Soft Power and Public Diplomacy: A Conceptual Assessment

This paper is a critical assessment of two novel concepts on international politics: soft power and public diplomacy. It claims that the rise of both concepts in the current international relations theory and practice could be contextualized in the radical changes taking place in world politics over the recent past decades mainly due to expanding communications technology and stronger quest for public participation in foreign policy-making. The article argues that the states are required to mobilized a variety of resources and instruments of power-soft power- different from the traditional military and economic capacity-hard power. They are also required, under the public pressure both within and beyond their boundaries, to engage in a deliberative exercise -public diplomacy- to defend their national interest and work to create a true perception of their foreign policies