The concept of “soft power” was introduced by political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. in his book Bound to Lead (1990a). He developed it in more detail in an article (Nye 1990b), which became famous, as well as in later publications (Nye 2004).

Positing a distinction between “hard” power and an “indirect” or “soft” power in international politics, Nye defined the former as military force or deterrence and the latter as “an indirect way to exercise power” (1990b, 56). Soft power yields a degree of consent by focusing on generating a desire for proximity and imitation among the governmental institutions and populations of foreign countries. In Nye’s words, the essence of soft power is not “getting others [to] do what you want,” but “getting others [to] want what you want” (ibid., italics added). For Nye, a nation’s soft power resides in: one, its culture, if and when it is appealing overseas; two, its political values, if and when they are, up to a point, shared abroad; and three, its foreign policy, if and when it is widely considered to be legitimate and based on moral values (2004, 15). While hard power is a set of actions oriented toward the short term, and with specific objectives in sight, soft power appears as a strategy oriented toward—or a phenomenon to be framed within—the medium or long term, and it is not always crystal clear what its specific goals or outcomes will be.

There is no unanimous agreement on soft power, including its applications to Japan’s cultural diplomacy and the various sectors of the country’s popular entertainment. This entry will therefore define the concept and comment on it critically. The focus is the case of Japanese popular culture as an instrument, catalyst, and/or incubator of soft power.

In studies of soft power as a theory, Nye’s definition has been criticized as a rewording of the notion of diplomacy (Melissen 2005) or as a misleading idea about military and political power (Mattern 2005). His formulations have been reported, often wrongly, as if they suggest that soft power is any nonmilitary initiative (see, for example, the criticisms in Ogura 2006). Moreover, scholars have noticed that soft power has also been often used, by Japanese officials or commentators, as the tool of a convenient, self-laudatory narrative about the effectiveness of Japan’s cultural diplomacy (as discussed in Miller 2011; Leheny 2011).

In the case of Japan, cultural pundit Douglas McGray (2002) suggested in the early 2000s that the growing success of Japanese popular culture in a global setting was contributing to a new image of Japan as “cool.” Published in Foreign Policy, where Nye’s influential article on soft power had been published a decade prior (Nye 1990b), there was wide agreement with McGray’s position, despite it being implicitly limited to the US context. Since the 1970s, many forms of Japanese entertainment, perhaps most notably manga and anime, have been appreciated and recognized as Japanese in many national contexts around the world (Pellitteri 2010; Tavassi 2017).

When Nye first developed the concept of soft power, he was addressing the US government, which was at the time worried that the economic rise of Japan would upset the international geopolitical balance of power (Leheny 2006). Although he originally suggested that only the United States had soft power, Nye responded to the discourse about Japanese cool as follows: In the 1990s, “Japan’s popular culture was still producing potential soft power resources even after its economy slowed down” (2004, 86). In this historical moment, Asō Tarō, who was at the time the minister of cultural affairs and would later become the prime minister of Japan, claimed that to not use the (soft) power of Japanese popular culture “would be a pity” (Asō 2006).

The rise of Japanese popular cultures around the world spurred scholars and commentators to refer to it as “a national resource,” which in turn encouraged the government to introduce a new policy “to increase global demand for Japanese products overseas and to use as a resource of symbolic power” (Daliot-Bul 2009, 248-249). In this framework, soft power is an intangible resource that is created via strategic actions.

Japanese policymakers can be very active in promoting the nation’s culture, values, industrial production, and overall friendliness (Haddad 1980). Governmental institutions act to encourage diplomatic proximity and, in the end, industrial and political cooperation with other countries. A look at the history of Japan’s international relations indicates that strategies of providing Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) are related to soft power (Akaha 2005; Furuoka 2007). The assumption here is that soft power is a manageable property.

The vast majority of the literature on the case of Japan questions whether Japanese popular culture is a resource contributing to soft power, and, if so, to what extent. What rarely arises is doubt about framing soft power as a quantity. Instead of a quantity, one might approach soft power as a strategy, an outcome, or a process, and, as such, as a dimension of the success of a country’s influence abroad, which might have problematic empirical validity. Fortunately, the issue of measurability has been addressed. While Nye defined soft power as “attraction” (2004, 8), political scientists Christopher B. Whitney and David Shambaugh call it “interaction” (2009, 7). Authors of a survey on public opinion to evaluate soft power regionally, Whitney and Shambaugh supply a coherent “Soft Power Index” (ibid.). They also provide a consistent methodology, which shows that soft power—when theoretically defined, strictly circumscribed, and carefully operationalized—can be surveyed and measured.

