 2001? True, institutions as well as policies can be justified as good or useful. Suppose this is the case: Why and in what sense is this a case of power (power-over)? Nye does not seem to have an answer to this question. Apart from that, it is unclear again how belief in legitimacy can change preferences; it rather seems to presuppose certain preferences. The relation between legitimacy and soft power remains unclear and unexplored in Nye.25

How about values (b)? Nye talks about the case where a country’s values are admired or shared by others; sometimes he even talks about the universality of such values (or the corresponding culture).26 But where is the power then? Perhaps one can talk about and make sense of the power of values but in this case none of the agents sharing the values seems to have a power (-to or -over, soft or hard) that the others lack (or don’t possess to the same degree). Not much changes if one thinks of one agent educating other agents about values that are not initially shared between them —as long as no force or fraud is involved in the spreading of values—. If one individual, for instance, convinces another agent with good reasons of the value of the arts, then this might be due to some power-to of the convincing agent but there seems no power-over involved. The goals of the convinced agent changed, to be sure, but it would be a hard piece of work to show that the underlying preferences change, too, and in a way that justifies the application of the word power. If, on the other side, the export of values happens via force or fraud (and related mechanisms of minor reputation), then this would constitute a case of power-over. However, one would have to show how this works and how in particular the relevant power resources are used to change the preferences of other agents. Nye does not go into this at all.27

The third aspect (c) of moral authority seems overly strong. This is not because Nye claimed moral authority for some country’s policies; what he has in mind is rather perceived (by others) moral authority, no matter whether it is indeed there or not.28 But still, this seems too strong, at least for the reality of international relations and the relations between collective agents more generally. It is interesting that Nye sometimes even talks about a sense of love (a moral one, we assume), duty and justice (for instance: of securing public goods). It would be interesting to have cases presented where one country impressed other countries and other agents, especially collective ones, morally. Even if it happens, objections concerning talk about power arise which are analogous to the ones raises about the soft power of values above.

So much for normative attraction. What about non-normative attraction? One can group the factors Nye mentions into groups. Such attraction can, according to Nye, result from:

(a) the meeting of other agents’ interests (e.g., the provision of public goods);

(b) the model and perceived promise of certain goods like prosperity, liberality, individual opportunities;

(c) traits of a country’s culture (way of life, technology, arts and sciences, etc.);29

(d) certain personal characteristics (e.g., an “attractive personality”; perhaps also, to some degree, charisma (but see above);

(e) success and power itself (Nye, 2011a, p. 99: “a successful economy, and a competent military”).

We can put (a) aside quickly: Cooperation based on interest, especially self-interest, has little to do with cooperation secured by power.30 A bit more (but not much more) promising is the idea (b) that the possession of goods desired by others can be attractive and a source of soft power. Many states would like to be in the possession of nuclear weapons but that doesn’t seem to give those in possession soft power in relation to them. But perhaps other examples are better? Take prosperity. Many people come to the US searching for a way out of poverty and perhaps into some kind of prosperity but this would rather fall under (a) above. And even if prosperity is attractive, the prosperous might not be. To be sure, the comparative prosperity of the US might attract others but how does this change the preferences of those others? One agent might be chosen by others as a model to be followed or even imitated in certain respects but this does not mean or imply that the role model can secure the cooperation of others. On the contrary. Successful business models, for instance, are usually adopted with the intention of pushing the original source off the market (see Nye, 2004a, p. 15, and also Baumann & Cramer, 2015, p. 13). And again, there is no reason to assume that change of the underlying preferences of others is involved in any of this; on the contrary, underlying preferences have to be taken as given here.

