This ppt describes my dissertation project on the rhetorical dimension of soft power. The presentation includes a primer on soft power; lists the elements of a rhetorical critique; and presents my research objectives, questions, and anticipated outcomes for theory and practice.

1. The Rhetorical Dimension of
Soft Power
DISSERTATION PROJECT PRESENTATION
BY M. KAREN WALKER
Dissertation Advisor:
Dr. James F. Klumpp
Department of Communication

2. Blue Print
 A short primer on soft power
 Rhetorical critique of soft power
 Dissertation research objectives
 Research questions
 Anticipated outcomes
 Dissertation Précis
Department of Communication

3. Explicating Soft Power
 Exigence for a New Theory of State Power: The Unipolar
Moment. Nye publishes Bound to Lead; accompanying
Foreign Policy essay published Autumn 1990
 Changed currency from military force to attraction absent explicit
threat or exchange (i.e., carrots and sticks); a nation-state can shape
others’ preferences in ways that advance the nation-state’s interests
and goal achievement
 Responded to observation that technology, education, economic
growth were becoming as important as geography, population, and
raw materials in assessing a nation-state’s relative strength
 Introduced soft power as a binary, a definition by negation: an
alternative to hard (military) power; non-kinetic
Department of Communication

4. Explicating Soft Power
 Soft power resources
 A nation’s culture and ideology
 Probability of obtaining desired outcomes increases when culture includes
universal values
 Universal values have high potency for attraction; outliers are discouraged
 A nation’s institutions
 Establishment of international norms consistent with its own society: soft
power can operate in a fashion that is asymmetrical and indirect
 Institutions channel others’ activities in preferred directions
 Expanded list of basic resources: includes legitimate policies, a positive
domestic policy model, a successful economy, and a competent military
 Shaped resources: national intelligence services, information agencies,
diplomacy, public diplomacy, and assistance programs
Department of Communication

5. Explicating Soft Power
 Two power shifts are occurring simultaneously
 A power transition among nation-states
 Power diffusion away from all states to non-state actors
 Five trends contribute to the diffusion of power
 Economic interdependence
 Transnational actors
 Nationalism in weak states
 Spread of technology
 Changing political issues (management of the global commons,
mitigation of transnational threats)
Department of Communication

6. Explicating Soft Power
 Soft power and globalization: informational and institutional power
mitigate potentially destabilizing influences
 Metaphor of three-dimensional chess board moves beyond the hard-soft
binary
 Top board: achieve possession goals through state-to-state engagement over
vital interests
 Middle board: achieve possession goals through multi-polar or multi-state
engagement on national interests; interdependence (but not necessarily
harmony)
 Bottom board: advance milieu goals—affecting conditions favorable to
attainment of possession goals—through participatory and purposive diplomatic
engagement, involving new actors who address transnational issues
Possession and milieu goals attributed to Arnold Wolfers, Discord & Collaboration: Essays on International Politics, 1962
Department of Communication

7. Explicating Soft Power
 Soft Power and International Relations Theory: Realism
 Exigence for soft power: trends constraining ways in which states
pursue their national interests
 Mitigate uncertainty
 Calculate and manage costs and benefits of international engagement
 Maintain stable and favorable hierarchies among nation states
 Express sovereignty through national leadership that is both
representative and deliberative
Department of Communication

8. Explicating Soft Power
 Soft Power and International Relations Theory:
Constructivism
 Centrality of notions about the parity and influence of intangible
resources such as values, given structure through institutions, suggests
that soft power is constructivist in its essence
 Universality of a country’s culture and its ability to establish a set of
favorable rules and institutions that govern areas of international
activity are critical sources of power
 Human rights
 Democracy
 Humanitarianism
Department of Communication

9. Rhetorical Critique of Soft Power
 Correct an over-reliance on persuasive rather than
constitutive theories of attraction
 Reduce dissonance between attraction as a process, and co-optation as
the telos of soft power
 Early representations of soft power suggested a linear progression from
command (hard) power to co-optation (attraction)
 More recent representations suggest that command and co-optive power
operate as dialectical forces on forms of persuasion
 Soft power is accrued through performative actions by members of a
transnational rhetorical community, imbued with common purpose, for
whom discourse is constitutive
Department of Communication

10. Rhetorical Critique of Soft Power
 Treat the substances of soft power as dynamic rhetorical
constructions that engender commitments from members of a
community
 The authenticity of ideological consensus matters
 Social agency, especially when exercised through deliberative and
representative processes, is critical to informing and articulating public
opinion
 Rhetorical functions such as invention and memory help animate
substances of soft power in everyday discourse
 Rhetorical leadership converts soft power resources into influence
Department of Communication

11. Rhetorical Critique of Soft Power
 Refine the role of narrative
 Nye includes a discussion of narrative in the Future of Power
 Nye’s writings gesture toward Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm Theory
(stories competing with other stories), but the underlying
understanding of human communication processes that Fisher brings to
the narrative paradigm remain understated
 Make explicit the place of language as a structural element of
soft power
 In The Future of Power Nye discusses structure in the antecedents of
power theory, in a fashion that is not far removed from communication
discipline approaches, e.g., Foucault’s Archeology of Knowledge
 Nonetheless, language remains implicit as a contributing factor in
power structures and networks
Department of Communication

