University of Southern California



University of Southern California

PUBD 522

Hard Power, Soft Power and Smart Power

Wednesdays 2-4:50pm, ASC G38

Prof. Mai’a K. Davis Cross mkcross@usc.edu

Office Hours: Office Location: VKC 343

Wednesdays, 10:30am-12:30pm, or by appointment

Course Description

Power is central to the foreign policy of nation states. In international relations, power is defined most basically as when A gets B to do something that B would not otherwise do. But under what circumstances is power most effective? This course explores possible answers to this question through an examination of the various types of power, the actors who have power, and the contexts under which power is exercised.

The instruments of power include a number of important tools, especially when soft power is taken into consideration. Soft power is defined as when A gets B to want what A wants. Smart power is the strategic combination of both hard and soft power. The tools of power include military, trade, leadership, diplomacy, public diplomacy, technology, identity, and ideas. To understand how these tools have been applied, topics in the course will include transnational networks and influence, the technology revolution, the role of nationalism, the power of persuasion, global and regional interdependence, the role of ideas and non-state soft power, economic power, “legitimate” power, and the rise and fall of hard/soft/smart power, among others.

After laying the foundation for the understanding of the strategies, proper use, and desirability of certain forms of power, we will apply these ideas to specific case studies, assess the effectiveness of different forms of power, and deal with some key policy implications. To understand the impact of power, it is important to ask: who is power being directed towards? To what effect? The course will seek to balance conceptual and empirical discussions to enable students to apply theories of power to real world problems of interest.

Course Requirements

Students will be required to read around 100 pages per week in preparation for each class. Readings will be drawn from the three required texts as well as articles and chapters available through the library’s online database or blackboard. Class participation is a crucial part of the course, and will constitute 25% of the overall grade. Attendance is required, and every absence must be excused by the professor in advance. Three or more absences will result in failure of the course.

The main writing assignment is a 20-page research paper (Times New Roman 12pt font, double-spaced). Topics must be approved. The paper must show knowledge of the concepts and debates discussed in the readings as well as demonstrate significant empirical research (beyond the assigned readings) on a specific individual, group, institution (national or international), country, or geographic region. The deadlines associated with the paper are as follows:

• February 24: Paper topics must be approved

• March 3: One page paper proposal due

• April 7: Full and complete draft of paper due

• April 14: Students receive feedback on paper draft

• April 28: Final paper due, brief class presentation of research

In addition to the major research paper, students must turn in three two-page response papers (Times New Roman 12pt font, double-spaced). Discussion/response questions will be distributed in advance of each class meeting, but you do not need to limit yourself to one of these questions. Each paper must advance your own argument. These papers must respond to an issue presented in the readings, and avoid too much summary. Papers are due as a Word email attachment by 10am on the Tuesday before the relevant class. A sign-up sheet for specific dates will be distributed.

Finally, each student will give a 15 minute presentation of a case study in class. This topic may or may not be related to the research paper (or a response paper), and does not necessarily have to coincide with the class topic for that week. Students have the option of presenting with a partner, in which case the presentation must be 25 minutes long. It will be followed by Q&A. The use of PowerPoint and/or handouts, as well as any multi-media, such as video clips, images, or recordings is encouraged. Students will sign up for presentation dates during Week 2.

Grade Breakdown

Research paper 40%

Attendance & Class participation 25%

Three response papers 15%

Presentation 20%

Extra Credit: You may bring in a short news article related to the course and briefly present it at the beginning of class. Instructions: (1) briefly summarize and (2) explain how it is relevant to a theme in the course.

Academic Integrity

USC’s regulations, norms, and standards on academic integrity are strictly enforced in this class. Students are encouraged to review:

• The Trojan Integrity Guide:

• A Guide for Graduate Students:

Book List (available at USC bookstore)

• Joseph S. Nye, The Powers to Lead, Oxford University Press, 2008.

• Joseph S. Nye, Understanding International Conflicts, 7th ed. Longman, 2008.

• Felix Berenskoetter, M.J. Williams, Power in World Politics, Routledge, 2007.