Similar things hold, mutatis mutandis, for traits of a country’s culture (c). Nye sometimes mentions elements of culture that are universal or universalist and perceived as such. If they are it is hard to see how they could be treated as one agent’s culture rather than another agent’s culture, and how they could thus be a resource of power of one of the agents rather than the others. If, however, the attraction is by a particular (particularist) culture, then, like in the case of certain desired goods (b), the relation to power and to soft power is missing (see Nye, 2003, p. 74 for some reservations and in reply to Ferguson, 2003, p. 21; see Laïdi, 2008, pp. 19-22 for economic and hard power backgrounds of cultural “attraction”; see also Baumann & Cramer, 2015, p. 14).31

An “attractive personality” (d) can certainly be a basis and resource of social power. Examples abound, not all of them attractive to everyone. It is not quite clear why Nye does not want to use the long tradition of research into the role of charisma (and, e.g., its applications in many types of populism). One can even generalize this to what one could call the “politics of emotion” and add all kinds of strategies to exploit common human cognitive weaknesses (as studied in detail by cognitive psychologists). An agent who is powerful in this respect can certainly affect and change the goals of others even to the point of leading them into self-destruction, but it doesn’t follow that the underlying preferences are being changed, too.

A similar problem has to be diagnosed in the case of the attraction of success and power itself (e). To be sure, common sense and experience tell us that power itself (or better: the perception of it) is often a source of a derived kind of power: The perception of power can not only create fear or hope of benefits but also admiration of the powerful and a certain willingness to follow them (Nye, 2004a, p. 26 agrees, quoting Osama bin Laden; see also 2011a, p. 52 and chapter 3, pp. 85-86 and chapter 4). This may very well be a very interesting and important aspect of political and human psychology. But again, this mechanism works with unchanging underlying dispositions and preferences. Hence, the influence on the preferences of others, the essence of soft power, is missing again.

In general there seems to be a certain unresolved ambiguity in Nye’s approach to soft power. On the one hand, soft power, as a form of power, is considered to be based on an unequal distribution of relevant resources. On the other hand, soft power, as something soft, is considered to allow for symmetry and equality. For instance, with respect to democracies Nye remarks: “Instead of just shaping others to their will, leaders have to attract support by also shaping themselves to their followers. […] wielding soft power often requires learning and adapting to followers’ needs” (2008, pp. 140-141). So, who is shaping whom? If both are shaping each other equally, then the point of talking of power is lost. A similar ambiguity between domination and consensus can be found in Nye’s talk about leading by example, emulating examples or wanting to follow others.

Sometimes Nye’ reluctance to acknowledge the asymmetric aspect of soft power takes the form of characterizing soft power as a form of power-to rather than power-over:

We can also distinguish between simply wanting power over others and wanting power with others. Getting what you want and enabling others to do what they want can be reconciled or linked by soft power skills of listening, mutual persuasion, communicating, and education. Power in a relationship need not be a zero-sum situation, and, as described earlier, empowering followers can better enable a leader to achieve his or her desired outcome. (Nye, 2008, p. 143; see also 2010b, p. 222).

Power-with is the power-to of a collective agent. The problem with seeing soft power as (potentially) a form of power-with is that any interesting sense in which it might be power is lost (see above on power-to and power-over). That one cannot reduce soft power to power-to (or -with) can be illustrated in the case of attraction. Suppose the United States is attractive to other countries. This constitutes a certain power-to. However, if this kind of power is distributed equally amongst countries, then every country is attractive to every other country. This might be pleasant but not a case of social power. What if the power of attraction is distributed unequally and the United States is more attractive for others than others are for the US? If this power is compatible with the free and rational choices of the other agents, then we haven’t identified an interesting form of social power (but see to the contrary: Nye, 2007, pp. 169-170, 2008, pp. 141-143, 2011a, p. 254, footnote 2). We have, however, if it isn’t compatible with that. Then we are dealing with a form of power-over: power as the ability of an agent to secure cooperation (or at least prevent disruption) from others for the attainment of their goals even if those others were initially not willing to cooperate (whether they intended to put up active resistance or not), and even against their rational freedom.

