Introduction to the Special Issue: The (Ir)relevance of Soft Power in An Evolving Global Order

Abstract

This special issue intends to delve in to the question of whether soft power still matters and is relevant or not in international relations. Soft power as an academic concept and a foreign policy practice was born in a geopolitical era that is qualitatively speaking, vastly different from the current era of geopolitical transformation that the world of international relations finds itself at now. The world is becoming increasingly divided along lines of culture, identity and purpose with the relatively declining Western-centric world (Global North) and the relatively ascending non-Western centric world (Global South). Soft power was conceived at the high-water mark of the Global North’s triumphant phase in the wake of the collapse of the bipolar world of the Cold War.