Class Schedule In-Brief

Week 1: January 13 Introduction to the Course

Week 2: January 20 Conceptualizing Power

Part I: Traditional Notions of Power

Week 3: January 27 Military Power

Week 4: February 3 Diplomatic Power

Week 5: February 10 Economic Power & the Impact of Globalization

Week 6: February 17 The Power of Leadership

Part II: “New” Notions of Power

Week 7: February 24 Soft, Smart, and Civilian Power

Week 8: March 3 The Power of Information, Media & Technology

Week 9: March 10 The Power of Public Diplomacy

Week 10: March 24 The Power of Ideas & Identity

March 15-20 Spring Recess

Part III: Non-State Actors & Power

Week 11: March 31 Transnational Networks

Week 12: April 7 Sub-National Networks & Actors (Draft Paper Due)

Week 13: April 14 Supranational, International & Regional Actors

Part IV: Power & Policy-Making

Week 14: April 21 An In-Class Exercise

Week 15: April 28 Assessing Different Forms of Power (Final Paper Due)

Reading Schedule

Note on the readings: All readings can be found either in the required books listed above or on blackboard under “Content.” It is recommended that you take notes on the readings as you go to facilitate understanding, and to have a reference for class discussions.

Week 1: Introduction to the Course

Week 2: Conceptualizing Power

• Students sign up for response paper & presentation dates

• Nye, Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 1-12, 34-43, 60-70.

• David A. Baldwin. (2005) “Power and International Relations,” in Walter Carlsnaes (ed.) Handbook of International Relations, Sage, pp. 177-191.

• Berenskoetter, “Thinking about power,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 1-21.

• Schmidt, “Realist conceptions of power,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 43-62.

• Ringmar, “Empowerment Among Nations: A Sociological Perspective,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 189-203.

• Greg Treverton and Seth Jones. (2005) “Measuring Power: How to Predict Future Balances,” Harvard International Review 27: 54-8.

• Ernest J. Wilson III. (2008) “Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616(1): 110-124.

Recommended:

• Guzzini, “The concept of power: a constructivist analysis,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 34-40.

• Stephen Walt. (1998) “International Relations: One World, Many Theories,” Foreign Policy pp. 29-44.

PART I: Traditional Notions of Power

Week 3: Military Power

• Nye, Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 140-151.

• Robert Art, “The Fungibility of Force,” The Use of Force. (6th edition), edited by Robert Art and Kenneth Waltz, pp. 3-21.

• Greico, “Structural realism and the problem of polarity and war,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 64-81.

• Jack S. Levy. (1998) “The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace,” Annual Review of Political Science 1:139-65.

• Jacqueline Newmyer. (2009) “Oil, Arms, and Influence: The Indirect Strategy Behind Chinese Military Modernization,” Orbis 53(2): 205-219.

• Paul Bracken. (2000) “The Second Nuclear Age,” Foreign Affairs 79(1): 146-156.

• Joseph Joffe. (2007) “Power Failure: Why Force Doesn’t Buy Order,” The American Interest.

Recommended:

• H.R. McMaster. (2008) “Learning from Contemporary Conflicts to Prepare for Future War,” Orbis, 52(4): 564-84.

Week 4: Diplomatic Power

• Juergen Kleiner. (2008) “The Inertia of Diplomacy,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 19(2): 321-349.

• David Spence. (2009) “Taking Stock: 50 Years of European Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 4: 235-259.

• Robert Putnam. (1988) “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42(3). Read excerpt: pp. 427-441.

• Adam Watson. (2004) “Diplomatic Need of New and Less Developed States,” Diplomacy: The Dialogue Between States. Rev. ed., London: Routledge. pp.158–75.

• Chi-Kwan Mark. (2009) “Hostage Diplomacy: Britain, China, and the Politics of Negotiation 1967-9,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 20: 473-493.

Recommended:

• Stephen Keukeleire. (2003) “The European Union as a diplomatic actor: internal, traditional, and structural diplomacy,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 14(3): 31-56.

• Paul Sharp. (1999) “For Diplomacy: Representation and the Study of International Relations,” International Studies Review 1(1): 33-57.

Week 5: Economic Power & the Impact of Globalization

• Helen Milner. (1998) “International Political Economy: Beyond Hegemonic Stability,” Foreign Policy 110: 112-123.

• Nye, “Globalization and Interdependence,” Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 202-226.

• Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye. (2000) “Globalization: What’s New? What’s Not? (And So What?),” Foreign Policy 118: 104-119.

• Wolf Hassdorf, “Contested credibility: the use of symbolic power in British exchange-rate politics,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 141-161.

