Soft Power, Soft Concepts and Imperial Conceits

Abstract

Soft Power is a ubiquitous but weakly specified concept used in U.S. and Chinese elite international relations discourses. Starting from a critical examination of Joseph Nye’s behaviourist
framework, this article mobilizes Gramscian and Bourdieusian theory to analyse symbolic/ideational
power in world politics. It suggests the need to mobilize social theory more thoroughly to grasp the
mechanisms of power legitimation and argues that Soft Power theory is not so much descriptive
as prescriptive and serves as a performative power discourse that transfigures, dissimulates and
euphemizes relations of force and dominance in world politics.