Universalism and uniqueness in contemporary soft power strategies

Abstract

The author analyses the principles and regularities of the competition of soft power strategies of different states as an actual problem of comparative politics. The article addresses the question of determining principles and key elements of competing soft power strategies in the system of international relations, which is of current interest in comparative political science. As a methodological foundation of the analysis is used the H. Hotelling’s law of spatial competition and its political implications, formulated by A. Downs. The author examines two contrasting tendencies: drift of the content and strategies of soft power of different states towards unification and convergence of communicated values and standards or on the contrary increase of ideological and value polarization in the wake of escalating international and global tensions. The principles and rules of spatial competition of H. Hotelling and A. Downs have been applied for typology of national strategies of soft power to evaluate their effectiveness and segmentation of potential audience for maximum impact. It was concluded that, due to the polymodality and civilizational diversity of the world, universalist soft-power projects today can only have limited success, with significant costs and reputational losses, while attracting value-close countries and pushing away the others. This division provides the basis for the international clustering by interests and values

Keywords

• comparative political science
• values
• spatial competition
• soft power
• Hotelling’s law
• political competition