The decline of Soft Power: Narratives beyond Nye

This paper argues that the concept of soft power, as originally formulated by Joseph Nye, is no longer fully applicable in today’s context, given both the nature of the values it promotes and the evolving means by which these values are disseminated, as well as the actors who communicate them. Using a problematisation approach, the paper shows that the Western values described by Nye in 1990 were once highly attractive to countries that lacked them—particularly in Eastern Europe. Today, however, many of these countries have already adopted these values, diminishing the relative attractiveness of soft power. The paper concludes that in networked societies—characterised by declining message credibility, the erosion of core values, and nearly five billion individuals interacting in a platformed world—narratives and strategic alliances operate in a radically different environment, far removed from the context in which soft power once flourished.