Soft power is the use of attraction and persuasion rather than the use of coercion or force in foreign policy. This volume features writing by Joseph Nye, outlining his views on soft, hard and smart power and offers a critique of the Bush administration's inadequacies.

Introduction / Inderjeet Parmar and Michael Cox -- The future of soft power in US foreign policy / Joseph S. Nye, Jr. -- From hegemony to soft power : implications of a conceptual change / Gerald Zahran and Leonard Ramos -- Soft power and strategy : developing a strategic concept of power / Edward Lock -- The unbearable lightness of soft power / Christopher Layne -- The power game, soft power and the international historian / Till Geiger -- Challenging elite anti-Americanism in the Cold War : American foundations, Kissinger’s Harvard seminar and the Salzburg Seminar in American studies / Inderjeet Parmar -- Technological leadership and American soft power / John Krige -- The military use of soft power -- information campaigns: the challenge of application, their audiences and effects / Angus Taverner -- Public diplomacy and the information war on terror / Philip M. Taylor -- Soft power in an era of US decline / Giles Scott-Smith -- Cheques and balances: the European Union’s soft power strategy / Christopher Hill -- The myth and reality of China’s soft power / Shogo Suzuki -- Responding to my critics and concluding thoughts / Joseph S. Nye, Jr.