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Soft Power and Global Standing

In the third year of Donald Trump’s presidency, the US continues to suffer from a negative global image. The world views Chinese and Russian leadership more favorably than that of the US. This seems to be a continuation of the instant, worldwide negative response – even panic – that followed Trump’s victory in 2016. The most negative attitudes were shown among the “Western democracies” while in non-democratic states the US scored much better.
The term “soft power” came into currency in the 1990s but its use has accelerated dramatically in recent years, reflecting the explosion of the digital age. Soft power is defined as the application of persuasive, rather than coercive, techniques to attract positive attention on the international stage and thereby achieve greater room for diplomatic maneuver. Soft power assessments can be used to compare how countries stand in terms of democracy, global image, corruption, life expectancy, and many other criteria. Soft power combined with hard power – i.e., military strength and the ability to coerce – amounts to “smart power,” a metric in which Israel is particularly strong.

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