Journal of Political Power

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Power and foreign policy

Joseph S. Nye

To cite this article: Joseph S. Nye (2011) Power and foreign policy, Journal of Political Power, 4:1,
9-24, DOI: 10.1080/2158379X.2011.555960

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Journal of Political Power
Vol. 4, No. 1, April 2011, 9–24

Power and foreign policy

Joseph S. Nye, Jr.*

Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

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10.1080/2158379X.2011.555960
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Taylor
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joseph_nye@harvard.edu
000002011
JosephNye
Journal
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Francis
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of Political Power(online)

Power is a contested concept, and no one definition suits all purposes. Many
analysts of international relations and foreign policy have confused power defined
in relational and resource terms. They often use simple command definitions of
behavioral power, and neglect the second and third faces of power. In terms of
resources, they often have ignored ideational aspects of power resources to
accommodate simplified neorealist structural models. This article surveys the
usefulness of different definitions and conceptions of power and illustrates how
they can produce relatively rich or truncated foreign policy analyses.
Keywords: faces of power; structure; agent; hard power; soft power; smart power;
foreign policy

For a concept that is so widely used, ‘power’ is surprisingly elusive and difficult to
measure. But such problems do not make a concept meaningless. Few of us deny the
importance of love even if we cannot say that I love you 3.6 times more than I love
something else. Like love, we experience power in our everyday life, and it has real
effects despite our inability to measure it precisely. Sometimes, analysts have been
tempted to discard the concept as hopelessly vague and imprecise, but it has proven
hard to replace (March 1966, pp. 39–70).
Bertrand Russell once compared the role of power in social science to the central-
ity of the concept of ‘energy’ in physics, but the comparison is misleading. Physicists
can measure relations of energy and force among inanimate objects quite precisely,
while power refers to more ephemeral human relationships which change shape under
different circumstances (Keltner et al. 2003, p. 265). Others have argued that power
is to politics as money is to economics. Again the metaphor misleads us. Money is a
liquid or fungible resource. It can be used to buy a wide variety of goods, but the
resources that produce power in one relationship or context may not produce it in
another. You can use money in a housing market, a vegetable market, or in an Internet
auction. On the contrary, military capacity, one of the most important international
power resources, may produce the outcomes you want in a tank battle, but not on the
Internet.
Over the years, various analysts have tried to provide formulas that can quantify
power in international affairs. For example, Ray Cline was a high-ranking official in
the CIA whose job was to tell political leaders about the balance of American and
Soviet power during the cold war. His views affected political decisions that involved
high risks and billions of dollars. In 1977, he published a distillation of the formula he
used for estimating power:

*Email: joseph_nye@harvard.edu

ISSN 2158-379X print/ISSN 2158-3803 online

© 2011 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/2158379X.2011.555960
http://www.informaworld.com
10 J.S. Nye

Perceived Power = (Population + Territory + Economy + Military)

(Strategy + Will)

After inserting numbers into his formula, he concluded that the Soviet Union was
twice as powerful as the United States (Cline 1977). Of course, as we now know, this
formula was not a very good predictor of outcomes. In little over a decade, the Soviet
Union collapsed and pundits were proclaiming that the United States was the sole
superpower in a unipolar world.
A more recent effort to create a power index includes a country’s resources (tech-
nology, enterprise, human, capital, physical) and national performance (external
constraints, infrastructure, ideas) and how they determine military capability and
combat proficiency (Tellis et al. 2000). This tells us about relative military power, but
not about all relevant types of power. While effective military force remains one of
the key power resources in international affairs, the world is no longer as uncon-
strained as in nineteenth-century Europe when historians could define a ‘great power’
as one capable of prevailing in war (Taylor 1954, p. xxix).
Military force and combat proficiency do not tell us much about outcomes, for
example, in the world of finance or climate change. Nor does it tell us much about the
power of non-state actors. In military terms, Al Qaeda is a midget compared to the
American giant, but the impact of terrorists relies less on the size of their forces than
on the theatrical effects of their actions and narratives, and the overreactions they can
produce. In that sense, terrorism is like the sport of jiu jitsu in which the weak player
uses the strength of the larger against himself. This is not caught by typical indices of
military power.
In certain bargaining situations, as Thomas Schelling has demonstrated, weakness
and the threat that a partner will collapse can be a source of bargaining power (1960,
p. 62). A bankrupt debtor who owes $1000 has little power, but if it owes $1 billion,
it may have considerable bargaining power – witness the fate of institutions judged
‘too big to fail’ in the 2008 financial crisis. North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il ‘is probably
the only world leader who can make Beijing look powerless … Diplomats say Mr.
Kim brazenly plays on Chinese fears. If the Chinese do not pump aid into his crum-
bling economy, he argues, they will face refugees pouring across the border and possi-
ble unrest’ (Oliver and Dyer 2010).
Any attempt to develop a single index of power is doomed to fail because power
depends upon human relationships that vary in different contexts. Stefano Guzzini
argues that the dependence of power on theory means that ‘there is no single concept
of power applicable to every type of explanation’ (1993, p. 446). While money can be
used to measure purchasing power across different markets, there is no standard of
value that can summarize all relationships and contexts to produce an agreed overall
power total (Baldwin 2002, p. 179).

