SOFT POWER
AP Photo
April 7, 2011
"From Lone Ranger to Smart Arranger"
Op-Ed, Politico
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"...Obama was careful not to create a global narrative of a third U.S. military attack on a Muslim country, which would have reverberated from Morocco to Indonesia. Instead, he waited until the Arab League and U.N. Security Council resolutions provided a narrative of a legitimate enforcement of humanitarian responsibility to protect civilians."
AP Photo
April 6, 2011
"U.S.-China Relationship: A Shift in Perceptions of Power"
Op-Ed, Los Angeles Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"It is likely that China's leaders will draw back somewhat from the overly assertive posture that has proved so costly. Hu's stated desire to cooperate on terrorism, nonproliferation and clean energy should help reduce tensions, but powerful domestic interest groups in export industries and the People's Liberation Army want to limit economic and military cooperation. And most important, given the increasing nationalism of the Chinese people that one sees on display in the blogosphere, it will be difficult for top Chinese leaders to change their policies dramatically."
AP Photo
March 25, 2011
"China's Repression Undoes Its Charm Offensive"
Op-Ed, Washington Post
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"After my lecture at Beijing University, a student asked how China could increase its soft power. I suggested that he ask himself why India's Bollywood films command far greater international audiences than do Chinese films. Does India have better directors and actors? When Zhang Yimou, the acclaimed Chinese director, was asked a similar question, he replied that films about contemporary China are neutered by the censors. I told the student that much of a country's soft power is generated by its civil society and that China had to lighten up on its censorship and controls if it wished to succeed."
AP Photo
March 21, 2011
"Turkey's Regional Leadership in the Middle East: Principle or Realpolitik?"
Op-Ed, Turkey Analyst
By Joshua W. Walker, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2010–2011
"Turkey's position on Libya is basically rooted in its large investments in the country and close personal contacts between its leaders. In addition to the well-publicized "human rights" award that Erdoğan received from Qaddafi in December 2010, there are more pressing national economic interests at play. Over the past ten years Turkey has won almost all lucrative construction contracts in Libya and consequently as many as 30,000 Turkish citizens were working and doing business in Libya at the time of the uprisings."
March 8, 2011
Pulitzer Prize Winning Columnist Nicholas Kristof discusses his career in FODP Interview
News
Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times columnist and co-author of Half The Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide, discusses his long career as a foreign correspondent, his work to fight the oppression of women and diplomacy as a global trend during his Future of Diplomacy Project Interview in September 2010.
March 8, 2011
U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities stresses the importance of engaging Muslim Youth in FODP Interview
Media Feature
By Sarah Kneezle, Coordinator, The Future of Diplomacy Project
With over 62 percent of the world’s Muslim population under the age of 30, it is critical for the US to work closely with Muslim youth abroad, Farah Pandith, U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities, said in an interview at the Harvard Kennedy School last November.
AP Photo
March 8, 2011
"America Should Not Prosecute Julian Assange"
Op-Ed, Financial Times
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
One-third of the world's population is now online. As we are seeing in the Middle East, this fact is changing global politics. An information revolution is shifting power away from states. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has called for "a serious conversation about the principles that will guide us" in such a world. She says she backs the "freedom to connect" for people everywhere, and calls on others in the Middle East and Asia to follow. But if she believes this, why is the US trying to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange?
Spring 2011
"The Security Curve and the Structure of International Politics: A Neorealist Synthesis"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 4, volume 35
Realist scholars have long debated the question of how much power states need to feel secure. Offensive realists claim that states should constantly seek to increase their power. Defensive realists argue that accumulating too much power can be self-defeating. Proponents of hegemonic stability theory contend that the accumulation of capabilities in one state can exert a stabilizing effect on the system. The three schools describe different points along the power continuum. When a state is weak, accumulating power increases its security. This is approximately the situation described by offensive realists. A state that continues to accumulate capabilities will eventually triggers a balancing reaction that puts its security at risk. This scenario accords with defensive realist assumptions. Finally, when the state becomes too powerful to balance, its opponents bandwagon with it, and the state’s security begins to increase again. This is the situation described by hegemonic stability theory. These three stages delineate a modified parabolic relationship between power and security. As a state moves along the power continuum, its security increases up to a point, then decreases, and finally increases again. This modified parabolic relationship allows scholars to synthesize previous realist theories into a single framework.
AP Photo
February 14, 2011
"Let US See Al Jazeera"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"This battle over cable access must be understood as a proxy for a broader lack of understanding between the United States and the region. Cable companies have no obligation to run programming, but their silence to the question "why no access'' is a judgment, understood by the Arab world as a value-laden decision about America's lack of desire to hear from the Arab world about the Arab world. In fact, the events in Tunisia and Egypt have been masterfully covered by the station, a news heavyweight in most of the world."
AP Photo
February 14, 2011
"In an Information Age, Soft Power Wins"
Op-Ed, CNN.com
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor
"The problem for all states in today's global information age is that more things are happening outside the control of even the most powerful governments. In an information-based world, power diffusion is a more difficult problem to manage than power transition."
