Hard Power Vs Soft Power

Soft power is a term originally coined by Joseph Nye in the late 1980s. He mentioned that there are two types of power which are hard power and soft power. Hard power is the ability to influence the behavior of other to get the outcomes one wants by using a coercive approach such as military, force or economic power. (soft power, 2) Soft power, on the other hand, is the ability to “get others to want the outcome what you want by co-opts people rather than coerces them”. (soft power, 5) In other words, soft power is a capacity to achieve one’s certain objective through the power of attraction instead of force or coercion. According to Joseph Nye, soft power is also described as the second face of power because not only hard power play a crucial

Many countries had bad impression about Japan and there was an anti-Japan perception occurred at that time. ( Iwabuchi 419). This means that Japan can no longer uses any kinds of hard power to persuade other countries to do what they want at that time. Therefore, Japanese government then seek to the use of soft power in order to return its dominant and its popularity not only among Asia’s countries but also among western’s countries. Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) start to participate in the development of cultural diplomacy: public diplomacy and soft power, in order to enhance the better understanding of Japan’s position to the foreign countries. (Iwabuchi 419). Public diplomacy can be refer to “a diplomatic strategy to enhance international understanding of Japan’s position on various issues by acting directly on the people of foreign countries via effective publicity”.(419). While, soft power is the technique to attract other people by promoting country’s cultural products instead of using force as aforementioned. Japanese pop culture: manga, anime, cosplay, and music, facilitate the expression of Japanese culture due the advance of media communication. As a consequence, Japanese government use its pop culture as a means of soft power to a great extent as it shown in the evidence in promoting Japan’s pop-culture diplomacy and ,more generally, “Cool Japan”. It is a campaign conducted by government of Japan in 2002 as an expression to reinvent Japanese power in respect of cultural power. By using the word “Cool” Japan, it is government’s aim to eliminate the uncool image of japan such as obsessive deference to authority and rigid gender differentiation. (Leheny 2006, p.222). In other words, Cool Japan’s objectives is to make Japan look trust worthy among foreign countries again.