Defining power
Like many basic ideas, power is a contested concept. No one definition is accepted by
all who use the word, and people’s choice of definition reflects their interests and
values. Some define power as the ability to make or resist change. Others say it is the
ability to get what we want (Boulding 1989, p. 15). This broad definition includes
power over nature as well as over other people. For an interest in actions and policies,
a common-sense place to start is the dictionary which tells us that power is the
 Journal of Political Power 11

capacity to do things, but more specifically in social situations we are interested in the
ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants.1 Some people call this influence,
and distinguish power from influence, but that is confusing because the dictionary
defines the two terms interchangeably.
There are many factors that affect our ability to get what we want. We live in a
web of inherited social forces, some of which are visible and others of which are
indirect and sometimes called ‘structural.’ We tend to identify and focus on some of
these constraints and forces rather than others depending on our interests. For exam-
ple, in his work on civilizations, Katzenstein argues that the power of civilizations is
different from power in civilizations. Actors in civilizations command hard and soft
power, while social power operates beneath the behavioral level by shaping underly-
ing social structures, knowledge systems, and general environment (Katzenstein
2009). While such structural social forces are important, for policy purposes we also
want to understand what actors or agents can do within given situations. As John
Harsanyi put it, ‘one of the main purposes for which social scientists use the concept
of A’s power over B is for the description of the policy possibilities open to A’ (1971,
p. 80). Civilizations and societies are not immutable, and effective leaders can try to
shape larger social forces with varying degrees of success. As Max Weber said, we
want to know the probability that an actor in a social relationship can carry out his own
will (1947, p. 152).
Even when we focus primarily on particular agents or actors, we cannot say that
an actor ‘has power’ without specifying power ‘to do what’ (Nagel 1975, p. 14). One
must specify who is involved in the power relationship (the scope of power) as well
as what topics are involved (the domain of power). For example, the Pope has power
over some Christians, but not others (such as Protestants). And even among Catholics
he may wish to have power over all their moral decisions, but some adherents may
reject his power on some issues (such as birth control or marriage outside the church).
Thus to say that the Pope has power requires us to specify the context (scope and
domain) of the relationship.
A psychopath may have the power to kill and destroy random strangers, but not
the power to persuade them. Some actions that affect others and obtain preferred
outcomes can be purely destructive and not depend on what the victim thinks. For
example, Pol Pot killed millions of Cambodian citizens. Some say such use of force
is not power because there was no two-way relationship involved, but that depends
on context and motive. If the actor’s motive is pure sadism or terror, the use of force
fits within the definition of power as affecting others to get what one wants. Most
power relationships, however, depend very much on what the victim thinks. A dicta-
tor who wishes to punish a dissident may be misled in thinking he exercised power if
the dissident really sought martyrdom to advance her cause. On the other hand, if the
dictator simply wanted to destroy the dissident, her intentions did not matter to his
power.
Actions often have powerful unintended consequences, but from a policy point of
view we are interested in the ability to produce preferred outcomes. If a NATO soldier
in Afghanistan kills a child by a stray bullet, he had the power to destroy, but not to
achieve his preferred outcome. An air strike that kills one insurgent and many civilians
demonstrates a general power to destroy, but it may prove counterproductive for a
counter-insurgency policy. A country with a large economy may have unintended
effects that cause accidental harm (or wealth) in a small country (Strange 1988). Again
if the effects are unintended, there is power to harm (or benefit) but it is not power to
12 J.S. Nye

achieve preferred outcomes. Canadians often complain that living next to the United
States is like sleeping with an elephant. From the Canadian point of view, intentions
do not matter; it hurts if the beast rolls over. But from a policy-oriented perspective,
intentions matter in terms of getting preferred outcomes (Morriss 2002, pp. 25–28).2
A policy-oriented concept of power depends upon a specified context to tell us who
gets what, how, where and when (Lasswell and Kaplan 1950).
Practical politicians and ordinary people often find these questions of behavior and
motivation too complicated and unpredictable. Behavioral definitions judge power by
outcomes which are determined after the action (ex post) rather than before the action
(ex ante). But policy-makers want ex ante predictions to help guide their actions. Thus
they frequently define power simply in terms of the resources that can produce
outcomes. By this second definition of power as resources, a country is powerful if it
has a relatively large population, territory, natural resources, economic strength, mili-
tary force, and social stability. The virtue of this second definition is that it makes
power appear to be concrete, measurable, and predictable – a guide to action. Power
in this sense is like holding the high cards in a card game. But this definition has major
problems. When people define power as synonymous with the resources that (may)
produce outcomes, they often encounter the paradox that those best endowed with
power do not always get the outcomes they want.
This is not to deny the importance of power resources. Power is conveyed through
resources, whether tangible or intangible. People notice resources. If you show the
highest cards in a poker game, others may fold their hands rather than challenge you.
But power resources that win in one game may not help at all in another. Holding a
strong poker hand does not win if the game is bridge. Even if the game is poker, if you
play your high hand poorly, or fall victim to bluff and deception, you can still lose.
Power conversion – getting from resources to behavioral outcomes – is a crucial inter-
vening variable. Having the resources of power does not guarantee that you will
always get the outcome you want. For example, in terms of resources, the United
States was far more powerful than Vietnam, yet lost the war. Converting resources
into realized power in the sense of obtaining desired outcomes requires well-designed
strategies and skillful leadership – what I call smart power. Yet strategies are often
inadequate and leaders frequently misjudge.
Nonetheless, defining power in terms of resources is a shortcut that policy-makers
find useful. In general, a country that is well endowed with power resources is more
likely to affect a weaker country and be less dependent upon an optimal strategy than
vice versa. Smaller countries may sometimes obtain preferred outcomes because they
pick smaller fights or focus selectively on a few issues. On average, and in direct
conflicts, one would not expect Finland to prevail over Russia.3 As a first step in any
game, it helps to start by figuring out who is holding the high cards and how many
chips they have. Equally important, however, is that policy-makers have the contex-
tual intelligence to understand what game they are playing. Which resources provide
the best basis for power behavior in a particular context? Oil was not an impressive
power resource before the industrial age nor was uranium significant before the
nuclear age. In traditional realist views of international affairs, war was the ultimate
game in which the cards of international politics were played. When all the cards were
on the table, estimates of relative power were proven and disproven. But over the
centuries, as technologies evolved, the sources of strength for war often changed.
Moreover, on an increasing number of issues in the twenty-first century, war is not the
ultimate arbiter.
 Journal of Political Power 13

