Abstract

Presenting a cartograph of the global confederacy through a discussion of soft power’s role in the world polity, we examined in Part I related methodological issues and cultural and technological underpinnings. An exploration of selected national domains, sometimes comparative, relative to genres of public diplomacy associated with soft power as discussed in Ch. 1 followed in Part II. On occasion reflections stemmed from, or were about, countries (as well as two territories of larger sovereign countries) some of which have largely escaped the attention of essayists of soft power. Contributions arise from many disciplinary contexts in addition to international relations and international communications. This conclusion will reflect on commonalities in the variegated texts. Major themes that appeared, either in explicit discussion or in focus, include influence; the role of technology and networking; the soft (low politics-related) public diplomacy tracks of a broad cultural diplomacy, civic diplomacy and hard (high politics-related) public diplomacy; linguistic aspects of soft power; and normative soft power. A variety of ways in which language, conversation and symbolic interaction might be used in examining soft power have been discussed. A pentad of wide-angled lenses is used below for viewing and discussing contributions. These are the nature of soft power; cultural diplomacy and cultural industry; soft power, influence and hard public diplomacy; governance and civil diplomacy; and national competition and cooperation.