Welcoming Foreigners: The Foundation to Soft Power Influence

• In Event: Power and Democracy

Abstract

If democratic countries are often soft power leaders, not so much because their political system is attractive, but instead because their societies are open and welcoming to outsiders, then rising nativist movements in democracies may in the long run undermine these countries’ soft power influence in the world. The Soft Power Rubric uses observable activity – the number of social interactions people have with foreigners – to identify which countries in the world have the most soft power. This includes immigration, international students, foreign visitors, and movies. Global rankings based on these data align roughly with other rankings based mainly on public opinion data. While democracies top the Soft Power Rubric rankings list, not all democracies rank highly. This suggests arenas usually considered domestic policy such as immigration, education, tourism, and culture, have significant and enduring impact on a country’s standing in the world.

Author

• Irene S. Wu, Georgetown University