Because of this, many analysts reject the ‘elements of national power’ approach as
misleading and inferior to the behavioral or relational approach that became dominant
among social science analysis in the latter half of the twentieth century. Strictly speak-
ing, the skeptics are correct. Power resources are simply the tangible and intangible
raw materials or vehicles that underlie power relationships, and whether a given set of
resources produces preferred outcomes or not depends upon behavior in context. The
vehicle is not the power relationship.4 Knowing the horsepower and mileage of a vehi-
cle does not tell us whether it will get to the preferred destination.
In practice, discussions of power in foreign policy involve both definitions. Bald-
win contests my statement, but does not offer compelling evidence that would make
me change it (2002, pp. 185–186). In my experience in government, policy-makers do
tend to focus on resources. Many of the terms that we use daily such as ‘military
power’ and ‘economic power’ are hybrids that combine both resources and behaviors.
So long as that is the case, it is important to make clear whether we are speaking of
behavioral or resource-based definitions of power and to be aware of the imperfect
relation between them. For example, when people speak of the rising power of China
or India, they tend to point to the large populations and increased economic or military
resources of those countries. But whether the capacity that those resources imply can
actually be converted into preferred outcomes will depend upon the contexts and the
country’s skill in converting resources into strategies that will produce preferred
outcomes.5 This is what people are getting at when they say things like ‘power doesn’t
necessarily lead to influence’ (though for reasons explained above that formulation is
confusing).
In the end, since it is outcomes, not resources, that policy-makers care about, we
must pay more attention to contexts and strategies. Power conversion strategies turn
out to be a critical variable that does not receive enough attention. Strategies relate
means to ends, and those that combine hard and soft power resources successfully in
different contexts are the key to smart power.

Three aspects of relational power

In addition to the distinction between resource and relational definitions of power, it
is useful to distinguish three different aspects of relational power. All too often these
are collapsed. For example, a recent book on foreign policy defines power as ‘getting
people or groups to do something they don’t want to do’ (Gelb 2009, p. 28). But such
a narrow approach can lead to mistaken analysis.
The ability to compel others to change their behavior against their initial prefer-
ences is one important dimension, but not the only important aspect of relational
power. One can also affect others’ preferences so that they need not be compelled to
change them. Former President (and General) Dwight Eisenhower referred to this as
getting people to do something ‘not only because you tell them to do so, but because
they instinctively want to do it for you’ (Axelrod 2006, pp. 120, 283). This co-
optive power contrasts with and complements command power. It is a mistake to
think that power consists of just ordering others to change. You can affect others’
behavior by shaping their preferences in ways that produce what you want rather
than relying on carrots and sticks to change their behavior ‘when push comes to
shove.’ Sometimes you can get the outcomes you want without pushing or shoving,
and ignoring this by using a too narrow definition of power can lead to a poorly
shaped foreign policy.
14 J.S. Nye