12. Aims of the Dissertation
 Bring rhetorical theory and methods to bear on problems in
foreign affairs and security studies
 Elaborate soft power from a rhetorical perspective
 Generate a ready vocabulary to describe soft power resources and
processes of attraction: e.g., identification, courtship, hierarchy,
transcendence
 Animate soft power’s substances of culture, values, institutions, and
policies – using a case study, illustrate soft power’s rhetorical work
 Recast telos of soft power relations from the co-optive to the
constitutive
 Illustrate how rhetorical processes and strategies generate international
influence from soft power resources
Department of Communication

13. Aims of the Dissertation
 Energize and innovate diplomatic tradecraft
 Operationalize Nye’s definition of “contextual intelligence,” the ability
to understand an evolving environment and capitalize on trends (Future
of Power, p. xvii)
 Create heuristics for foreign affairs officers who are managing bilateral
dialogues and Track II diplomacy initiatives
 Increase appreciation for diplomats’ work within multilateral
institutions
 Suggest additional approaches for managing participatory forms of
diplomatic engagement
 Improve capacity of foreign affairs officers to recognize and anticipate
changes in predominant narratives that frame a given issue or
diplomatic encounter
Department of Communication

14. Illustrating Soft Power’s Rhetorical Force
 Focus on the legislative (or parliamentary) arena,
characterized by open debate and active civil society
advocacy on an issue that affects nation-state relations
 Selection of a case study within this arena allows me to:
 Bring rhetorical-critical methods to bear on deliberative
discourses and commentaries that enliven the substances of soft
power
 Describe the work of soft power in transforming a bilateral
relationship
 Showcase rhetorical strategies for converting the substances of
soft power into national influence
Department of Communication

15. Research Questions
 Working within the discursive archive associated with the
U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear agreement (July 2005 – October
2008), I will employ a combination of narrative and
ideographic analysis techniques to answer the following
questions:
 What rhetorical tracings inform our understanding of the 2008 civilian
nuclear agreement?
 How did proponents’ and opponents’ discourses animate the substances
of soft power, including culture, values, policies, and international
norms? Did a hierarchy of terms of commitment emerge, and is it
stable over time? Which transcendental terms within the joint
repertoire allowed debate to advance?
Department of Communication

16. Research Questions
 Did leading persona emerge in the debate, and if so, what can we learn
from their rhetorical strategies and tactics?
 How do terms of commitment emerge and function in the discourses of
American, Indian, and Diasporan participants? How are specific
ideographs, such as <progress> and <security> interpolated? Do
shared terms create identification or display difference?
 To what extent does the symmetry of rhetorical form assure the
successful courtship between national leaders and, by extension, nation-
states?
 What is the predominant image and character of India, as a nation-
state, that emerges from the discourses analyzed?
 How is the relationship between the U.S. and India transformed
through the discourses analyzed
Department of Communication

17. Anticipated Outcomes
 Theory
 Widen the space for constitutive processes within international
relations theory
 Increase the explanatory force and probative value of soft power theory
 Re-characterize the telos of soft power from the co-optive to the
constitutive
 Expand the types of discursive arenas in which soft power is known to
operate
 Refine the definitional contexts to which we can attribute soft power’s
generation and accrual
 Clarify the taxonomy of soft power, strategic communication, nation-
branding, and public diplomacy
Department of Communication

18. Anticipated Outcomes
 Practice
 Increase understanding of the processes of attraction, as well as how
soft power is sustained, and how soft power becomes influence
 Develop tools for benchmarking a nation’s effectiveness in generating
and using soft power (in addition to public opinion)
 Move foreign policy dialogue from reactive to anticipatory questions
and answers
 Expand the tool kit of diplomatic tradecraft with regard to the analysis
of the communicative environment, the selection of narrative
techniques, and effectiveness in managing narrative processes
Department of Communication

19. Dissertation Précis
 Introduction: Discuss the motivation, vision, coherence, and value of the
project
 Chapter I: Explicate soft power
 Chapter II: Critique soft power using a rhetorical lens
 Rhetorical Enactments: Project the locus of soft power’s rhetorical work
and justify the methodological approach to building an evidence base
 Chapter III: Establish context for U.S.-India civilian nuclear cooperation;
introduce and justify the methodological approach; characterize the collection
of artifacts that compose the discursive archive for analysis
 Chapter IV: Analyze discourse generated in civic and legislative arenas
regarding the agreement
 Meta Analysis and Conclusions
 Chapter V: Describe theoretical gains and make recommendations regarding
the management of US-India soft power relations
Department of Communication

20. Comments and Questions?
M. Karen Walker
Email: m.karen@rhetoricalens.info
Phone: (703) 625-1298
Web site: www.rhetoricalens.info
Department of Communication