The last explanation would be a promising starting point for an analysis of a form of power that consists not in incapacitation or sanctioning but in an asymmetric chance to influence the underlying preferences of others in a fitting way. Nye, however, doesn’t go there. He is rather caught in a dilemma: His general conceptual explanations of the nature of soft power (on the shaping of preferences as well the contrast with sanction-based power) are too vague and abstract to be of much use; his remarks about the resources of soft power (the forms of attraction) are very (perhaps even overly) specific but they don’t fit with the basic idea of soft power as a form of power.32

So, Nye’s attempt to give a conceptually mature and empirically solid account of soft power fails.33 His general conceptual explanations of soft power are too vague while his descriptions of specific phenomena are not recognizable as cases of soft power and sometimes not even as cases of power in general. Nye’s views are characterized by an unresolved (and unanalyzed) tension between consensualist and conflictivist approaches to power (see, e.g., Arendt, 1970 for the first and Weber, 1921-1922/1978, p. 53 for the second approach). There is, however, a phenomenon of power over the preferences of others. This form of power certainly deserves to be investigated —all the more so because it has traditionally been neglected as a topic of inquiry—. Nye is up to something after all34 but one has to look elsewhere for ways to analyze and investigate this form of power.35

What then?

Even though thinking about power has traditionally focused on harder forms of power like incapacitation, the use of sanctions and similar methods, there is also quite a tradition of thinking about power over the preferences of others. One can think of the 16th Century author Étienne de la Boétie and his idea of “voluntary servitude” (1576/1978).36 Marxist conceptions of ideology (and hegemony) also come to mind (see amongst many Gramsci [1971] —to whom Nye, 1991, p. 31, 2002, p. 9 and 2004b, p. 125 briefly refer—; but see also Zahran & Ramos, 2010 on this).37 Almost two decades before Nye started publishing on soft power, Steven Lukes presented an interesting attempt to conceptualize and explain in more detail what power over the preferences of others is and how it works (see Lukes, 1974, 2005). Lukes is doing some of the conceptual work one is missing in Nye. It is therefore well worth taking a look at his approach.38

Lukes distinguishes between three dimensions of power of which the third one is the one he is focusing on, that is, the power to influence the preferences of others (and thus avoid conflicts with others), as opposed to the two dimensions which refer to the ability to change others’ behavior and to the ability to frame the agenda. Lukes says:

A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also exercises power over him by influencing, shaping or determining his very wants. Indeed, is it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want them to have that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires? (Lukes, 2005, p. 27).39

What is striking here is that Lukes does not make a distinction between goals and underlying preferences (see above); he just talks about wants, desires, and preferences using these terms as synonyms. This has the drawback of not allowing for drawing a clear line between the third dimension of power and, say, the power exerted through the use of negative sanctions. In the latter case A also influences B’s wants, desires or goals. However, the influence on the preferences of others Lukes has in mind is to be of a very different kind.

Lukes also has this to say:

Is it not the supreme and most insidious exercise of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable, or because they value it as divinely ordained and beneficial? (2005, p. 28).

It springs to one’s eyes that Lukes is listing another aspect apart from the shaping of preferences: the shaping of cognition (presumably including cognition about one’s own preferences?). This shaping of cognition either leads to false factive views concerning alternative social arrangements or to unjustified moral views (about divine orders). Unfortunately, Lukes does not indicate what the shaping of cognition consists of and how it works; neither does he explain how the shaping of cognition is related to the shaping of preferences (but see below).

