Journal of Public Diplomacy

The Korean Association for Public Diplomacy (한국공공외교학회)
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A Humanity-Centered Vision of Soft Power for Public Diplomacy's Global Mandate

  • Zaharna, R.S. (American University)
  • Received : 2021.09.26
  • Accepted : 2021.12.14
  • Published : 2021.12.31
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Abstract

Remarkably, despite the growing frequency and severity of global problems such as climate change, earthquakes and health pandemics, public diplomacy has remained largely focused on the goals of state actors and threats from other actors. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the consequences of focusing on individual actors of public diplomacy, including their competitive quest for soft power, over the more pressing needs of humanity and public diplomacy's global mandate. The aim of this piece is to expand the vision of soft power from a competitive state-centric perspective to a broader and more collaborative, humanity-centered perspective. Although public diplomacy's link to power may appear recent and linked to Nye's (2004) concept of soft power, research suggests that it may stem from the traditional diplomacy's "diplomacy of imperialism" (Langer, 1935) that immediately preceded public diplomacy's rise. While this diplomatic heritage may currently dominate public diplomacy perspectives, humankind's global heritages and evolutionary capacity for cooperation suggest another vision is possible. The paper draws upon Alexander Vuving's (2009) explanation of how soft power works in a comparative analysis with Nye's original works to sketch out a new humanity-centered perspective of soft power. The paper concludes with implications of a humanity-centered perspective of soft power for public diplomacy's global mandate.

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