Soft Power
Soft power refers to a country's ability to influence others through attraction rather than coercion — via culture, values, and the power of example. In the tech industry, it is now considered a reason why states invest heavily in their own AI systems and digital platforms.
A state can influence others in two ways. It can threaten or pay — through military force, tariffs, or money. Or it can appear so attractive that others join in voluntarily. This second form is called soft power. The American political scientist Joseph Nye coined the term in 1990. When young people around the world watch the same shows, listen to the same music, and want to learn the same language, that is soft power in action.
Why states compete for attractiveness
Hard power tools are expensive and generate resistance. Whoever puts military pressure on a country must maintain that pressure continuously. Attractiveness, by contrast, keeps working on its own. It costs the state exercising it very little on an ongoing basis.
In practice, this shows up in votes, alliances, and trade decisions. A country whose education system is seen as a model finds partners more easily. South Korea is a frequently cited example: music, films, and cosmetics have given the country a reputation that its economic size alone cannot explain. Conversely, soft power can also shrink quickly, for instance after political scandals.
An important distinction: soft power is not the same as propaganda. Propaganda visibly comes from the state and is often seen through. Soft power usually arises without a state mandate, for example through film studios, universities, or companies. Precisely for this reason, it is hard to steer.
What attractiveness is made of
Nye names three sources. First, a country’s culture, if others find it appealing. Second, its political values, provided the country itself lives up to them. Third, its foreign policy, if it is seen as fair and credible.
Credibility is decisive. A state that preaches press freedom while jailing journalists at home loses its effect. Soft power, then, cannot simply be bought. It is more of a byproduct of how a country actually functions.
It can only be measured roughly. There are rankings that combine surveys, student numbers, tourism, and media reach. Such figures are estimates, not exact measurements. They show trends, but no one can capture attractiveness in a single metric.
Soft power in the digital age
Today, a large part of this effect runs through technology. Whoever provides the platforms on which the world communicates helps shape which content is visible. The dispute over TikTok in the US and Europe is therefore not purely a data-protection dispute. It is also about the question of which country has influence over the attention of millions of young people.
Artificial intelligence amplifies this further. A language model — a program that formulates texts and answers questions — gives answers shaped by its training data and its rules. When the same few systems are used worldwide, their perspectives play a role everywhere. For this reason, the EU, India, and the Gulf states are promoting their own models in their own languages. In economic news, the term digital sovereignty often appears for this.
Companies, too, practice a kind of soft power. When a company opens up its software so others can use it freely, it wins over developers and standards for itself. Meta has bet on exactly this with its freely available models. Influence then arises not through sales, but through habit.