This first aspect or ‘face’ of power was defined by Robert Dahl (1961) in studies
of New Haven in the 1950s, and it is widely used today even though it covers only
part of power behavior. It focuses on the ability to get others to act in ways that are
contrary to their initial preferences and strategies. To measure or judge power, you
have to know how strong another person or nation’s initial preferences were and how
much they were changed by your efforts. Coercion is quite clear, even when there
appears to be some degree of choice. If a gunman says, ‘your money or your life,’ you
have some choice but it is small and not consistent with your initial preferences
(unless they included suicide or martyrdom).6 When Czechoslovakia succumbed to
German and Soviet troops entering Prague in 1938 and again in 1968, it was not
because it wanted to.
Economic measures are somewhat more complex. Negative sanctions (taking
away economic benefit) are clearly felt as coercive. Payment or economic inducement
to do what you initially did not want to may seem more attractive to the subject, but
any payment can easily be turned into a negative sanction by the implicit or explicit
threat of its removal. A year-end bonus is a reward, but its removal is felt as a penalty.
Moreover, in unequal bargaining relationships, say between a millionaire landowner
and a starving peasant, a paltry ‘take it or leave it’ payment may give the peasant little
sense of choice. The important point is that someone has the capacity to make others
act against their initial preferences and strategies, and both sides feel that power.
In the 1960s, Bachrach and Baratz pointed out that Dahl’s definition missed what
they called the ‘second face of power’ because it ignored the dimension of framing
and agenda setting (1963, pp. 632–642).7 If one can use ideas and institutions to frame
the agenda for action in a way that makes others’ preferences seem irrelevant or out
of bounds, then it may never be necessary to push or shove them. In other words, it
may be possible to shape others’ preferences by affecting their expectations of what
is legitimate or feasible. Agenda framing focuses on the ability to keep issues off the
table, or as Sherlock Holmes might put it, dogs that fail to bark.
Powerful actors can make sure that the less powerful are never invited to the table,
or if they get there, the rules of the game have already been set by those who arrived
first. International financial policy had this characteristic, at least before the crisis of
2008 opened things up somewhat when the Group of 8 was supplemented by the
Group of 20. Those who are subject to this second face of power may or may not be
aware of it. If they accept the legitimacy of the institutions or the social discourse that
framed the agenda, they may not feel unduly constrained by the second face of power.
On the other hand, if the agenda of action is constrained by threats of coercion or
promises of payments, then it is just an instance of the first face of power. The target’s
acquiescence in the legitimacy of the agenda is what makes it co-optive and a part of
soft power – the ability to get what you want by the co-optive means of framing the
agenda, persuasion, and positive attraction.
Still later, in the 1970s, Steven Lukes (2005) pointed out that ideas and beliefs also
help shape others’ initial preferences. In Dahl’s approach, I can exercise power over
you by getting you to do what you would otherwise not want to do, in other words by
changing your situation I can make you change your preferred strategy. But I can also
exercise power over you by determining your very wants. I can shape your basic or
initial preferences, not merely change the situation in a way that makes you change
your strategy for achieving your preferences.
This dimension of power is missed by Dahl’s definition. A teenage boy may care-
fully choose a fashionable shirt to wear to school to attract a girl, but the teenager may
 Journal of Political Power 15

not be aware that the reason the shirt is so fashionable is that a national retailer
recently launched a major advertising campaign. Both his preference and that of the
other teenagers have been formed by an unseen actor who has shaped their set of pref-
erences. If you can get others to want the same outcomes that you want, it will not be
necessary to override their initial desires.8
There are critical questions of voluntarism in determining how freely people
choose their preferences.9 Not all soft power looks so soft to outside critics. In some
extreme cases, it is difficult to ascertain what constitutes voluntary formation of pref-
erences. For instance, in the ‘Stockholm syndrome,’ victims of kidnapping who
suffered traumatic stress began to identify with their abductors. Captors sometimes try
to ‘brainwash’ their captives, and sometimes to win them over with kindnesses. But
in some situations it is more difficult to be certain of others’ interests. Are Afghan
women oppressed when they choose to wear a burqa? What about the choice of wear-
ing a veil in democratic France? Sometimes it is difficult to know the extent of volun-
tarism from mere outward appearances. Dictators like Hitler and Stalin tried to create
an aura of invincibility to attract followers, and some leaders in Southeastern Euro-
pean countries succumbed to this effect. To the extent that force creates a sense of awe
that attracts others, it can be an indirect source of co-optive power, but if the force is
directly coercive, then it is simply an instance of the first face of power.
John Gaventa has called these the public, hidden and invisible faces of power
(2007, p. 206). The second and third faces embody aspects of structural power. A
structure is simply an arrangement of all the parts of a whole. Humans are embedded
in complex structures of culture, social relations, and power which affect and
constrain them. A person’s field of action is ‘delimited by actors with whom he has
no interaction or communication, by actions distant in time and space, by actions of
which he is, in no explicit sense the target’ (Hayward 2000, p. 37). Some of the exer-
cises of power reflect the intentional decisions of particular actors while others are the
product of unintended consequences and larger social forces.
For example, why do large automobiles dominate our city streets? In part the
answer reflects individual consumer choices, but these consumer preferences are
themselves shaped by a social history of advertising, manufacturers’ decisions, tax
incentives, public transport policy, road-building subsidies, and urban planning
(Smith 2009, p. 36). Different choices on these issues by many visible as well as
unseen actors in the past confront an urban resident today with a limited set of choices.
In 1993, Bill Clinton’s political adviser James Carville is alleged to have joked that
he wished he could be reborn as the bond market because then he would have real
power (Woodward 1994, p. 139). When we speak of the power of markets, we are
referring to a form of structural power. A wheat farmer who wants to earn more
income to pay for his daughter’s college tuition may decide to plant more wheat. But
if other farmers plant more as well (and demand does not change), market forces may
reduce his income and affect her educational prospects. In a perfect market, the agent
has no pricing power. Millions of other unseen agents making independent choices
create the supply and demand that determines the price. This is why poor countries
that produce commodities are often subject to wide variations in their terms of trade.
But if an agent can find a way to change the structure of a market by introducing an
element of monopoly (a single seller) or monopsony (a single buyer), she can gain
some power over price. She can do this by differentiating her product by advertising,
creating brand loyalty, picking a special location, and so forth. Or in the case of oil-
producing countries they can try to form a cartel like OPEC.
16 J.S. Nye

