De.Centering Soft Power

Soft power has offered a compelling alternative to coercive power by emphasizing attraction, persuasion, and cultural appeal. Yet its apparent simplicity has obscured profound conceptual tensions. These conceptual weaknesses are compounded by an enduring focus on the state as the primary agent of soft power and a geopolitical inheritance merging from Western imaginary which does not reflect the cultural influence which today flows through the Global South. This collection of papers critically reassesses the concept of soft power by examining how cultural influence is produced, circulated, and contested in contemporary digital and postcolonial contexts. Decentering soft power along three dimensions: conceptually, institutionally, and geopolitically, the contributions trace across diverse empirical contexts how cultural influence is produced, circulated, resisted, and reconfigured through creative labor, heritage work, digital platforms, and counter-narratives, often in tension with official strategies. Together, contributors advance a decentered understanding of cultural power in contemporary digital and global cultural ecosystems. Rather than seeking to rescue or refine soft power as a policy tool, De.Centering Soft Power proposes an alternative architecture that foregrounds instability over coherence, circulation over control, and multiplicity over ownership.