By Irene S. Wu, Ph.D.
When I was a child, my view of foreign countries was formed by my friends. I had classmates from Korea. I learned from their parents not to trust Japanese brands, but later my friends bought Sony Walkmans anyway. I had a friend who was Persian. At Ramadan, she told us she was trying to fast that year, but her parents told her she did not need to on the day we were going to a math competition. Later, I learned Persia was Iran. I had friends from Vietnam. When I grew up, I realized they were refugees. I had teachers from Cuba. Years later I understood they fled Castro’s revolution. I had a teacher from Dresden, East Germany, who told us how her city was terribly bombed in World War II. She must have escaped communism; I wish I had asked her how. My Jewish classmates had to go to school on the weekend to learn Hebrew. I felt solidarity with them, because I also had to go to Chinese school (traditional, not simplified) on Saturdays. Bummer. I did not grow up in Los Angeles or New York City, but near a small city in Tennessee. This is America.
Soft power in international relations is generally defined as a country’s ability to persuade rather than coerce others to its point-of-view. Suppose we think soft power is generated not only by nation-states, but also by ordinary people expressing their interest in foreign countries. Suppose further that our country has soft power when foreigners think of us as “we” rather than as “they.” In effect, soft power relationships exist when others include us as part of their communities, we become friends of their nation. People express interest in foreign countries by engaging in activities like watching foreign movies, traveling, studying and migrating abroad.
The Soft Power Rubric is a guide that brings together relevant, observable and measurable activity that captures a country’s potential scope for soft power influence — the number of cross-border interactions its people have with foreign countries. The Soft Power Rubric can track changes in the volume and direction of interactions people have with foreigners. Three elements are direct people-to-people interactions – emigration, study abroad and traveling abroad; the fourth is a mediated interaction – watching foreign movies.
- Emigration reflects a person’s ultimate integration in a foreign society, permanently moving family and home to another country.
- Study abroad reflects a person’s serious interest and commitment to understanding another society by spending substantial financial resources and formative time in a foreign country.
- Visiting a foreign country reflects a short-term interest in a foreign society.
- Watching a movie expresses an interest or curiosity about another country.
Figure 1 illustrates how each of these elements captures a person’s short or long-term attraction to a foreign country.
Figure 1: Soft Power Rubric: indicators of social integration across borders
| Short-term attraction | Watch a movie | Visit a country | Study Abroad | Emigrate | Long-termattraction |
The Soft Power Rubric measures soft power resources, the potential for a country to have a soft power relationship with another. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of economic power resources, sums the financial value of goods and services produced by an economy. For military power, the number of military bases, aircraft carrier, or personnel are measures of military power resources. More resources likely mean more success, but there is no guarantee. A bigger GDP does not guarantee the upper hand in a trade negotiation. More military bases do not ensure victory in war. However, more resources make success more likely, and the depletion of resources heightens the risk of failure.
The ideas behind the Rubric. The Soft Power Rubric draws on two basic insights from political communication research and applies it to international relations. When investigating the impact of a television program, for example, the key is to understand the audience reaction, less so the producer’s intent. In measuring soft power, rather than how many movies a country produces, it is far more relevant how many foreigners watch those movies.
To abstract and extend this notion, suppose soft power is present when foreigners think of us as we, not they. That is the ultimate form of foreigners’ accepting our point of view. This suggests that a country does not so much have soft power over another country, but rather countries have soft power relationships with each other. Getting to we and with suggests these societies are integrated, in whole or in part.
The second insight from political communications is that one can observe the level of social integration between communities in the direction and volume of interactions among people. For example, before the United States colonies won independence, more mail traveled between the colonies and Great Britain than amongst the colonies. After independence, the balance switched. The states were more integrated with each other, than with London.
Ranking soft power countries, 2000-2020. Drawing on United Nations data, the following table shows the results of the Soft Power Rubric data for a twenty-year span from 2000 to 2019/2020. For each decade, Table 1 shows leaders in terms of attracting immigrants, foreign students, and foreign travelers.
