Openness is the key to soft power

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Cold War began to end, people walked westward, not eastward, pulled by the magnetism of the West’s soft power. If we are on the precipice of another Cold War, the importance of soft power will arise again. My new book Measuring Soft Power in International Relations re-conceptualizes soft power from the perspective of the influenced, rather than the influencer. The result is the Soft Power Rubric, a method for measuring soft power of countries that makes possible country comparisons, historical analysis, and regional assessments. This policy brief ranks soft power countries from 1990 to 2020, identifies Japan’s unique role in American conceptions of soft power; compares the soft power strengths of Russia, China, and India; and identifies countries like Canada, Spain, South Africa, and Australia, where their soft power exceeds their economic and military influence in the world.