Soft Power: The Art of Persuasion

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An Overall View

Joseph  Nye  

“So,  Power”,  as  an  act  of  persuasion,  has  four  principal  dimensions:  

•  Emo>onal  Intelligence  •  Vision  •  Rhetoric  •  Non-­‐verbal  communica>on  

 We  shall  now  briefly  introduce  each  of  the  four  terms  

1.   Emo>onal  Intelligence  has  two  dimensions  –  

 -­‐  Self-­‐awareness:  self-­‐reflec5on  on  our  own  emo5onal      reac5ons  and  our  management  of  these  ...  

 -­‐  Social  awareness:  empathy  and  the  understanding  of    other  people’s  emo5onal  reac5ons  and  the    management  of  these.    

2.   Vision:  Ability  to  form  and  ar5culate  an  inspiring  picture  of  an  idea,  plan,  or  policy  in  our  mind  and  that  of  our  audience  

Examples:  George  Bush  Sr.  and  Ronald  Reagan  

3.  Rhetoric:  It  is  the  art  of  language  to  persuade  others  by  way  of  advoca>ng  our  posi5on.  It  has  three  dimensions:  

•  Ethos* (Personal & Professional Credibility) •  Pathos (Emotional environment) •  Logos (Argumentation)

* As most situations are uncertain, credibility is the most important of the three dimensions

4.  Non-­‐verbal  communica>on:  it  has  three  principal  sub-­‐dimensions:    

•  Body  language  (eyes,  facial  expressions,  gestures,  posture)  

•  Tonality  (voice)  and    •  Physical  Se;ng  (the  hidden  message  such  as  the  non-­‐verbal  signs  of  physical  sePngs  and  images)  

•  Now that we have a broad understanding of what “Soft Power” is, we shall proceed to discuss each of the dimensions in the following four clips.

•  I would like to remind you again that there is a paper on each of the dimensions on my web page.

____________ •  Our next video clip is “Emotional Intelligence and

the Communication Process”.