India should balance capacity and capability

In his article on “India’s Soft Power: Prospects and Limitations,” Christian Wagner examines India’s soft power in several contexts—the U.S.-dominated military context; our contemporary globalized context with empowered nation-states and non-state actors; and the ever important international economic context. By providing several categories for understanding “soft power capacities”—culture, political values, and foreign policy—Wagner highlights India’s immediate advantages in its public diplomacy practices. He does so by underscoring its strong democratic traditions in a post-colonial society, Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy of non-violent engagement and peaceful conflict resolution, its promotion of India as a global technology hub and investment destination, its storied engagement in multilateral diplomacy, and its increasingly popular Bollywood film industry.

He concludes that while positive perceptions of India’s social and political values assist in fostering its soft power, such perceptions are only a stamp of approval and not an acknowledgement of influence. In other words, although India has incredible brand power and potential, it currently lacks the star-appeal of other soft-power giants for a few reasons: (1) India’s values and practice of democracy are not perceived as models for the rest of the world; (2) India favors attracting foreign direct investment to its own land and is very slow in fostering its own political, social, and/or economic investment in other countries that could benefit from its leadership; and (3) Indian society is just beginning to comprehend its diversity and its identity.

While it is evident India boasts a number of strengths in effectively leveraging soft power to project its desired image of a tech-savvy and sexy investment destination, the regional hegemon is missing critical foreign policy considerations and long-term strategies in its public diplomacy vision and practice. These missing long-range considerations will give rise to foreign policy challenges that India will likely face down the road. One limitation to India’s soft power capacity is its emphasis on capacity over hard power capabilities. Moreover, its use and aims of soft power seem to stray from its menu of hard power.

Second, India is the world’s largest democracy—heir to the storied legacy of Gandhi—and yet it has been shockingly slow in seeking to promote its democratic ideals abroad and exert influence. Despite its strategic location bordering Burma (Myanmar), India failed to step forward to strongly support Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratic minority and “missed the Burma bus”—allowing regional competitor China to seize influence instead. All this, despite India’s experience as a strong multilateral player.

Wagner highlights how India specifically uses its soft power—by way of its industry, economy, political and social values—to build up its image rather than to exert its influence on foreign policy. However, these factors are capacity-enablers, not capability promoters. As Wagner notes, a nation’s soft power capability allows it to effectively channel its capacities or resources into instruments or initiatives of foreign policy. As I previously emphasized, India could stand to improve a number of its soft power outlets. However, there is one soft power medium India’s public and private organizations could more easily restructure for everyone’s benefit—Bollywood. Wagner is ambiguous when he describes “Bollywood as a quasi-global dream fabric.” It is not clear what he means by this, but I imagine he is trying to describe Bollywood as a medium that delivers the Indian Dream—the endless opportunities for freedom, innovation, romance, and prosperity found in India. As Wagner notes, Bollywood films compared to “Hollywood…do not reflect or promote a universal model for political or cultural development and should therefore be seen as mere entertainment.” While Bollywood films depict the energy and drama of different classes of Indian society and daily life in a glamorized fashion, its soft power influence seemingly pales in comparison to South Korea’s popular K-Dramas.

South Korean dramas have had an extraordinary influence in shaping the country’s national image around the world—even in North Korea, where South Korean materials are verboten but immensely popular. One North Korean defector told the New York Times how influential the K-Dramas were in shaping her perception of the world outside Pyongyang. Popular Korean dramas often feature the newest technologies on their sets—brand new kitchens, electronic accessories in bathrooms—and the characters in most shows often showcase the most luxurious accessories. Although they are just TV dramas, these South Korean productions have ignited a wave of South Korean popularity throughout Asia and Latin America. And while a TV show may just be a fragment of reality, its soft power capital has the potential to change lives, as evidenced by Ahn Mi Ock’s defector story. If India can mimic and invest in a balance between capacity and capability, it will stand to benefit in the long-term.

Embracing Collaborative Power and Accountability

Following Slaughter and Fisher, can the idea of "Power Over" be reconciled with an ethic of "Power with?" Put another way, can public diplomacy practitioners truly embrace “collaborative power” and still be accountable?

In capitalizing on the use of social media tools in an ever-globalized and interconnected world, can public diplomacy practitioners truly embrace Ali Fisher’s “facilitative approach” and emphasis on the periphery as well as Anne-Marie Slaughter’s “collaborative power” and still be accountable?