Lukes rather “maintains that people’s wants may themselves be a product of a system which works against their interests, and, in such cases, relates the latter to what they would want and prefer, were they able to make the choice” (2005, p. 28). He says little if anything about how this works: how people can (be made to) develop preferences, which go against their real, objective interests (see Lukes, 2005, pp. 14-15, 148-150, passim; also see Dowding, 1996, pp. 138-139). Moreover, the notion of objective or subjective interests remains in need of clarification: Are these different kinds of interests people “really” have? If yes, what is the difference between them? Or do people only have their real interests while subjective interest only refers to a merely imagined interest one doesn’t really have (see Bradshaw, 1976, p. 122; see also Lukes, 2011)? Finally: What determines the real interest of people? Lukes doesn’t say much at all here (see the debate between Hay [1997], Doyle [1998] and Hay [1999]; also see Hay, 2002, pp. 179-182). It doesn’t help much to say that real interests are determined by what people would prefer if they had the choice. We need to specify in a non-arbitrary way the conditions under which we would say that someone is “able to make the choice” (see Young, 1978, pp. 641ff.).40 At one point Lukes says that qualified choice is given when people can make their decisions “under conditions of relative autonomy and, in particular, independently of A’s power” (Lukes 2005, p. 37). The uninformative circularity is obvious: People’s preferences are under the influence of power if they haven’t had a genuine choice, and they haven’t had a genuine choice if they were under the influence of power (see Lukes 2005, pp. 48-52).41 The last resort for Lukes might be to embrace a normative view of power and interests (see Lukes 2005, passim for the essentially contested nature of the concept of power; see for a critique Clegg, 1989, chapter 5). This, however, gives up on the project of a descriptive analysis of power. Lukes has an advantage over Nye in that he sees more clearly what the task is. However, in the end it remains unclear how third-dimensional power works and why and in what sense one should consider it to be a form of power.

Having explained how not to conceive of soft power or third-dimensional power, we would like to end on a more positive note by sketching some more constructive ideas about how to conceive of the power one agent can have with respect to the preferences of another agent. We approach this question by asking what factors determine preferences.

First, preferences are neither given nor fixed but develop in environments and in response to traits of the environments. It is not surprising that a taste for skiing is more prevalent amongst people living in higher mountains than in flatter environments. Adaptive preferences —the adaptation of what one wants to what one can get (or thinks one can get)— are an inversion of the case in which one tries to change the world according to one’s preferences (see, e.g., Elster, 1982). However, to some degree all preferences are adaptive: in the sense that in different environments different preferences are more or less likely to develop. Hence, an agent who can shape the environment of another agent in a certain way can thus also shape their preferences. Work organizations, for instance, are often very good at creating an environment that creates or strengthens certain work motivations. One could also mention the long-term effects of agenda-setting (see above) which can influence the preferences of others.42 We can call this channel of influence on preferences ecological.

Preferences also depend on other attitudes of an agent. The environment of an agent interacts with their preferences through their beliefs about the environment. Someone who can influence and manage the information another agent gets or is able to get, can thus also influence their preferences. Lukes mentioned (see above) the case in which people are not informed or misinformed about the availability of certain alternatives; given the adaptivity of preferences, someone who can control the information available to others can thus also influence their preferences (see, e.g., Rorty, 1983, pp. 808ff.).43 Another relevant attitude are emotions. They also influence preferences, especially in the long run. It is not hard to imagine, for instance, parents who instill a deep fear of homosexuals in their children and thus influence their perception of their own sexual preferences. What one could call emotion politics is an important resource of power. Finally, we would like to mention the resource of self-confidence, which is often distributed unequally in social groups, organizations and societies. Agents who suffer from a relative lack of self-confidence are more open than others to the shaping of their preferences by others. Thus, leaders of cults and sects have better chances of shaping their followers’ wills if the latter have low self-confidence. We can call this kind of channel of influencing others’ preferences attitudinal.

Less tangible is a third channel. Preferences and volitive states in general are indeterminate in two different ways. First, they are not spelled out in all possible details but many things are left open. I might have a strong preference for living in a particular city but lack any attitude towards different neighborhoods (which is not the same as being indifferent between them). Second, preferences themselves are partly constituted by what the subject thinks they are (see, e.g., Bem, 1970, p. 50, passim). Suppose I want to go to the theatre tonight —but why? Is it the main actor I want to see or do I just need some company? There might not be a fact of the matter before I give a particular answer to that question (see Waismann, 1983, pp. 134-135 for this example). An agent who can influence the interpretative schemata another agent uses to make sense of their preferences can thus also influence their preferences. We can call this channel of influence on others’ preferences interpretational.

