Seems like yesterday but it was five years ago, January 2016, when I wrote about Soft Power.
The data was for 2015 and UK came top followed by Germany and France. The latest data is for 2019 which is just as well, as 2020 will have too much Covid bias. Here is a snakes and ladders snapshot of the changes in ranking from 2016.
The biggest mover is the United States and it’s tempting to attribute it to the Trump presidency. The Soft Power 30 report agrees.
“US soft power continues its year-on-year decline, falling from first place in 2016 to third, fourth, and now fifth place in the 2019 Soft Power 30 index. President Donald Trump’s zero-sum world view and reliance on the hard power of trade tariffs continue to erode its soft power. While no single president can wipe out the wealth of soft power assets that the US has built up over decades, they can still make an impact through rhetoric and policy alone. … Looking beyond the White House the US still holds some unassailable soft power assets, particularly those that operate independently from the federal government. The US continues to dominate the Culture, Digital, and Education sub-indices, and posts strong performances in the Enterprise sub-index. US culture remains the most pervasive globally … ”
The report blames the UK’s decline to second place on Brexit, commenting “the failure to bring about an orderly resolution – one way or the other – to Brexit seems to have caught up with global perceptions of the UK. Comparing year-on-year performance in the polling the UK fell from sixth in 2018 to tenth in 2019. The UK’s greatest soft power strengths lie in Culture and Education … ”
This is a good moment to look at Soft Power’s methodology. They compile thirteen sub-indices in two polling categories, as follows.
Global Culture 5.2%, Luxury Goods 7.6%, Technology Products 8.3%, Cuisine 12%, Liveability 15.3%, Friendliness 20.6%, Foreign Policy 31%.
Culture 12.5%, Digital 13.1%, Education 14.3%, Enterprise 18.7%,, Engagement 20.6%, Government 20.8%.
All somewhat subjective and the methodology is tweaked from year to year. Nevertheless an interesting attempt at making international comparisons between thirty countries. The full reports since 2015 are available on the Soft Power 30 website.
China (27) and Russia (30) just make the cut. Vietnam does not but perhaps will join Singapore, South Korea and Japan this decade. Here is a screenshot I took this week of most of the investment trusts I hold.
