TR calls for a 'SoftpowerScope, or a SoftpowerMeter! Excellent idea? What would go into a measurement of SP? Maybe some weighted combination of the Pew Foundation overseas opinion surveys, combined with % market share of movies, TV shows, and winning sports teams....Lets hold on to that thought.
Also on measurement - let's concede that something like 60% of 'soft power' is 'contextual' and long term. You cant automaticaly convert latent soft power into active, manifest soft power. So one question is, what about the remaining 40%?
Let's further concede that of that 40%, 20% is 'emulation' power,i.e. power that derives from a state acting in ways that other countries admire and wish to emulate. Whether successful sport teams, or acting seriously -- and consistently - on human rights. So that's 20%
So, of what does the remaining 20% consist: broadcasts, visits by musicians and actors to Sudan or after a tsunami?
Then in between, in some other catgegory, there is soft power exercised thru exchange programs and cultural events.
Maybe we shd think of a tool box description of the 60% + 20% + 10% = 10%
And there were other posts.
How similar are the main world religions, SK asks? She points to similarities in the messianic impulse, or the willingness to seek converts. Excellent points...not clear to me that Buddhists or Bahai push their adherents to make other people convert to their faith..(often with an implicit, 'Or else'?) Maybe that brings with it a tendency toward conversion in other areas, like politics? Interesting conjecture.... Where do Hindus fit into this range?.
SU wonders whether Joe Nye can lump all people from one country into liking or disliking the US, or isnt there a range of attitudes. Probably right. Whose attitudes count as most significant in a country......?
Comments (1)
However soft power or public diplomacy is measured, measuring has value. It could be a measure of facts on the ground like oppinion polls, it could be a survey of experts, it could be similar to the "tool-box" described by EW above. But there is value in the putting a number on PD/SP
To quantify something is to make it more compelling to policy makers and often to the public in general. In an article (http://www.slate.com/id/2159164?nav=tap3) posted on slate.com Daniel Engber writes about the value of quantifying doubt in the climate change debate.
He points out that, "For years, climate-change scientists relied on verbal expressions of chance instead of statistical ranges: Effects were "probable" or "possible"; they "could" or "might" be true. As a result, their language of uncertainty was easy to misinterpret, politicians threw up their hands, and skeptics seized on ambiguous phrases to argue that the science of climate change was based more on estimation than fact...now they've replaced their hazy equivocations with percentage values." For instance in the last report (2001) humans were "likely" the cause of global warming. This time we are "very likely" the cause. Numerically this translates as...in 2001 scientists were 66% sure humans were the cause and now they are 90% sure. He goes on to write, "This shift in rhetoric—at base, from words to numbers—has made their conclusions more comprehensible and compelling."
The question of accuracy in the numbers is another important question but it doesn't change their effect, particularly in the media. If an authoritative report says "we are 90% sure" it is stronger than if the report states, "there is a high probability."
By having an authoritative numerical measure to judge the effectiveness of PD/SP the argument for or against certain policies becomes much more effective. It becomes easier to express why and where funds are needed to improve a score.
It also makes the topic comprehensible to non-experts. If the American public understood where the US ranked, or perhaps what the effect of poor public diplomacy was in some countable way then the sell on the value of investing tax dollars in PD/SP becomes easier. If we could say 95% of experts in the field agree that the US national security is threatened by a lack of PD/SP resources that becomes more effective than saying "most experts agree..."
And the argument only becomes more compelling the the more we are able to quantify threats posed, or weak points in the system.
Posted by MY | February 7, 2007 9:58 AM
Posted on February 7, 2007 09:58