Finally, preferences and motivational states in general are also subject to normative expectations. Human beings are able to form evaluative and normative attitudes (higher-order attitudes) towards their own volitional states (see Frankfurt, 1971). Someone might want to have a cigarette but also prefer not to have that wish. Agents’ normative attitudes towards their first-order preferences can shape and change those preferences —sometimes or to some degree—. An agent who can influence another agent’s normative ideas about their own preferences can thus also influence their preferences. Work organizations, for instance, might propagate a certain work ethics and thus shape their members’ work attitude, including their work-related preferences. We can call this channel of influence on others’ preferences normative (see also, discussing Nye, Rothman, 54-59).

To these four channels correspond four forms of power over the preferences of others: ecological, attitudinal, interpretational and normative power over other agents’ preferences.44 What is needed to turn such influence into power is a certain inequality or asymmetry. If one agent (A) in a social relation but not the other agent (B) is able to secure the other’s cooperation (or at least prevent disruption) even if the other agent was not initially willing to cooperate, and even against their rational freedom, then A has power over B’s preferences (see above).45

Having thus made an effort to spell out how the power over the preferences of others might work, we should hasten to say that it makes little sense to call this kind of power soft. After all, the resources involved in the exercise to “make others want what you want” may be very hard indeed.

Conclusion

The main aim of this paper was to discuss Nye’s view of what he calls soft power. We argued that Nye fails to give a conceptually stringent and empirically convincing account of a kind of phenomenon that we ourselves take to be an important but not that well investigated aspect of social life: the power over others’ preferences. In order to make our case we had to start with some general remarks about power. Since it is always better to end in a constructive way we also briefly sketched our own view on the topic. Building on the crucial distinction (neglected by Nye) between preferences and goals we distinguished between ecological, attitudinal, interpretational, normative channels of influence over other’s preferences. To identify these channels and analyze how they work is crucial to any conception of power over the preferences of others. One could speak of “deep power” rather than “soft power” but that would sound pretentious and since we don’t need slogans we just leave it at that.

Bibliographical References

Abell, P. (1977), The many faces of power and liberty: revealed preference, autonomy, and teleological explanation. Sociology, 11, 3-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803857701100101

Abell, P. (1982). Decisions, power and reason: a preliminary formulation. Acta Sociológica, 25, 133-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/000169938202500203

Acton, J. E. E. D. (1907). Historical essays and studies. London, United Kingdom: Macmillan.

Arendt, H. (1970). On violence. New York, United States of America: Harcourt.

Baumann, P. (1993). Macht und Motivation: zu einer verdeckten Form sozialer Macht. Opladen, Alemania: Leske und Budrich.

Baumann, P. & Cramer, G. (2015). Sul soft power: alcune osservazioni. Ácoma 8 (9-20).

Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. S. (1962). Two faces of power. The American Political Science Review, 56, 947-952. https://doi.org/10.2307/1952796

Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. S. (1963). Decisions and nondecisions: an analytical framework. The American Political Science Review, 57, 632-642. https://doi.org/10.2307/1952568

Bem, D. J. (1970). Beliefs, attitudes, and human affairs. Belmont, United States of America: Wadsworth.

Benton, T. (1981). “Objective” interests and the sociology of power. Sociology, 15, 161-184. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803858101500202

Benton, T. (1982). Realism, power, and objective interests. In K. Graham, Contemporary political philosophy: radical studies (pp. 7-34). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University.

Bially Mattern, J. (2005). Why ‘soft power’ isn’t so soft: representational rorce and the sociolinguistic construction of attraction in world politics. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 33, 583-612. https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298050330031601

Bially Mattern, J. (2008). The concept of power and the (un)Discipline of International Relations. In C. Reus-Smit, & D. Snidal, The Oxford handbook of International Relations (pp. 691-698). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University.

Bilgin, P., & Elis, B. (2008). Hard power, soft power: toward a more realistic power analysis. Insight Turkey, 10, 5-20.

