OADI 2280 - The Weaponization of Soft Power; how can Democracies face a Strategic Challenge?

***UPDATED for 2022/23***

This course aims to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the use and – increasingly – abuse by several authoritarian states of the tools originally meant to project soft power. That concept has been defined by US scholar Joseph Nye as the appeal of a country through the values it embodies, its culture and its foreign policy.

Authoritarian states have become aware of the benefits they could draw from soft power tools that provide useful conduits for disinformation, propaganda, and manipulation, all powered by the multiplier effect of social media. Cultural diplomacy, human exchanges, students, academic and scientific cooperation schemes have also become vehicles for entryism into other states' institutions. And economic and business interdependence has been transformed into a platform for influence. No international law regulates the use of soft power tools. A huge arena is thus available for state actors, including lawfare, the rewriting of the rules and standards, as well as the export of packaged “digital authoritarianism”. While many states resort to action in that arena, four powers stand out – Russia, China, Turkey and Iran – defining a new set of practices, the “weaponization of soft power”.

After a detailed description of the many ways in which those policies are conducted, the course will focus on the different strategies that underpin them, the narratives they aim at spinning, and the defenses available to democracies.

Learning Outcomes

- knowledge on the use and potential misuse of soft power in foreign policies of states;

- based on a thorough examination of the existing practices, analysis of the objectives and strategies of four state actors (China, Russia, Turkey and Iran) and devising of defensive counter-measures;

- understanding of the conduct of foreign policies in a field loosely defined by the limbo between soft and hard power.

Professional Skills

- Communicating effectively and adequately orally, through presentations and participation in the classroom

- Communicating effectively and adequately in writing

- Collecting and analysing information to understand a complex issue and to make it accessible in a clear way to an audience

- Looking at problems or situations from an original perspective

Pierre BUHLER

Séminaire

English

- In Class Presence: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester

- Online learning activities: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester

- Reading and Preparation for Class: 2,5 hours a week / 30 hours a semester

- Research and Preparation for Group Work: 2 hours a week / 24 hours a semester

- Research and Writing for Individual Assessments: 3 hours a week / 48 hours a semester

Spring 2022-2023

- participation throughout the follow up discussions as well as during debates with guest speakers (10 %);

- an oral presentation or participation in the final debate of session 12 (35 %);

- drafting of either an article for a fictive journal or a policy brief (55%). The choice is given between keeping it an individual work or a shared one, among 2 or 3 students.

The details of the expected outcome (format, length, statute of footnotes and bibliography…) will be given during session 1.

Per email and through weekly office hours for face-to-face conversations with students.