Referring to the broad literature on the topic, the notion of soft power can be approached in three ways: one, as agency, for example if one argues that Japan deploys soft power strategies centered on its popular culture by organizing initiatives such as the International Manga Award (Otmazgin 2013, 77–87, 175–80);^[1] two, as the outcome of such agency, for example hypothetically positing that an initiative such as the “cute ambassadors” (Miller 2011; White 2015) might have provided Japan with leverage on this or that country’s policies; and three, as a transnational process that may precede, transcend, or be partly unrelated to a government’s will (Nye 2004). In this last approach, the soft power of a nation-state is an immanent reserve, stored in the public opinion of a given foreign national context and in the potential policies of that country.

In line with this reasoning, a useful framing of soft power is that it is a set of strategies/policies by a nation-state’s government meant to enable international interactions with other countries. Its objective is to encourage favorable policies to be made by foreign governments, as well as sentiments of congeniality among foreign populations.

A striking example of soft power in action is Prime Minister Abe Shinzō’s performance at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on August 21, 2016. Staged at the Maracaña Stadium, the ceremony was divided into three parts: a parade of athletes, a presentation of the next Olympics venue, and a Carnival-style finale. Abe appeared in the second part, which was conceived and designed by four Japanese PR professionals.^[2]

At the beginning of Japan’s part, authorities from the Olympics, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, and the governor of Tokyo appeared. After passing on the Olympic flag, the national anthem of Japan was performed and a presentation of a video clip from Japan as the next host country was shown. Abe appears in this video clip, which is titled Warming Up!. The clip features several of Japan’s top athletes and a few celebrities in action, as well as an entertaining display of some key images of Japan: its people, landmarks and cityscapes, arts, heritage, high technology, urban development, and aspects of its currently advertised “national spirit,” which are organization, precision, symmetry, grace, kindness, and hospitality. Mixed in with these images of a “real” Japan are short sequences showing some widely known manga/anime characters: the protagonist of Captain Tsubasa (Kyaputen Tsubasa; 1981–) powerfully kicks a football; the videogame icon Pac-Man; a futuristic cityscape that may remind many of the settings of sci-fi anime such as Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu; 1952–), whose eponymous protagonist will also be one of the mascots for the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020; the beloved icon of cute Hello Kitty; and the blue robot cat Doraemon. Meanwhile, the dynamic actions of human athletes are connected via the passing of a red ball (visually connected to Japan’s flag), which eventually reaches Abe.

Having caught the ball, Abe is a man on a mission. He must reach Rio de Janeiro for the closing ceremony but is stuck in his car in Tokyo. There is no way that he will make it on time—until he thinks of a better way. Putting on a red hat, which is unmistakably that of Mario, an icon of videogames created in Japan and beloved around the world, Abe transforms into the character (with a little help from computer-generated graphics). Now running in the streets of central Tokyo, Abe-Mario teams up with Doraemon, who is from the future and always seems to have a gadget that can do the impossible, in this case creating a way to reach Rio de Janeiro via a “warp pipe,” which is recognizable from Mario’s videogame adventures. Wasting no time, Abe-Mario jumps into the pipe and pops out at the other end. From the video clip, the images move to the stadium’s central stage, where Abe-Mario himself, still in his costume and holding the red ball, emerges from the warp pipe. The moment is brief, because Mario’s costume is designed in a way that Abe appears in it for only half a second. The costume is merely a cover and, by design, falls at his feet, showing him in an elegant suit and tie. It is almost an optical illusion, which successfully strikes a balance between self-irony, political officiality, and farce. Abe’s total appearance lasts for a few seconds, after which a spectacular show of holograms and Japanese dancers, artists, and musicians takes the stage. At the very end, Abe appears again at the center of the stadium, surrounded by Japanese athletes and dancers, and delivers his final message: “See you in Tokyo!”

Closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on August 21, 2016.