Bilgrami, A. (1976). Lukes on power and behaviorism. Inquiry, 19, 267-274. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747608601812

Boulding, K. E. (1989). Three faces of power. Newbury Park, United States of America: Sage.

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Sur le pouvoir symbolique [On symbolic power]. Annales. Économies, Sociétes, Civilisations, 32(3), 405-411.

Bradshaw, A. (1976). A critique of Steven Lukes’ ‘Power: A Radical View’. Sociology, 10, 121-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803857601000109

Burckhardt, J. (1956). Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen [Observations on world history]. In J. Burckhardt, Gesammelte Werke (Vol. 4). Basel, Switzerland: Schwabe. (Original work published 1905).

Clegg, S. R. (1989). Frameworks of power. London, United Kingdom: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446279267

Dahl, R. A. (1957). The concept of power. Behavioral Science, 2, 201-215. https://doi.org/10.1002/bs.3830020303

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1972). L’Anti-Œdipe [Anti-Oedipus]. Paris, France: Minuit.

Dowding, K. (2006). Three-dimensional power: a discussion of Steven Lukes’ Power: a Radical View. Political Studies Review, 4, 136-145. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9299.2006.000100.x

Doyle, J. (1998). Power and contentment. Politics, 18, 49-56. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.00060

Elster, J. (1982). Sour grapes - utilitarianism and the genesis of wants. In A. Sen, & B. Williams, Utilitarianism and beyond (pp. 219-238). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611964.013

Etzioni, A. (1968). The active society. A theory of societal and political processes. New York, United States of America: Free. https://doi.org/10.1177/000169936801100401

Ferguson, N. (2003). Power. Foreign Policy, 134(January-February), 18-22, 24. https://doi.org/10.2307/3183518

Ferguson, N. (2004). Colossus. The rise and fall of the American empire. London, United Kingdom: Penguin.

Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trad.). New York, United States of America: Pantheon.

Foucault, M. (1983). Afterword: the subject and power. In H. L. Dreyfus, & P. Rabinow, Michel Foucault. Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics, (pp. 208-227). Chicago, United States of America: Chicago University.

Foucault, M. (1988). History of sexuality: vol. 1, An introduction (R. Hurley, Trad.). New York, United States of America: Vintage.

Frankfurt, H. G. (1971). Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. The Journal of Philosophy, 68, 5-20. https://doi.org/10.2307/2024717

French, J. R. P. Jr./ Raven, B. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright, Studies in social power (pp. 50-67). Ann Arbor, United States of America: Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.

Gallarotti, G. M. (2011). Soft power: what it is, why it’s important, and the conditions for its effective use. Journal of Political Power, 4, 25-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2011.557886.

Galtung, J. (1971). A structural theory of imperialism. Journal of Peace Research, 8(2), 81-117. https://doi.org/10.1177/002234337100800201

Gaventa, J. (1980). Power and powerlessness. Quiescence and rebellion in an Appalachian valley. Urbana, United States of America: University of Illinois.

Gelb, L. H. (2009). Power rules. How common sense can rescue American foreign Policy. New York, United States of America: HarperCollins.

Goldman, A. I. (1977). Review of Lukes 1974. Theory and Decision, 8, 305-310.

Gramsci, A, (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks (Q. Hoare & G. Nowell Smith, Trad.), London, United Kingdom: Lawrence & Wishart.

Habermas, J. (2001). Remarks on discourse ethics. In J. Habermas, Justification and application. Remarks on discourse ethics (C. Cronin, Trad.) (pp. 19-111). Cambridge, United States of America: MIT.

Hay, C. (1997). Divided by a common language: political theory and the concept of power. Politics, 17(1), 45-52. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.00033

Hay, C. (1999). Still divided by a common language: discontentment and the semantics of power. Politics, 19(1), 47-50. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.00085

Hay, C. (2002). Political analysis: a critical introduction. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-62911-0

Hayward, C. R. (2006). On power and responsibility. Political Studies Review, 4, 156-163. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9299.2006.000101.x

Herzog, D. (1989). Happy slaves: a critique of consent theory. Chicago, United States of America: University of Chicago.

