ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter is an overview for the theory section of this book and also prepares the theoretical ground for the volume. The first of four substantive parts discusses power (soft and hard) in the context of world politics. The second unfolds an academic genealogy for soft power, relating soft power to positivist and post-positivist moments in IR and selected post-positivist interests such as cooperation, civil society and civic virtue.2 A weak global republican confederacy is posited, to give shape to the contemporary world governance framework in relation to which cooperation and conflict take place. Civic virtues, for governing elites, influentials in civil society and ordinary citizens, provide the interactional framework for the confederacy.3 The third section examines moral constructions of soft power. Whether soft power and public diplomacy overlap in part or are interchangeable is also addressed4. The contingent relevance of high and low politics to soft power is discussed and definitions of public diplomacy and subsets of cultural and civil diplomacy are provided. The role of civic virtue in soft power aspirations is dealt with. Fourth, soft power’s passive and active forms are broken analytically into traditional and contemporary categories and three categories of multiplier mechanisms – mobility, media and cultural industrial. Following on from the humanist tradition of a republican political organization, qualitative values for soft power are proposed. This is followed by a conclusion.
