Soft power: Power of attraction or confusion?

Despite its popularity soft power remains power of confusion. The paper examines the concept, with a special focus on the nature and sources of soft power. Nye’s notion of soft power is largely ethnocentric and based on the assumption that there is a link between attractiveness and the ability to influence others in international relations. This poses two problems: Firstly, a country has many different actors. Some of them like the attraction and others don’t. Whether the attraction will lead to the ability to influence the policy of the target country depends on which groups in that country find it attractive and how much control they have on policymaking. Secondly, policymaking at the state level is far more complicated than at the personal level; and has different dynamics that emphasise the rational considerations. This leaves little room for emotional elements thus significantly reducing the effect of soft power. Given the nature of soft power being uncontrollable and unpredictable, it would be impossible to wield soft power in any organised and coordinated fashion as Nye suggested. Furthermore, the relationship between two countries is shaped by many complex factors. It is ultimately decided by the geopolitics and strategic interests of nations, in which soft power may play only a limited role. The paper also discusses the link between soft power and nation branding as both concepts are concerned with a nation’s influence on the world stage. Public diplomacy is a subset of nation branding that focuses on the political brand of a nation; whereas nation branding is about how a nation as whole to reshape the international opinions. A successful nation branding campaign will help create a more favourable and lasting image among the international audience thus further enhancing a country’s soft power

Modelling the US Federal Spending Process: Overview and Implications

The object of study is the US Federal budget process - an institutional process of increasing prominence in US and world affairs - which is unique in generating quantitative data for scholarly research. The authors first outline their rigorous, but simple, econometric models of how budget decisions are made, coordinated, and implemented and then trace the implications of their high-inertia view of the process for the US economic cycle. They propound a presidential and Congressional ambition model of current and postwar cyclical economic difficulties, including stagflation, in terms of a macroeconomic model of the US economy in which federal governmental expenditure is endogenous. The chapter concludes with speculation on the disastrous consequences for society of the growth of a sluggishly adaptable bureaucratic process operating in a rapidly changing economic and social environment

Psychometric Properties and Development of the Brief Adolescent Prosocial Perception Scales (BAPPS)

Prosociality represents an important aspect of social functioning in adolescents and is related to the risk of psychological problems. The current paper describes the development and psychometric testing of two new short-form versions of prosocial perceptions named the Brief Adolescent Prosocial Perceptions Scale Self- (BAPPS-S) and Parent-report (BAPPS-P). Parent and child dyads (N = 3,976; 89 \% White; aged 11-17 years) took part in a large cross-sectional survey. The BAPPS were completed alongside other measures of prosociality, social support and emotional and behavioural problems. Exploratory (n = 1,988) and confirmatory (n = 1,988) factor analysis supported a single factor solution that is related to, although separate from, conduct disorders. The scales showed good internal consistency and concurrent validity. Moreover, the BAPPS demonstrated incremental validity by accounting for significant variance in clinical outcome measures over and above that explained by existing measures of prosociality. The study demonstrated that the BAPPS have good initial psychometric properties. Potential clinical uses are discussed, including providing valuable information on young people's strengths and resiliencies that can inform clinical formulation and intervention