Table 1: Soft power rankings based on United Nations data on immigration, study abroad, and international travel
| Rank | 2000 | Rank | 2010 | Rank | 2019/2020 | ||
| 1 | US | 1 | US | 1 | US | ||
| 2 | France | 2 | France | 2 | France | ||
| 3 | Germany | 3 | UK | 3/4 | Germany | ||
| 4 | UK | 4 | Germany | 3/4 | UK | ||
| 5 | Canada | 5 | Russia | 5 | Spain | ||
| 6 | Italy | 6 | Italy | 6 | Russia | ||
| 7 | Australia | 7 | Canada | 7 | Canada | ||
| 8 | Russia | 8 | Spain | 8 | Turkiye | ||
| 9 | Austria | 9 | Ukraine | 9 | UAE | ||
| 10 | Turkiye | 10 | Australia | 10 | Italy | ||
| Total countries reporting data | 55 | Total countries reporting data | 79 | Total countries reporting data | 99 | ||
Based on the Soft Power Rubric data, the US and France have been consistent soft power leaders with the United Kingdom a close third from the 1960’s to today. Germany arrived and remained in the top ranks from 2000, after re-unification in the 1990s. The strength of the Soft Power Rubric is not so much in pinpointing the exact rank of a country, but rather providing in broad strokes a wider view of how countries are changing.
US soft power in perspective. On the whole, the US hosts a growing number of immigrants, foreign students, and visitors. In terms of students and visitors, however, US growth is outpaced by the even more rapid rate of growth worldwide.
For immigration, the US share has grown from 15% in 1990 to 19% in 2020 of all immigrants in the world. This is a growing share of a growing category. In 1990 there were 153 million immigrants worldwide, in 2020 there were over 280 million. US immigration totals increased from 23 million in 1990 to 51 million in 2020.
For education, the US share declined significantly from 35% in 1990 to 22% in 2020 of all foreign students in the world. The global total number of students enrolled in foreign universities for a degree grew from 1.2 million in 1990 to 6.4 million in 2020 – a five-fold increase. Meanwhile, the number in the US doubled from 475 thousand in 1990 to 957 thousand in 2020.
For visitors, the US share declined from 9% in 1990 to 8% in 2019, as shown in Figure 3. The total number of visitors abroad grew from 430 million in 1990 to 2 billion in 2019, a four-fold increase. The number of foreign visitors to the US increased from 40 million in 1990 to 165 million in 2019.
Not included in Table 1 is the fourth element – movies. Unlike many soft power studies that emphasize movie production, the Soft Power Rubric looks to the audience. UNESCO publishes data on how many tickets people buy to see foreign movies. For example, for a US-produced film, how many tickets were bought by people outside the US. Between 30 to 40 countries reported, from 2007 to 2017. There are three tiers. US production dominates, US produced movies represent around 80% of tickets sold. UK and France are the second tier; Australia, China, Germany, India, and Russia, are in the third tier.
Education has the strongest effect on the home country of foreign students, immigration is next; the effect of travel visits and movies may be more ephemeral, the research suggests. The influence is bilateral or multilateral in many cases – foreign students influence the host country as well. My immigrant classmates and teachers influenced me, and vice versa. The Soft Power Rubric is a reminder of how domestic policy decisions have an impact on the long-term standing and influence of that country in the world. The more we welcome immigrants, foreign students, and foreign visitors, the greater the likelihood their home countries will have a positive view of ours – support and solidarity we may need to rely on in an increasingly turbulent world.
Irene S. Wu teaches at Georgetown University in the Communications, Culture, and Technology program and is a former fellow at the Wilson Center for International Scholars. Her previous books include Forging Trust Communities: How Technology Shapes Politics (Johns Hopkins, 2015) and From Iron Fist to Invisible Hand: the Uneven Path of Telecom Reform in China (Stanford, 2009). For more information on a forthcoming book and other publications on measuring soft power in the international system, see https://www.ireneswu.com/measuring-soft-power.