Different analysts cut into the complex pattern of causation and draw the line
between individual choice and larger structures at different places. For example, soci-
ologists tend to focus less on specific actions and outcomes than political scientists or
policy analysts do (Dowding 2008a, pp. 21–36). Analysts who focus only on individ-
ual agents as the first face of power tends to do are clearly failing to understand and
describe power relationships fully, but those who focus only on broad social forces
and long historical perspective pay too little attention to individual choices and inten-
tions that are crucial in policy.
The second and third faces of power incorporate structural causes such as institu-
tions and culture, but also leave room to focus on agents who make choices, albeit
constrained by structural forces. Many power relations, like many markets, are imper-
fect in their structure, and allow some voluntarism and choice for agents within the
structures. Some writers have suggested a ‘fourth face’ of power that would encom-
pass primarily structural forces. For some purposes this can be fruitful, but it is less
useful for understanding the policy options that leaders confront. Peter Digeser has
used this term to refer to Michel Foucault’s view that subjects and social practices are
the effects of a power that one cannot escape, and knowledge presupposes power, but
he admits that ‘Foucault’s use of power departs significantly from ordinary usage’
(1992, p. 990). For policy purposes, the insights that Foucault and other structuralists
provide are purchased at too high a price in terms of conceptual complexity and
abstraction. This is also true of Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall’s interesting
abstract – fourfold typology – that goes beyond the three ‘faces of power’ categories
(2005, pp. 39–75). Alternatively, structuralists undoubtedly consider my approach too
agent-centered, but it does allow some consideration of structural forces even if it does
not include all elements of structure.
Some analysts regard all these distinctions as useless abstractions that can all be
collapsed into the first face of power (Baldwin 2002, p. 179). If we succumb to this
temptation, however, we are likely to limit what we see in terms of behavior and that
tends to limit the strategies that policy-makers design to achieve their goals.
Command power (the first face) is very visible and readily grasped. It is the basis for
hard power – the ability to get the outcomes one wants through coercion and payment.
The co-optive power of faces 2 and 3 is more subtle, and less visible. It contributes to
soft power, the ability to get preferred outcomes through the co-optive means of
agenda setting, persuasion, and attraction. All too often policy-makers have focused
solely on hard command power to compel others to act against their preferences, and
ignored the soft power that comes from preference formation. But when co-opting is
possible, one can save on carrots and sticks.
In global politics, some goals that states seek are more susceptible to the second
and third than to the first face of power. Arnold Wolfers once distinguished between
what he called possession goals – specific and often tangible objectives – and milieu
goals which are often structural and intangible (1962, p. 73). For example, access to
resources or basing rights or a trade agreement are possession goals, while promoting
an open trade system, free markets, democracy, or human rights are milieu goals. In
the terminology used above, we can think of states having specific goals and general
or structural goals. Focusing solely on command power and the first dimension of
power may mislead us about how to promote such goals. For example, military means
alone are less successful than when combined with soft power approaches in promot-
ing democracy – as the United States discovered in Iraq. And the soft power of attrac-
tion and persuasion can have both agentic and structural dimensions. For example, a
 Journal of Political Power 17

government can try to attract others through its actions like public diplomacy, but it
may also attract others through the structural effects of its example or what can be
called the ‘shining city on the hill’ effect.
Another reason not to collapse all three faces of power into the first is that it dimin-
ishes attention to networks, which are an important type of structural power in the
twenty-first century. Networks are becoming increasingly important in an information
age, and positioning in social network can be an important power resource. For exam-
ple, in a hub and spokes network, power can derive from being the hub of communi-
cations. If you communicate with your other friends through me, that gives me power.
If the points on the rim are not directly connected to each other, their dependence on
communication through the hub can shape their agenda. For example, even after inde-
pendence, many communications among former French African colonies ran through
Paris, and that increased French power to shape their agenda.
In other more complex network arrangements, theorists point to the importance of
structural holes that prevent direct communication between certain parts of the
network (Burt 1992, chap. 1). Those who can bridge or exploit structural holes can use
their position as a source of power by controlling communication between others.
Another aspect of networks that is relevant to power is their extensiveness. Even weak
extensive ties can be useful in acquiring and disseminating novel and innovative infor-
mation. Weak ties provide the ability to link diverse groups together in a cooperative,
successful manner (Granovetter 1990, pp. 13–16). This increases a country’s ability
to gain power with, rather than over, others. The ability to create networks of trust that
enable groups to work together toward common goals is what Boulding called ‘inte-
grative power’ (1989, p. 109). According to psychologists, ‘years of research suggest
that empathy and social intelligence are vastly more important to acquiring and exer-
cising power than are force, deception, or terror’ (Keltner 2007–2008, p. 15).
Hannah Arendt argues that ‘power springs up among men when they act together’
(1998, p. 200). Similarly, a state can wield global power, by engaging and acting
together with other states, not merely acting against them. Ikenberry (2006) has
argued that American power after World War II rested on a network of institutions
that constrained the United States but were open to others and thus increased Ameri-
can power to act with others. This is an important point in assessing the power of
nations in the current international system, and an important dimension for assessing
the future of American and Chinese power in the twenty-first century (Slaughter 2009,
pp. 94–113). For example, if the United States is involved in more communication
networks, it has a greater opportunity to shape preferences in terms of the third face
of power.
For policy purposes, it can be useful to think of the three faces of power in a
reverse sequence from the order in which they were invented by social scientists. A
policy-maker should consider preference formation and agenda framing as means of
shaping the environment before turning to the first or command face of power.10 In
short, those who insist on collapsing the second and third dimensions of power into
the first will miss an increasingly important aspect of power in this century.