As Gary Weaver keenly observed, “When people communicate, they send messages, not meanings” (“The Re-Entry Process,” 1987). The narratives constructed through the use of collaborative power often will take on a life and meaning of their own, resulting in offshoots organizations, visions, and narratives. While the merits of top-down relational power practices will continue to shine and suit certain contexts, as Fisher points out, other contexts may require practitioners to engage in “power with” foreign, third-party partners. In such a scenario these practitioners may stand to gain greater credibility in the eyes of their partners, but they are no longer solely responsible for the outcome that results from embracing collaborative power. Instead, they are part of a much larger phenomenon of collective engagement and empowerment, which shares collective narrative and accountability in influencing the images, meaning, and understanding of messages.

Fisher highlights how, in the practice of public diplomacy, there is a “division between those that seek to exert ‘power over’ a target audience and those that intend to engage or empower a community” (“Looking at the Man in the Mirror,” pg. 273). The former tendency is often associated an organization’s core or top-down approach of exercising influence, while the latter is often practiced on the margins or periphery of a network.

Fisher also points out that the difference between ‘power over’ versus ‘power with’ is rooted in a number of issues, namely: (1) The struggle to align an organization’s messages and actions (contradictions and discrepancies between the two threaten credibility); (2) the dynamics of “state-based author-audience power relationship” and influence of domestic constituents; (3) the pressure to home one’s public diplomacy focus on “self-centered language rather than genuine engagement” with foreign publics; (4) identifying power relationships—whether core or periphery—within a network; and (5) defining and measuring success.

In seeking to articulate the modern “phenomenon…[of] networked, horizontal…and sustained application of collective will and resources” in this age of Twitter and other powerful social media tools, Slaughter seeks to complement Joseph Nye’s theory of relational power by articulating a theory on “collaborative power” and distinguishing it as one categorical form of soft power (The Atlantic, November 30, 2011). As Slaughter points out in her article, Nye defines relational power as the “capacity” to take action and achieve desired outcomes in certain social situations. His argument features three facets of relational power—the ability to command change, control agendas, and shape preferences—all facilitated through a top-down approach.

In contrast, collaborative power emphasizes the strength of open-sourced networking and the influence of “community organization” and empowerment. In Slaughter’s words, “collaborative power” is defined as “the power of many to do together what no one can do alone.” Collaborative power, or the power-with approach has the power to effect positive change through mutually beneficial partnerships--one case illustrating this is developing relationship between the United States and Myanmar's burgeoning democracy. Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton's admiration of, direct engagement, and partnership with democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has certainly empowered and quickened the process of democratization in the Southeast Asian country. With Western support and co-coordination, the Burmese were able to successfully hold parliamentary elections earlier this year.

Fisher and Slaughter make several interesting observations. One key observation is a reminder of how long ago, Karl Deutsch underscored the importance and significance of “community” (288). Sophisticated yet informal community organizing and use of “collaborative power” when well-placed has the potential to achieve tremendous outcomes. We see this when Anne-Marie Slaughter buttresses her argument with the example of Andrew Carvin’s #FreeMona hashtag, which trended worldwide on Twitter soon after its creation and helped to publicize and track the activist’s story—all while likely influencing global perception of the horrors of Mubarak’s administration. A second observation Fisher shares is the need to oscillate between the core-centric approach of the old-fashioned hub-and-spokes style of public diplomacy (and control of information exchange) and the newer peripheral practice or “facilitative approach of niche diplomacy where the benefit comes from helping others to achieve their goals” (281). Finally, he emphasizes the importance in recognizing the “importance and influence” of those on the periphery of communication networks (288). While both the “core and the periphery have vital roles,” it is evident that those who are marginalized, beyond the pale, or in the periphery are likely to first adopt an innovation and become “boundary spanners.”

In other words, the periphery is open soil in what Fisher identifies as the rich “inflow and outflow of knowledge and innovation” can take root and flourish. Throughout history, marginalized individuals have succeeded in gaining ground through collaborative networks of power and community organizing—to use post-colonial examples, Frantz Fanon, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were all those once located on the periphery, beyond the pale.

To ensure their credibility in their embrace of collaborative power, public diplomacy practitioners must look to foster what Fisher terms as genuine dialogue, for which there must be “an element in which both sides are prepared to shift their position” (278). The key to influencing hearts and minds, it seems, lies in empowering publics to be open to change and/or new understandings of identity. In an ideal world, public diplomacy practitioners, boundary spanners, and partners alike would all gladly be held accountable for opening channels of exchange.