Proceedings of the 17th International Academic Conference, Vienna

SOCIAL COHESION: THE PREREQUISITE FOR USE OF SOFT POWER RESOURCES IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

JAVAD NIKMOEEN

Abstract:

Soft power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to achieve the desired results through attraction rather than enforcement or enticement. Joseph Nye, from Harvard University for the first time in 1990 in a book, entitled The Changing Nature of American Power spoke of America's soft power and explained the difference between the soft power and hard military and economic power and the reason that soft power is becoming more & more important than ever. In his book soft power: the means to success in world politics he developed the concept of soft power and mentioned culture, political values and foreign policy as soft power resources. In June 20th, 2010 at the opening session of the Parliamentary of Great Britain in his speech titled "Soft power and public diplomacy in the 21st century" he mentioned: the importance of addresser’s point of view, culture, economic resources, military power & government’s strategy as soft power resources. Also right now most of the governments are strengthening & expanding these resources for the increase of influence in the leading others behavior’s to reach the desired result internationally. The main question of this paper is: Are the governments capable of increasing their soft power internationally by taking the advantage of mentioned resources? Research hypothesis is that states without social cohesion aren’t capable of being attractive for other states and nations and will not be able to impose or extend their soft power. In fact, social cohesion is prerequisite for use of the soft power resources in the global scale. A society which discrimination and inequality, gap of labors and injustice, lack of public assistance and cooperation, distrust to governors, different values and unethical behaviors have domination in it and Comfort, hope, dynamism, human dignity and public satisfaction are disappeared from it, can not be attractive to other nations. The importance and role of social cohesion is high enough to be identified as a source of soft power.

Keywords: soft power resources, social cohesion, international relations

DOI: 10.20472/IAC.2015.017.065

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