A General Analysis On Soft Power's Role In The Process Of National Rise

As the cold war came to its end and the globalization increasingly sped up, the interdependency among countries deepened. The national power in its traditional concept has been changing. One should not define the national power only in terms of military power and conquering. The soft power factors——a nation's culture, education, mass media, values, capability of contriving and regulating——are becoming the new resources of national power. Therefore, both the hard power (economy and military power) and the soft power (cultural attraction and the capability of contriving and regulating) are the necessary components of national power. So, a nation's rise is the rise of its comprehensive power which contains both soft power and the hard one.Because the notion of soft power is not consented, this thesis firstly takes a general review on soft power theory, including its background, development, meaning, components and characteristics. In the following, the thesis mainly focuses on the analysis of relations between soft power and hard power. They are complementary and can be mutually transformed but different in theory resources.The realists in international relations think that the rise of great powers will impact the current stability of international system and even cause the so-called"hegemonic war"between the rising nations and the status quo nations. However, such realistic ideas have obvious defects in the era of globalization. As the rise of international sociology and cultural theory in the post-cold war era, the constructivism theory is emerging. The constructivism preferably makes the studies on international relations through international norms, culture and identity. Such a kind of study breaks the presumptions called the state of anarchy in the international community and gives a new angle of rethinking and restudying the national rise and power changes. Therefore, the thesis mainly focuses on the realistic theory about national rise and the edification of constructivism, with criticizing and reconstructing the traditional theories about national rise. Just due to the limitedness of relying on the hard power for fulfilling national rise, the functions of soft power in national rise is becoming more and more important. The thesis systematically analyses the functions of several main soft power components in national rise.This thesis has three parts: the preface, text and conclusion. There are also three branches in the text part. The first branch mainly generalizes the meaning, components and characteristics of soft power. The second branch covers the realistic theories about national rise and the edifications of constructivism, discussing the approach of realistic theories and its defects and introducing the basic theories about constructivism and its edifications towards the studies of national rise. The third one takes the soft power's functions in national rise as its title, analyzing the functions of seven factors of soft power in national rise in detail. Apparently, this is the theme of the whole thesis.