Hindess, B. (1976). On three-dimensional power. Political Studies, 24, 329-333. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1976.tb00119.x

Hindess, B. (2006). Bringing the State back in. Political Studies Review, 4, 115-123. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9299.2006.000102.x

Hobbes, T. (1909). Leviathan (reprint of the 1651 edition). Oxford, United Kingdom: Clarendon. (Original work published 1651).

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (1969). Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente [Dialectic of enlightenment]. Frankfurt, Germany: Fischer.

Hyland, J. L. (1995). Democratic theory: the philosophical foundations. Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University.

Isaac, J. (1982). On Benton’s “Objective Interests and the Sociology of Power”: a critique. Sociology, 16, 440-444. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038582016003009

Kearn, D. W. (2011). The hard truths about soft power. Journal of Political Power, 4, 64-85. https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2011.556869

Kernohan, A. (1989). Social power and human agency. The Journal of Philosophy, 86, 712-726. https://doi.org/10.2307/2027015

La Boétie, É. de (1978). Le discours de la servitude volontaire [Discours on volontary servitude]. Paris, France: Payot (Original work published 1576).

Laïdi, Z. (2008). Norms over force. The enigma of European power. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230614062

Layne, C. (2010). The unbearable lightness of soft power. In I. Parmar, & M. Cox, Soft power and US foreign policy. Theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives (pp. 51-82). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Ledyaev, V. G. (1997). Power: a conceptual analysis. Commack, United States of America: Nova Science.

Lukes, S. (1974). Power: a radical view. London, United Kingdom: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02248-9

Lukes, S. (1976). Reply to Bradshaw. Sociology, 10, 129-132. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803857601000110

Lukes, S. (1978). Power and authority. In T. Bottomore, & R. Nisbet, A history of sociological analysis (pp. 633-676). New York, United States of America: Basic Books.

Lukes, S. (1986). Introduction. In S. Lukes, Power (pp. 1-18). New York, United States of America: New York University.

Lukes, S. (2005). Power. A radical view (second edition). Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-80257-5

Lukes, S. (2006). Reply to comments. Political Studies Review, 4, 164-173. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9299.2006.000103.x

Lukes, S. (2007). Power and the battle for hearts and minds. On the bluntness of soft power. In F. Berenskoetter, & M.J. Williams, Power in world politics (83-97). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Lukes, S. (2011). In defense of “false consciousness”. The University of Chicago Legal Forum, vol. 2011, 19-28.

Mann, M. (1986). The sources of social power (Vol. 1). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511570896

Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man: studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston, United States of America: Beacon.

McLachlan, H. V. (1981). Is ‘power’ an evaluative concept? The British Journal of Sociology, 32, 392-410. https://doi.org/10.2307/589285

Mead, W. R. (2004). America’s Sticky Power. Foreign Policy, 141 (March/April), 46-53. https://doi.org/10.2307/4147548

Morriss, P. (2006). Steven Lukes on the concept of power. Political Studies Review, 4, 124-135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9299.2006.000104.x

Nye, J. S. Jr. (1990). Soft power. Foreign Policy, 80, 153-171. https://doi.org/10.2307/1148580

