Soft Power Determinants in the World and Implications for China

Abstract

Statistical tests are conducted on two explanations of soft power. One is Joseph Nye’s argument that political values, foreign policy, and cultural appeals shape soft power, and the other is the positive peace argument which suggests the significant effect of the Global Peace Index (GPI) on soft power. Two measures of soft power are employed—the favorability of major powers in global public opinion polls and the Soft Power 30 index. The latter gauges the magnitude of soft power. When the former measure which indicates the positiveness of soft power is adopted, the three soft power resources provide less explanatory power than per capita GDP and especially the GPI. When the Soft Power 30 index is used, only foreign policy independent of the US contributes positively to soft power. The GPI and non-soft-power related cultural exports (NSPCE) take on a negative role because a number of nations in the index achieved very high rankings with a relatively poor GPI or small NSPCE.