Realism and the full spectrum of power behavior

For centuries, the dominant classical approach to international affairs has been called
‘Realism,’ and its lineage stretches back to such great thinkers as Thucydides and
Machiavelli. Realism assumes that in the anarchic conditions of world politics, where
18 J.S. Nye

there is no higher international government authority above states, they must rely on
their own devices to preserve their independence, and that when push comes to shove,
the ultima ratio is the use of force. Realism portrays the world in terms of sovereign
states aiming to preserve their security with military force as their ultimate instrument.
Thus war has been a constant aspect of international affairs over the centuries. Realists
come in many sizes and shapes, but all tend to argue that global politics is power poli-
tics. In this they are right, but some limit their understanding by conceiving of power
too narrowly. A pragmatic or common-sense realist takes into account the full spec-
trum of power resources, including ideas, persuasion, and attraction. Many classical
realists of the past understood the role of soft power better than some of their modern
progeny.
Realism represents a good first cut at portraying some aspects of international rela-
tions. But as we have seen, states are no longer the only important actors in global
affairs; security is not the only major outcome that they seek, and force is not the only
or always the best instrument available to achieve those outcomes. Indeed, these
conditions of complex interdependence are typical of relations among advanced post-
industrial countries such as the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan.
Mutual democracy, liberal culture, and a deep network of transnational ties mean that
anarchy has very different effects than realism predicts. In such conditions, a smart
power strategy has a much higher mixture of the second and third faces of power.
It is not solely in relations among advanced countries, however, that soft power
plays an important role. In an information age, communication strategies become
more important, and outcomes are shaped not merely by whose army wins, but also
by whose story wins. In combating terrorism, for example, it is essential to have a
narrative that appeals to the mainstream and prevents their recruitment by the radicals.
In battling insurgencies, kinetic military force must be accompanied by soft power
instruments that help to win over the hearts and minds (shape the preferences) of the
majority of the population.
Smart strategies must have an information and communication component. States
struggle over the power to define norms, and framing of issues grows in importance.
For instance, while CNN and the BBC framed the issues of the first Gulf War in 1991,
by 2003, Al Jazeera played a large role in shaping the narrative in the Iraq War. Such
framing is more than mere propaganda. In describing events in March 2003, one could
say that American troops ‘entered Iraq,’ or that American troops ‘invaded Iraq.’ Both
statements are true, but they have very different effects in terms of power to shape pref-
erences. Similarly, if one thinks of international institutions, it makes a difference if
agendas are set in a Group of 8 with a few invited guests or a Group of 20 equal invi-
tees. These are just some examples of how the dimensions of the second and third faces
of power are becoming more important in the global politics of an information age.

Soft power behavior and resources

Some critics complain that the definition of soft power has become fuzzy through
expansion ‘to include both economic statecraft – used as both a carrot and as a stick –
and even military power … Soft power now seems to mean everything’ (Gelb 2009,
p. 69). But these critics are mistaken because they confuse the actions of a state seek-
ing to achieve desired outcomes with the resources used to produce them. Many types
of resources can contribute to soft power, but that does not mean that soft power is
any type of behavior. The use of force, payment (and some agenda setting based on
 Journal of Political Power 19

them) I call hard power. Agenda setting that is regarded as legitimate by the target,
positive attraction, and persuasion are the parts of the spectrum of behaviors I include
in soft power. Hard power is push; soft power is pull. Fully defined, soft power is the
ability to affect others to obtain preferred outcomes by the co-optive means of framing
the agenda, persuasion, and positive attraction.11 A spectrum of power behaviors is
represented below:12