Nye, J. S. Jr. (1991). Bound to Lead. The Changing Nature of American Power. New York, United States of America: Basic Books.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2002). The paradox of American power: why the world’s only superpower can’t go it alone. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2003). The velvet hegemon. How soft power can help defeat terrorism. Foreign Policy, 136 (May/June), 74-75.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2004a). Soft power. The means to success in world politics. New York, United States of America: Public Affairs.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2004b). Hard power, soft power, and “The war on terrorism”. In D. Held, & M. Koenig-Archibugi, American power in the twenty-first century (pp. 114-133). Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2007). Notes for a soft-power research agenda. In F. Berenskoetter, & M.J. Williams, Power in world politics (pp. 162-172). London, United Kingdom: Routledge,.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2008). The powers to lead. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2009). Get smart: combining hard and soft power. Foreign Affairs, 88(4) (July/August), 160-163.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2010a). The future of soft power in US foreign policy. In I. Parmar, & M. Cox, Soft power and US foreign policy. Theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives (pp. 4-11). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2010b). Responding to my critics and concluding thoughts. In I. Parmar, & M. Cox, Soft power and US foreign policy. Theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives (pp. 215-227). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2011a). Future of power: its changing nature and use in the twenty-first century. New York, United States of America: Public Affairs.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2011b). My soft power. Foreign Policy, 188 (September-October), 13.

Nye, J. S. Jr. (2012). Obama and smart power. In M. Cox, & D. Stokes, US foreign policy (2. ed.) (pp. 97-107). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.

Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Parsons, T. (1963). On the concept of political power. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 107, 232-262.

Plaw, A. (2007). Lukes’ three-dimensional model of power redux: is it still compelling? Social Theory and Practice, 33, 489-500. https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract200733319

Resnik, M. D. (1987). Choices. An introduction to decision theory. Minneapolis, United States of America: University of Minnesota.

Rorty, A. O. (1983). Imagination and power. Social Science Information, 22, 801-816. https://doi.org/10.1177/053901883022006001

Rothman, S. B. (2011). Revising the soft power concept: what are the means and mechanisms of soft power? Journal of Political Power, 4, 49-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2011.556346

Russell, B. (1938). Power. A new social analysis. London, United Kingdom: Allen & Unwin.

Shapiro, I. (2006). On the second edition of Lukes’ third face. Political Studies Review, 4, 146-155. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-9299.2006.000105.x

Smith, G.W. (1977). Slavery, contentment, and social freedom. Philosophical Quarterly, 27, 236-248. https://doi.org/10.2307/2218782

Smith, G.W. (1981). Must radicals be Marxists? Lukes on power, contestability and alienation. British Journal of Political Science, 11, 405-425. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123400002726

Thibaut, J. W., & Kelley, H. H. (1959). The social psychology of groups. New York, United States of America: Wiley.

Thomas, W. I. (1917). The persistence of primary-group norms in present-day society and their influence in our educational system. In H. S. Jennings, J. B. Watson, A. Meyer, & W. I. Thomas, Suggestions of modern science concerning education (pp. 157-197). New York, United States of America: Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1037/10964-004

Thomas, W. I. (1966). The behavior pattern and the situation. In W. I. Thomas, W.I. Thomas on social organization and social personality (M. Janowitz, Ed.) (pp. 59-70), Chicago, United States of America: Chicago University.

Thomas, W. I., & Thomas, D. S. (1970). The child in America. Behavior problems and programs. New York, United States of America: Knopf.

Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1958). The Polish peasant in Europe and America. New York, United States of America: Knopf.

van Ham, P. (2010). Social power in international politics. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2010.31

Waismann, F. (1983). Wille und Motiv [Will and motive]. In F. Waismann, Wille und Motiv. Zwei Abhandlungen über Ethik und Handlungstheorie (pp. 5-154). Stuttgart, Germany: Reclam.

Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology (E. Fischoff et al., Trad.), Berkeley, United States of America: University of California Press. (Original work published 1921-1922).

West, D. (1987). Power and formation: new foundations for a radical concept of power. Inquiry, 30, 137-154. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201748708602114

Wrong, D. H. (1979). Power. Its forms, bases, and uses. Oxford, United Kingdom: Harper and Row.

Young, R.A. (1978). Steven Lukes’ radical view of power. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 11, 639-649. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423900042293

Zahran, G., & Ramos, L. (2010). From hegemony to soft power: implications of a conceptual change. In I. Parmar, & M. Cox, Soft power and US foreign policy. Theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives (12-31). London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

---

Notas Notes