Like everyone else, I’m enjoying the World Cup. I’m not a fan of soccer/football, and honestly haven’t been watching the game. But I love how excited other people are for the tournament. It’s great seeing people gather for watch parties, and chat about the results afterwards. I’ve loved reading about the great interactions between Americans and international fans and players, like Boston’s love affair with Scottish fans, Norwegians’ Viking Row in New York, and Kansas rolling out the red carpet for the Algerian team.

As others have said, this comes at a great time. Donald Trump turned what should have been a defining historical moment into a nasty, petty, poorly run spectacle. But the World Cup gave us the unity he couldn’t bother with. The Atlantic’sJonathan Lemire noted the importance of this tournament. My priest gave a sermon on the way Americans are acting out of love during this tournament, even if they don’t realize it.

So I’m sure there are think pieces coming about how this will increase US soft power. I hate to be the guy who rains on the parade (actually, I don’t—that’s kind of my thing) but I just wanted to pre-empt those optimistic claims. A feeling of goodwill is not the same as soft power, and under this Administration it is unlikely to translate into anything tangible.

Soft power and me

I should be an evangelist for soft power. My research, especially recently, has been on the cultural and symbolic aspects of power politics (to borrow a phrase from Goddard and Nexon). I wrote two chapters with Gregorio Bettiza on religious soft power in an edited volume. I wrote an article with Erdi Ozturk on Turkish soft power. My latest book was on the ways states try to use religious appeals in their foreign policy. An early chapter I co-wrote with Dan Nexon was on the ways classical realism could benefit from understanding symbolic appeals. And I wrote a sort of review of the concept of soft power in International Studies Perspectives, with thoughts on how best to apply it in scholarly and policy contexts.

But, and maybe this is a personal failing, the more I work on soft power the more frustrated I get with discussions of it. I’d like to see soft power be more accepted in scholarly and policy circles, but that requires better understanding what it is and when it matters. Most works on soft power do not do this. As I discuss in my ISP article, many policy discussions of soft power are either overly generic or discuss anything that’s not military might as soft power. Academic studies tend not to be much better, assuming public opinion or diplomatic outreach are the same as soft power.

That, however, is not what soft power is. Nye defined soft power as getting other states to what what you want. This comes through setting the agenda of international discussions or having an attractive culture, and can be enhanced with public diplomacy and foreign aid. The problem is that many people think one aspect of this definition equals soft power. That is, they think a popular culture or the provision of foreign aid is soft power. Instead, these are things that can translate into soft power.

Some think a popular culture or the provision of foreign aid is soft power. Instead, these are things that can translate into soft power.

In my ISP article, I argue that soft power is one among many types of cultural-symbolic instruments of power (drawing again from Goddard and Nexon). They vary based on whether a state is trying to integrate or fragment international coalitions, and whether the instruments are directed towards a specific state or are having a diffuse effect on international relations. Soft power falls into the integrative-diffuse quadrant. States “build up” symbolic capital through things like popular culture or foreign aid, and then can translate that into soft power by carefully preserving and highlighting that capital.

Why the US will be disappointed when the World Cup ends

So why isn’t goodwill towards the US as a result of the World Cup soft power?

It is true that it is an important building block of soft power. People who traveled here or who read about fans’ experiences may think more highly of the United States. They could then pressure their governments to work more closely with the United States. With a normal administration that may be the case. But Donald Trump is President.

Exercising or deploying soft power requires careful and well-thought out international engagement. Instead, we have a State Department that has been gutted and an foreign policy apparatus that sees Europe as the greatest threat to freedom in the world. The goodwill gained through the World Cup is unlikely to translate into soft power.

I worry “soft power” will remain a popular buzzword with little real policy impact because no one knows exactly how to develop it or measure its effects.

This is similar to discussions about Israel and Eurovision (one of my favorite topics). In the run-up to the recent contest (which Israel almost won through fan votes) the New York Times conducted an investigation into how Israel is trying to use Eurovision as a “soft power tool.” However, as I noted after an earlier Eurovision-Israel controversy, Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the Eurovision results with a combative tone that undermined any goodwill that may have been gained by Israel’s showing. Maybe Israel does see Eurovision as a way to gain soft power, but they’re not going about it in a very effective way.

I’m not trying to be pedantic (I feel like I end a lot of pieces here in this way). This really matters if you care about soft power. Those asserting that the US will gain soft power through international fans’ positive response to the United States will have to deal with Trump possibly insulting world leaders and humiliating the United States at the upcoming NATO summit.

This makes claims about soft power seem hollow, and soft power will continue to be what it always has been: a popular buzzword with little real policy impact because no one knows exactly how to develop it or measure its effects.