William Hague's softer side
ResPublica Research Assistant Florinda Pjetri on the Foreign Secretary's new approach to foreign policy in a networked world
‘Power enables an actor to shape his environment so as to reflect his interests, in particular it enables a state to protect its security and prevent, deflect or defeat threats to that society.'
According to this seminal definition by Professor Samuel Huntington, a state's power is its ability to advance its own interests. Typically, we associate this with ‘hard' power: Trident and the armed services, threats and force. According to Professor Joseph Nye, this perspective undervalues ‘soft' power - the ability to get others to want the outcome you want. Soft power co-opts people rather than coerces them, and rests on the ability to shape the preferences of others. In this sense, soft power is the opposite of hard power, which rests on inducements and threats.
Take the United States. President Woodrow Wilson regarded America as a cause and defined its twentieth-century global mission in terms of the promotion of American ideals. The legacy of this approach was the emergence of the United States as the soft superpower of the Twentieth Century, exporting American culture and democracy around the world. On the other hand, President Theodore Roosevelt promoted US internationalism based on national self-interest. Wilson sought to make the world a better place; Roosevelt accepted the world as it was and pursued US interests within it. All modern American Presidents have used Wilsonian rhetoric and Rooseveltian means.
However the tension between these differing approaches has ultimately undermined American soft power globally. Ongoing US interference in foreign countries, coupled with recent economic crises, has reduced the attractiveness of American culture abroad. The invasion of Iraq without UN support has left the US (as well as the UK) with diminished global influence and soft power. In a series of documentaries on soft power, the BBC broadcaster Philip Dodd argues that China has since taken over as the world's soft superpower - citing the impact of the Beijing Olympics and the 282 Confucius Institutes set up in 88 countries aiming for the promotion of Chinese language and culture.
Of course, during the 19th Century, the United Kingdom was the world's military and cultural hegemon. British technology, commerce and language extended throughout its vast Empire. However, by the end of the Second World War, the British economy was dependent on aid from the United States. England was forced to divest itself of the majority of its imperial holdings in the years that followed. Once in the centre of the world's attention, Britain today has emerged as a country which wields soft power through its renowned cultural institutions: Parliamentary democracy, the BBC World Service, the Beatles and the British Council. In fact, when the British Council was formed in the 1930s, Lord Tyrell, one of the council's chairmen, said that it should be seen as assisting practically in our national defence as modern defence consists not only of arms but in promoting understanding.
Against this global and historical backdrop, William Hague recently made his first major speech as Foreign Secretary, promising a new and strategic approach to foreign policy in order to increase British influence in the world. Hague argued that in an era of global information, soft power has become crucial for Britain to achieve its desired outcomes:
‘The networked world requires us to inspire other people with how we live up to our values rather than try to impose them ... While we cannot possibly hope to dominate the global airwaves we must try ever harder to get our messages across. This is a reality which the Obama administration has grasped and articulated most effectively, communicating directly with citizens in the Muslim-majority world.'
Accordingly, Hague set an agenda focused on the UK's global commitments, saying: ‘We will honour our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid from 2013' and ‘We will continue to support the Millennium Development Goals, as a moral obligation and a contribution to our long-term security.'
This sends an important message to the world: the new Government thinks that the UK should pursue its national interests through Wilsonian means – the promotion of values, ideas, democracy, human rights and freedom – rather than through Roosevelt's big stick. Force should not be part of a foreign policy, great countries must lead the world through ideas.