Hard Soft
Command > Coerce Threat Pay Sanction Frame Persuade Attract < Co-opt

In general, the types of resources that are associated with hard power include
tangibles like force and money, while the resources that are associated with soft power
often include intangible factors like institutions, ideas, values, culture, and perceived
legitimacy of policies. But the relationship is not perfect. Intangible resources like
patriotism, morale, and legitimacy strongly affect military capacity to fight and win.
And threats to use force are intangible, but a dimension of hard power.13
If one remembers the distinction between power resources and power behavior,
one realizes that resources often associated with hard power behavior can also produce
soft power behavior depending on the context and how they are used. Command
power can create resources that can create soft power at a later phase, for example,
institutions that will provide soft power resources in the future. Similarly, co-optive
behavior can be used to generate hard power resources in the form of military alliance
or economic aid. A tangible hard power resource like a military unit can produce both
command behavior (by winning a battle) and co-optive behavior (attraction) depend-
ing on how it is used. And since attraction depends upon the minds of the perceiver,
the subject’s perceptions play a significant role in whether given resources produce
hard or soft power behavior.
For example, naval forces can be used to win battles (hard power) or win hearts
and minds (soft power) depending on who the target and what the issue is. The
American Navy’s help in providing relief to Indonesia after the 2004 East Asian
tsunami had a strong effect on increasing their attraction toward the United States, and
the Navy’s 2007 Maritime Strategy refers not only to war-fighting but ‘additionally
maritime forces will be employed to build confidence and trust among nations’ (Chief
of Naval Operations 2007, p. 3). Similarly, successful economic performance such as
that of China can produce both the hard power of sanctions and restricted market
access as well as the soft power of attraction and emulation of success.
Some analysts have misinterpreted soft power as a synonym for culture, and then
gone on to downgrade its importance. For example, Niall Ferguson described soft
power as ‘non-traditional forces such as cultural and commercial goods,’ and then
dismissed it on the grounds that ‘it’s, well, soft’ (2003, pp. 18–22). Of course eating
at McDonald’s or wearing a Michael Jackson shirt does not automatically indicate soft
power. Militias can perpetrate atrocities or fight Americans while wearing Nike’s and
drinking coke. Eating sushi and trading pokemon cards does not necessarily convey
power to Japan. But this criticism confuses the resources that may produce behavior
with the behavior itself. Whether the possession of power resources actually produces
favorable behavior depends upon the context and the skills of the agent in converting
the resources into behavioral outcomes. But this is not unique to soft power resources.
Having a larger tank army may produce victory if a battle is fought in the desert, but
not if it is fought in a swamp. Similarly, a nice smile can be a soft power resource, and
20 J.S. Nye

you may be more inclined to do something for me if I smile whenever we meet, but if
I smile at your mother’s funeral it may destroy soft power rather than create it.

Soft power and smart power

I developed the term ‘smart power’ in 2003 to counter the misperception that soft
power alone can produce effective foreign policy. I defined it as the ability to combine
hard and soft power resources into effective strategies.14 Unlike soft power, it is an
evaluative concept as well as a descriptive concept. Soft power can be good or bad
from a normative perspective, depending on how it is used. Smart power has the eval-
uation built into the definition. Critics who say ‘smart power – which can be dubbed
Soft Power 2.0 – has superseded Soft Power 1.0 in the US foreign policy lexicon’ are
simply mistaken (Layne 2010, p. 67). A more accurate criticism is that because the
concept (unlike soft power) has a normative dimension, it often lends itself to slogans,
though that need not be the case.
Smart power, defined as strategies that successfully combine hard and soft power
resources in differing contexts, is available to all states (and non-state actors), not just
the United States. Small states have often developed smart power strategies. Norway,
with five million people, has enhanced its attractiveness with legitimizing policies in
peace-making and development assistance, while also being an active and effective
participant in the NATO. And at the other extreme in terms of population size, China
– a rising power in economic and military resources – has deliberately decided to
invest in soft power resources so as to make its hard power look less threatening to its
neighbors and thus develop a smart strategy.
Smart power goes to the heart of the problem of power conversion. As we saw
earlier, some countries and actors may be endowed with greater power resources than
others, yet not be very effective in converting the full range of their power resources
into strategies that produce the outcomes they seek. Some argue that with its ineffi-
cient eighteenth-century governmental structure, the United States is weak in power
conversion. Others respond that much of American strength is generated outside of
government by its open economy and civil society. And it may be that power conver-
sion is easier when a country has a surplus of assets and can afford to absorb the costs
of mistakes. But the first step to smart power and effective power conversion strate-
gies is an understanding of the full range of power resources and the problems of
combining them effectively in various contexts.
Hard and soft power sometimes reinforce and sometimes undercut each other, and
good contextual intelligence is important in distinguishing how they interact in differ-
ent situations. But it is a mistake to think of information campaigns in terms that
misunderstand the essence of soft power. Smart power suggests it is best to have both.
‘The military has to understand that soft power is more challenging to wield in terms
of the application of military force – particularly if what that force is doing is not seen
as attractive’ (Taverner 2010, p. 149).
Early in 2006, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld said of the Bush admin-
istration’s global war on terror, ‘In this war, some of the most critical battles may not
be in the mountains of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq but in newsrooms in New
York, London, Cairo and elsewhere.’ As The Economist commented about Rums-
feld’s speech, ‘until recently he plainly regarded such a focus on “soft power” as, well,
soft – part of “Old Europe’s” appeasement of terrorism.’ Now he realizes the impor-
tance of winning hearts and minds, but ‘a good part of his speech was focused on how
 Journal of Political Power 21

with slicker PR America could win the propaganda war’ (The Economist 2006).
Unfortunately, Rumsfeld forgot the first rule of advertising: if you have a poor prod-
uct, not even the best advertising will sell it, and more generally, the administration’s
poor power conversion strategy wasted both hard and soft power assets. The first step
toward developing more effective smart power strategies starts with a fuller under-
standing of the types and uses of power in foreign policy.

