Renaming ‘soft power’
While on the subject of naming, Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias want to find another term of art to describe ‘soft power,” since, well, the word “soft” has negative political and psychosexual connotations. I think they’re fighting a massive uphill battle here, for two reasons. First, the term ‘soft power’ is sufficiently vague to seem attractive, even though ...
While on the subject of naming, Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias want to find another term of art to describe 'soft power," since, well, the word "soft" has negative political and psychosexual connotations. I think they're fighting a massive uphill battle here, for two reasons. First, the term 'soft power' is sufficiently vague to seem attractive, even though I bet no two people hold the exact same definition of the term. Second, you're going to have to pry this concept from Joe Nye's cold, dead, oft-cited hands. In the spirit of bipartisanship, however, I encourage my readers to help out Yglesias and Drum with possible substitutes. Suzanne Nossel's "smart power" is pretty good, and I like one of Kevin's commenter's suggestion of "civil power." In situations like these, however, I like to rely on the neologisms of international relations theory. So, here are my suggestions: Neo-power Neoclassical power (admittedly, doesn't really fit given the history of power) Defensive power Social power Powerism Post-powerism Samantha Power (look, she's certainly an attractor) Power.com! (exclamation point required) PowerAid Butter
While on the subject of naming, Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias want to find another term of art to describe ‘soft power,” since, well, the word “soft” has negative political and psychosexual connotations. I think they’re fighting a massive uphill battle here, for two reasons. First, the term ‘soft power’ is sufficiently vague to seem attractive, even though I bet no two people hold the exact same definition of the term. Second, you’re going to have to pry this concept from Joe Nye’s cold, dead, oft-cited hands. In the spirit of bipartisanship, however, I encourage my readers to help out Yglesias and Drum with possible substitutes. Suzanne Nossel’s “smart power” is pretty good, and I like one of Kevin’s commenter’s suggestion of “civil power.” In situations like these, however, I like to rely on the neologisms of international relations theory. So, here are my suggestions:
- Neo-power
- Neoclassical power (admittedly, doesn’t really fit given the history of power)
- Defensive power
- Social power
- Powerism
- Post-powerism
- Samantha Power (look, she’s certainly an attractor)
- Power.com! (exclamation point required)
- PowerAid
- Butter
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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