uge quantities of armaments. The popularity of
Hollywood films worldwide, and their role in encouraging interest in American goods and
identification with American themes and ideologies, is a form of soft power. No one is
directly harmed; many are entertained and enlightened; but there is a discernible value to
the U.S. government in films that celebrate the American way of life among audiences in
global markets.
b. soft power and the realist doctrine
Nye defines his position against that of a dominant school of thought in political science
known as “realism.” In international relations, realism is a doctrine that views the state as
the primary phenomenon in politics. Realism views global politics as a competition
between states for power in a conflict-ridden and unstable world: the accumulation of
power is the goal of realist foreign policy. Henry Kissinger, a chief policy architect for
th
century, is a supreme example of a realist
various U.S. administrations in the late 20
theorist. Nye believes that the era of realism is over because non-state political actors—
global market forces, media flows, and transnational political movements like the anti-
globalization activists memorialized at Seattle—have come to a position of power
increasingly greater than that of states. In other words, the realist emphasis on state
power makes critics blind to the emergent “soft” nature of power and the role of non-state
agents in global politics. 英语论文网 【http://www.51lunwen.org】 Traditionally, and by realist terms, the object of power was the control of resources (e.g.,
people, energy, land, sea routes) and other states. In the soft power environment, power is
exercised in a subtle and complex way befitting a more complicated global political
system. That is, the object of power is to control the outcomes of various actions, patterns,
and behaviours, thereby influencing the direction of events so as to benefit one’s collective
national self-interest. Power is no longer precariously balanced amid great global alliances
of states, as it was during the Cold War. To use a slightly different term, power is not
unipolar or even bipolar, the latter typical of the epic contest between the old USSR and
the United States; rather, power in the world as soft power advocates see it is decidedly
multipolar.
Today, states ally themselves with various state and non-state actors, and conversely,
non-governmental organizations (or, as they are often known, NGOs) affiliate themselves
with states to achieve particular ends. Many problems today—economic, environmental,
social—transcend national boundaries, thereby making room for broad-based efforts
involving actors in various locales and levels. An excellent example of such an issue of
broad-based soft power cooperation between states and NGOs is the ongoing
http://www.icbl.org/), which has gained formal
International Campaign to Ban Landmines (
support and active participation fr
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