It is often said that the ability of the United Kingdom to influence the foreign nations in its own interests has been weakened. However, there are still many ambitions and the UK is one of the most active countries on the international arena (Bell, 2016, p.17). There is not that much reliance on the military force, but the influence is achieved by means of the soft power via the institutions that make the country attractive. The term “soft power” was coined by the American political scientist Joseph Nye in 1990 and basically means “the ability to achieve goals through attraction rather than coercion” (Kuehl, n.d., p.9). The concept became so popular, that the UK Parliament decided to create the Committee on Soft Power and the UK’s Influence in order to investigate how the country was applying soft power in the world and how the use of public funds could be improved (UK Parliament, n.d.).
In 2015 the UK was the leader in soft power according to the Soft Power 30 rating that evaluated the sources of soft power in 6 categories – Digital, Enterprise, Global Engagement, Education, Culture, and Government (McClory, 2015, p.21). Jonathan McClory states that the importance of soft power may attribute to the rise of networks in the global affairs and the digital revolution that contributes to the creation of the interconnected world (McClory, 2015, p.8). This is no wonder that the UK is one of the global leaders in soft power, because it has many powerful institutions that help to promote the country at the international level: British Council, the BBC, and two governmental bodies - the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development - possess sufficient resources. What is more, the independent creative industry that includes arts, cinema, architecture, etc also is an important source of soft power.
For the UK it is important to be at the top in terms of soft power, because the country is a member of all major international organizations including the EU, NATO, G7, UN Security Council, WTO, etc. It seems that the UK is not active at the international arena as much as before, however combining soft power and hard power helps the country to be one of the most influential countries in the world.
For example, in 2012 the UK launched the GREAT campaign that has the following vision: “to inspire the world to think and feel differently about the UK now and in the future, demonstrating that it is the best nation to visit, invest in, trade with and study in” (cited in Exploiting The UK Brand Overseas Report, 2015, p.5). £113.5 million was allocated to five state organizations that promoted the UK overseas. In just three years the program helped to improve perception of the UK and increase trade with the British companies, tourism and number of the foreign students that arrive to the UK. It is expected that the program will bring £1.2 billion in a form of expenditures by businesses, students and tourists (Exploiting the UK Brand Overseas Report, 2015, p.9).
One of the most recent investments into soft power that the UK government has made is transfer of £85 million to the BBC World Service in order to support broadcasting in Russia, the Middle East, and even North Korea. This measure is a part of the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defense and Security Review 2015 (Burell, 2015). It is interesting that Russia is also trying to influence the global audience by funding the Russia Today television network which probably took the BBC World Service as a role model (Pomerantsev & Weiss, 2014, p.10).
In conclusion, soft power has a significant influence especially nowadays when there are several geopolitical conflicts. The developed technologies and available financial resources help the United Kingdom to be one of the global leaders in soft power. There are many states and publicly funded organizations that promote the UK abroad. As the result, the UK not only improved its image, but also was able to establish reliable relations with many countries and attract the business people, the tourists and the students from all over the world. It seems that the UK will continue to apply both hard power and soft power in the short term future, because the geopolitics is once again of great importance.
References
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Burell, I. (23 November 2015). Government invests £85m in BBC World Service in soft
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Kuehl, D. (n.d.) Information Operations: The Hard Reality of Soft Power. Available at:
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McClory, J. (2015). The Soft Power 30. Portland PR limited. Available at:
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