• David Leonhardt. (2009) “The China Puzzle,” New York Times Magazine, pp. 53-7.

• Rose Gottemoeller, “The Evolution of Sanctions in Practice and Theory,” Survival, 49(4): 99-110.

• “Sanctions: History Lessons,” The Economist, 19 October 2006.

Week 6: The Power of Leadership

• Joseph S. Nye, The Powers to Lead, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Recommended:

• Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Chapter 3, pp. 58-94.

PART II: “New” Notions of Power

Week 7: Soft, Smart, and Civilian Power

• Steven Lukes, “Power and the battle for hearts and minds: on the bluntness of soft power,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 83-97.

• Janice Bially Mattern, “Why ‘soft power’ isn’t so soft: representational force and attraction in world politics,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 98-119.

• Joseph Nye, “Notes for a soft-power research agenda,” in Power in World Politics, pp. 162-172.

• Leslie Gelb. (May/June 2009) “Necessity, Choice, and Common Sense: A Policy for a Bewildering World,” Foreign Affairs.

• Joseph Nye. (2009) “Get Smart: Combining Hard and Soft Power,” Foreign Affairs.

• CSIS Commission on Smart Power, “A Smarter, More Secure America,” Center for Strategic & International Studies. Executive Summary, Forward, and Introduction.

• Ian Manners. (2002) “Normative Power Europe: A Contradiction in Terms?” Journal of Common Market Studies 40(2): 235-258.

• Yanzhong Huang and Sheng Ding. (2006) “Dragon’s Underbelly: An Analysis of China’s Soft Power,” East Asia 23(4): 22-44.

Recommended:

• Suzanne Nossel. (2004) “Smart Power,” Foreign Affairs, pp. 131-141.

• John J. Hamre, Joseph Nye, and Richard Armitage. (2007) “Smart Power,” The American Interest, pp. 34-41.

Week 8: The Power of Information, Media & Technology

• Nye, “Power and the Information Revolution,” Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 231-242.

• Ernest J. Wilson III, “Governance of Global Electronic Networks: The Contrasting Views of Dominant and Nondominant Actors,” in Wilson and Drake (eds) Governing Global Electronic Networks, MIT Press.

• Wesley Clark and Peter Levin. (Nov/Dec 2009) “Securing the Information Highway: How to Enhance the United States’ Electronic Defenses,” Foreign Affairs.

• Andrei Lankov. (Nov/Dec 2009) “Changing North Korea: An Information Campaign Can Beat the Regime,” Foreign Affairs.

• May-Britt Stumbaum. (Oct 2009) “Risky business? The EU, China, and dual-use technology,” Occasional Paper 80, Paris: EU Institute for Security Studies. (excerpt)

• Steven Livingston. (1997) “Clarifying the CNN Effect: An Examination of Media Effects According to Types of Military Intervention,” The Joan Shorenstein Center, Harvard University, Research Paper R-18.

• Ervand Abrahamian. (2003) “The US Media, Huntington, and September 11,” Third World Quarterly 24(3): 529-544.

Recommended:

• Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu. (2006) Who Controls the Internet: illusions of a borderless world, New York: Oxford University Press.

Week 9: The Power of Public Diplomacy

• Michael Holtzman. (2007) “Fixing Public Diplomacy,” The American Interest, 42-46.

• Craig Hayden. (2007) “Arguing Public Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 2: 229-254.

• Pierre Pahlavi. (2007) “Evaluating Public Diplomacy Programmes,” The Hague Journal of Public Diplomacy 2: 255-281.

• Anna Michalski. (2005) “The EU as a Soft Power: the Force of Persuasion,” in Jan Melissen ed., The New Public Diplomacy, Palgrave. pp. 124-142.

• Rainer Schlageter. (2006) “German Public Diplomacy,” at the Present And Future of Public Diplomacy: A European Perspective. Madrid Conference on Public Diplomacy.

• “Public Diplomacy – The German View,” Speech by Dr Albert Spiegel, Head of the Federal Foreign Office Directorate-General for Cultural Relations and Education Policy, at the British Council Staff Conference on 18/19 March 2002.

• Eriko Ishikawa. (2008) “A New Dimension in Japanese Public Diplomacy,” The Tokyo Foundation.