Notes
1. Power implies causation and is like the word ‘cause.’ When we speak of causation, we
choose to pick out the relation between two items in a long and complex chain of events
because we are interested in them more than the myriad other things that we might focus
upon. We do not say in the abstract that ‘an event causes’ without specifying what it
causes.
2. On intentions and power, see also Baldwin (2002, p. 181). ‘There is no need for a fundamental
reformulation of the concept of power in order to account for its unintended effects.’
3. It is worth noting that Finland, after fighting Russia at the beginning of World War II, was
cautious not to challenge the Soviet Union during the cold war. It was able to preserve its
independence but with a limited domain of actions which became known as ‘Findlandiza-
tion.’ Outcomes are not always all or nothing.
4. Philosophers such as Antony Kenny and Peter Morriss argue that reducing power to
resources constitutes the ‘vehicle fallacy,’ but Keith Dowding contends that ‘the vehicle
fallacy is not a fallacy if resources are measured relationally, for example, the power of
money is relative to its distribution. It follows that strategic considerations must enter into
the very essence of the concept of power’ (2008b, pp. 238–258).
5. These different definitions can be summarized in the following diagrams:

Diagram 1: Power Defined as Resources

context skill
Power = resources Æ conversion strategy Æ preferred outcomes

This common approach outlined in Diagram 1 can be contrasted with the more careful rela-
tional definition in which power is the ability to alter others’ behavior to produce preferred
outcomes:

Diagram 2: Power Defined as Behavioral Outcomes

Power = affect others Æ re: something Æ by means Æ to preferred outcome
(domain) (scope) (coercion, reward, attraction)

6. Preferences and strategies are closely related. Preferences rank outcomes in a given envi-
ronment, and a strategy is an actor’s effort to come as close as possible to preferred
outcomes in that setting. From an analytical point of view, preferences in one setting may
become strategies in another (see Frieden 1999, p. 41). Thus in the gunman example, in the
original setting, A’s preferences include both life and money and his strategy is to keep
both. The gunman’s threat changes the environment so that A must now rank his prefer-
ences, and adopt a strategy of handing over his wallet. A’s preferences do not change (life
ranks over money), but when the gunman changes the environment, A has to change his
strategy.
7. William H. Riker developed a somewhat similar concept that he called ‘herestetics,’ which
‘involves structuring the situation so that others accept it willingly’ (1984, p. 8).
8. As Lukes points out, my concept of soft power is similar but not identical with his third
face of power. My concept was developed in the context of international relations and
includes the voluntaristic dimensions of agenda setting as well as preference setting by
attraction and persuasion. I was more concerned with the actions of agents and less
concerned about the problematic concept of ‘false consciousness.’
22 J.S. Nye

9. Steven Lukes calls soft power ‘a cousin’ of his concept of the third face of power. He is
concerned, however, about distinguishing degrees of freedom or voluntarism. ‘Both the
agent-centered, strategic view of Nye and the subject-centered structural view of Foucault
lack this distinction … We need to focus on both agents and subjects and ask the question:
exactly how do agents succeed in winning the hearts and minds of those subject to their
influence – by wielding powder over them or by contributing to their empowerment?’
(Lukes 2007, p. 97).
10. I am indebted to Tyson Belanger for this point.
11. At various times, in trying to explain soft power I have shortened my formulation to
statements like ‘soft power is attractive power’; ‘soft power is the ability to shape or
reshape preferences without resort to force or payment’; ‘soft power is the ability to get
others to want what you want.’ These short forms are consistent with the longer more
formal definition of the concept.
12. The behaviors in the spectrum the Diagram sometimes overlap, but they can be conceived
in terms of the degree of voluntarism in B’s behavior. In the middle of the spectrum,
payment has a degree of voluntarism, and agenda setting can be affected by institutions and
discourses that B may not fully accept. That aspect of agenda setting is determined by hard
power, but to the extent that hard power in one period can create in a later period institutions
that limit the agenda but are widely regarded as legitimate, then agenda setting is part of
co-optive and soft power. The effect of World War II in changing power relations that set
the framework for the postwar UN and Bretton Woods institutions is a case in point.
13. Baldwin and others have criticized my earlier discussion of tangibility. I should have made
clearer that intangibility is not a necessary condition for soft power. I define soft power in
behavioral terms as the ability to affect others to obtain preferred outcomes by co-option
and attraction rather than coercion or payment, and I was careful to use language that
suggested an imperfect relationship (‘tend to be associated, are usually associated’)
between soft power behavior and the intangibility of the resources that can produce it. But
the criticism is justified and that explains this restatement.
14. Suzanne Nossel (2004) also deserves credit for using the term in ‘Smart Power,’ but I was
not aware of this until later.

Notes on contributor
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University. He is
the author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. Parts of this article are
drawn from his forthcoming book The Future of Power (Public Affairs Press, 2011).

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