Abe’s performance during the ceremony was an exercise of soft power in a very explicit way. It unequivocally displayed all the features of it: Japan’s highest political authority presented his nation while dressed as a universal icon of global popular culture, who is also a Japanese character. In a symbolic scene, Japan’s territory (Tokyo and its landmarks), Japan’s people (its athletes, populace, and politicians), and Japan’s popular culture (Mario) became one. This triumphant display might indicate renewed, choreographic, and brilliant strategies of soft power. It is, however, so far quite isolated and does not erase previous critiques.

Among the policies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) are those related to ODA, some of which also involve Japanese popular culture, such as manga, which is perceived as contributing to a positive image of the country. For instance, in 2006, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were deployed to Iraq in a humanitarian capacity, specifically to supply water. The water trucks exhibited large images of the manga/anime series Captain Tsubasa, much loved in the Middle East as Captain Majed (Asō 2006; Okazaki 2006). This strategy can be interpreted as an attempt to generate soft power in humanitarian efforts, as well as to exercise it through the deployment of a positive image from Japanese and Iraqi popular culture, which shares Captain Tsubasa/Majed. Nevertheless, it seems that official moves have had little impact on the spread of Japanese popular culture, which some suggest spreads without help from the government, sometimes even against the law (Leonard 2005). While scholars are finding evidence that government action to boost a country’s content industries in a transnational setting can be successful if thoroughly designed and coordinated, as in the case of South Korea (Jin and Otmazgin 2014), there are still many questions about action from above (Press-Barnathan 2012).

In the case of Japan, soft power also intersects with the legacy of the nation’s colonial and wartime past. Current government action does not only have the intent of facilitating the success of the domestic content industries but also of increasing admiration for the country and, in relations with East Asian neighbors, reducing resentment for past actions (Vyas 2008; Otmazgin 2013). This impacts the perception of Japanese popular culture in several East Asian countries. Sharp assessments of the perceived shortcomings of Japan’s soft power are quite common in the literature, for example: “Japan’s pursuit of ‘soft power’ and a good international image is undermined by its failure to overcome its burden of history” (Lam 2007, 349).

Another criticism is that the Japanese government deals with soft power in mono-dimensional ways. To begin, it appears to be advertising only the most profitable of the Japanese content industries, whereas public-private partnerships devoted to the promotion of Japanese culture—for example, the Japan Foundation—have always done their best to support national cultural forms in all their diversity (ibid., 355–56; see also Ogoura 2006). The underlying narrative of not only the MOFA but even some Japanese critics is to flatten Japanese culture into a homogeneous form, which contributes to a fictitious image of Japan’s national culture as a continuous and harmonious whole, starting from ancient times and reaching the present (White 2015, 103–4; see also Berndt 2008, 2016).

To conclude, there are differences between the popularity of a nation’s culture in a foreign country and the effect of that popularity on bilateral policies. Two examples of this, one from Asia and one from Europe are: In Asia, Japanese entertainment is very popular among Chinese youth, but this does not correspond to sentiments of proximity toward the country of Japan in terms of political and broadly cultural views (Vyas 2008; Whitney and Shambaugh 2009). In Europe, Italy is a country where, from the late 1970s, the presence of anime and manga has been most striking (Pellitteri 2014). However, while these forms gained acceptance among Italian youth, this did not correspond to detectable changes in the policies of the government toward Japan, or even in often stereotypical notions about Japan in the Italian public. Despite the fact that manga and anime were, since at least 1978, widely advertised as coming from Japan in Italian mainstream media and, because of that, unanimously recognized as Japanese by the audience—a fact that suggests the theory of manga and anime as “stateless” (mukokuseki) cannot be taken for granted (Iwabuchi 2002)—this has not influenced the government in ways that the discourse on soft power might suggest. There are of course hardcore fans of Japanese popular culture in Asia and Europe, which seems to suggest that pop culture forms, when they “hit” target audiences that do not influence the policies of a nation, do not contribute to soft power leverage. This further suggests problems with associating soft power with Japanese influence overseas. To be effective, soft power should primarily target policy-making interlocutors, not subcultural audiences.

1. See also MOFA 2014, “Japan International Manga Award,” https://www.manga-award.mofa.go.jp/index_e.html. ↑
2. “Sasaki Hiroshi, Kan’no Kaoru, Shiina Ringo, Mikiko ga taggu wo kunda, Rio gorin Tōkyō pafōmansu,” Advertimes, August 22, 2016, https://www.advertimes.com/20160822/article232304. ↑

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