Window-dressing policy: Thailand's misuse of soft power as cursory practice

Abstract

Joseph Nye's soft power has become popular among academics and practitioners in Thailand for decades. Despite its pervasiveness in Thai society, the soft power concept, which is predicated on the outcome-based definition of power, has been misconstrued by Thai policymakers as synonymous with the resource-based definition of power. This policy review examines key strategic blueprints of the relevant Thai state agencies and argues that they misunderstand soft power in its entirety. Mistaking soft power as cultural resources gravely affects how the Thai state agencies outline policy evaluation criteria, which neither conform to Nye's expectations nor achieve the Thai government's objectives. This policy review, however, discovers that “Thailand Foundation,” which is the affiliated organization of Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, appropriately designs soft power indicators that can be emulated by the other Thai state agencies to make soft power strategies work for Thailand.