Quora Answer: What Contributes to the Soft Power of Relatively Smaller Countries Like the UK & Singapore?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “What contributes to the soft powers of relatively smaller countries like the UK and Singapore?  Are they sustainable in your opinion?”

The term “soft power” was coined by Dr. Joseph Samuel Nye Jr., an American political scientist, in the 1990s.  He further expounded on it, in his book, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics”, published in 2004.  Nye defined it as the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion.  Interestingly, Nye is also the intellectual architect of American neoliberalism.

As per “The Soft Power 30 Report of 2018”, the United Kingdom is top of the list, and Singapore, one of the smallest nations in the world, is at number 21.  The UK has some inherent advantages, and established institutions that help it maintain its position as one of the most culturally influential nations on the world.  And this is despite the debacle of a drawn-out Brexit.  Much of her soft power lies in her cultural influence, her engagement with her former colonies, and in education.

For example, the publicly funded BBC has been instrumental in continuing to spread British influence and cultivate soft power through its cultural and educational engagement.  The BBC World Service still has a substantial global following, and is viewed as far more credible than American news outlets.  There is a flourishing arts, music, film and fashion scene, independent of the British government.  The English Premier League is still the most popular football league in the world.  These are all areas of soft power that the UK excels at.  They are not a “small nation” in the global sense.

Singapore is one of only four Asian countries in the top 30 of the global soft power index, and was just edged into 21^st place by South Korea, riding the K-Pop wave.  Regardless, it is punching way above its weight considering the fact that it is, by far, the smallest nation both in geographic size and population.  However, its footprint is large.  What Singapore lacks in cultural depth because it is a new nation that has not even reached a century, it makes up in innovation, technology, governance, and business model.  It attracts the wealthiest and the most ambitious, and is a major banking and business hub.  Singapore is the Wakanda of the world.  Singapore overcomes its limitations in engagement by the wholesale adoption of social media by the government and private sector, making it the most connected nation in the world.  Its reputation as a safe neutral venue makes it one of the few viable places to hold events such as the historic China-Taiwan summit and the US-North Korea summit.  This means that while it is not particularly visible in the popular consciousness beyond its region, it is well-known and respected in the corridors of power.

Both Singapore and the UK have been consistently ranked on the index since its inception in 2015.  What Singapore does is the result of clever positioning on the global stage.  The immense wealth that it has garnered has also allowed it to finance this successfully.  These are not options available to many small nations of similar population size.

Smaller nations come in two types: developing and poor, or immensely wealthy.  The former have no soft power because they are still grappling with issues a developing nations, such as corruption, conflict, and resource mismanagement.  Then there are nations such as Liechtenstein, Monaco and Luxembourg.  They are wealthy, but not cosmopolitan global cities.  Monaco is a tax haven and the playground of the ultra-wealthy.  Whilst there is some mystique to that, it is not as accessible.