Pallaver, Matteo
(2011)
Power and its forms: hard, soft, smart.
MPhil thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
What is smart power? What kind of power is it? Is it really a new form of power? How
many forms, features, and shapes does it take? How can we recognize and manage it?
How do scholars describe it?
This MPhil thesis aims to answer these and other questions regarding the dimension of
power with a specific focus on smart power. This is a first attempt to study smart
power in the broader context of power analysis and therefore I will follow two
approaches. First of all, I will contextualize smart power, touching on the debate of
power as an academic and political concept. Secondly, the idea is to investigate how
power manifests itself in the realms of international and social relations. To this end, I
will address three “ideal” forms of power, notably hard, soft and – finally - smart
power.
We already know that hard power is commonly associated in IR with realism: it is
about power politics, force, and violence. Hard power is, to a certain extent, the oldest
form of power; it is connected to the idea of an anarchic, untamed international
system, where countries do not recognize any superior authority. Order is the result of
competition for power and wars. The possession and acquisition of resources is the
key to success.
Soft power is something completely different. In order to understand soft power a
methodological change is required. A state, an organization or a single person can
exercise power with means other than violence and force. Persuasion, example,
seduction, and myth: these are the resources of soft power. It is being able to convince
or persuade others to follow your example, to want what you want, rather than
coercing them. Soft power is about a world in which international institutions matter,
in which war is not the only way to settle conflicts and in which the ones to succeed
are the most powerful, in terms of natural, economic and financial resources and are
not necessarily the best equipped.
And finally, what is smart power? Where does it come from? We know that smart
power is a new and to a certain extent popular concept, which was coined by Joseph
Nye in the USA and is used to describe a new way of dealing with and managing
power. Nye conceptualizes smart power as something lying somewhere between hard
and soft power, a sort of “third way” in the complex jungle of power relations. But
Nye also stresses that smart power is something “beyond” hard and soft, a sort of new
approach that fits particularly well into the realm of international relations and foreign
politics. This is why we will analyse Nye’s approach in depth, as well as the US
debate about smart power and the concrete use of this concept by the US
administration. Finally, we will investigate why smart power is becoming popular in
the EU as well. Here again, policy-makers seem confident about using this new
concept as a political programme that involves institutions and policy reforms.
To sum up, my argument is that smart power is definitely a new form of power and
this MPhil dissertation aims at introducing it into the academic debate, studying it
from a theoretical, scientific point of view, investigating its origins, and the historical
and political context in which it gained popularity and – finally – testing its possible
declination in real scenarios of international politics.
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