• David Leheny. (2006) “A narrow place to cross swords: soft power and the politics of Japanese popular culture in East Asia,” in P.J. Katzenstein, Takashi Shiraishi (eds.) Beyond Japan: The Dynamics of East Asian Regionalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 211-233.

Recommended:

• Eytan Gilboa (2008). “Searching for a Theory of Public Diplomacy,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616(1): 55-77.

• Peter J. Katzenstein, “Open Regionalism: Cultural Diplomacy and Popular Culture in Europe and Asia,” Prepared for the 2002 American Political Science Association Annual Meeting.

Week 10: The Power of Ideas & Identity

• Nye, “Conflicts in the Middle East,” Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 182-195.

• Thomas Diez and Ian Manners, “Reflecting on normative power Europe” in Power in World Politics, pp. 173-188.

• Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink. (1998) “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” International Organization 52(4): 887-917.

• Barry R. Posen, “Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power,” International Security 18(2) pp. 80-86, 120-124.

• Keck and Sikkink, “Transnational advocacy networks in international politics,” pp. 1-37.

PART III: Non-State Actors & Power

Week 11: Transnational Networks

• Nye, “Transnational Actors,” Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 242-252.

• Peter Haas. (1998) “Do Regimes Matter? Epistemic Communities and Mediterranean Pollution Control,” International Organization 43(3): 377-403.

• Anne-Marie Slaughter (2004). Chapter 1, A New World Order, Princeton University Press, pp. 1-35.

• Miles Kahler. (2009) “Collective Action and Clandestine Networks: The Case of Al Qaeda,” Networked Politics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, pp. 103-124.

Recommended:

• Miles Kahler (ed.) Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009.

Week 12: Sub-National Networks & Actors

• Draft paper due

• Clair Gough and Simon Shackley, “The Respectable Politics of Climate Change: The Epistemic Communities and NGOs,” International Affairs, 2001, 77(2): 329-345.

• Jonathan Shwartz. (2004) “Environmental NGOs in China: Roles and Limits,” Pacific Affairs 77(1): 28-49.

• Johanna Siméant. (2005) “What is going global? The internationalization of French NGOs ‘without borders’,” Review of International Political Economy 12(5): 851-883.

• Sebastian Mallaby. (2004) “Fighting Poverty, Hurting the Poor,” Foreign Policy 144: 50-58.

• Susan Milner. (2007) “Cultural Identities and the European City,” in The European Puzzle, in Marion Demossier (ed.), The European Puzzle, Berghahn. pp. 183-201.

• Joseph Nye. (2001) “Globalization’s Democratic Deficit: How to Make International Institutions more Accountable,” Foreign Affairs 80(4).

• Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss. (2001) “Toward Global Parliament,” Foreign Affairs 80(1).

Recommended:

• Jan Melissen. (2008) “Diplomacy and the City: Local Governments in Contemporary Diplomatic Practice,” Paper presented at the International Studies Association’s Annual Convention, San Francisco, SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA.

Week 13: Supranational, International & Regional Actors

• Nye, “The Rise and Fall of Collective Security,” Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 88-97.

• Nye, “International Law and Organization,” Understanding International Conflicts, pp. 171-182.

• Barnett and Finnemore, Rules for the World: International Organizations in Global Politics. pp. 16-44. (chapter 2)

• Zbigniew Brzezinski (2009). “An Agenda for NATO: Toward a Global Security Web,” Foreign Affairs 88(5).

• Erik Voeten. (2005) “The Political Origins of the UN Security Council's Ability to Legitimize the Use of Force,” International Organization 59(3): 527-557.

• Walzer, “The Politics of Rescue,” in Arguing about War, pp. 67-81.

• Nye, “Intervention, Institutions, and Regional and Ethnic Conflicts” p.163-173.

Part IV: Power & Policy-Making

Week 14: An In-Class Exercise

• TBD

Week 15: Assessing Different Forms of Power

• Final Papers Due

• Student Presentations of Research

Resources for Research

• International Relations Journals: International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, World Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, European Journal of International Relations, Security Studies, Millennium, Review of International Studies, International Studies Review, Journal of Peace Research, Global Governance, Journal of Politics, National Interest, Review of International Political Economy, Survival, Economist, International Affairs, Survival, Third World Quarterly

• Other Recommended Journals: Journal of Democracy, Journal of Common Market Studies, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies

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