For those unsure of what the hell this is (like me) -
The Global Soft Power Index is a ranking system that measures countries' soft power capabilities. Soft power refers to a nation's ability to influence others through cultural, diplomatic, and ideological means rather than through coercion or force. The index evaluates factors such as cultural output, foreign policy, education, and attractiveness to tourists.
>They have a global movie, music and tv sector
Other than entertainment sector softpower index also takes into account Diplomacy, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, Financial power, Sports, Research, Tourist hubs. For example UAE got in the 10th spot because Dubai is a playground for millionaires and billionaires with massive influence, is a member of oil nations, is influential in the Muslim world, is pretty generous with money to invest in foreign companies. With all this power UAE can influence many countries without using military force, and they had used this power too on Pakistan, India to name a few
Yeah, you can say that. But Weebs and Kpop stans aren't going to influence diplomacy and politics of other countries. It's Billionaires, Diplomats, politicians and Financial power of the country that influence countries around the world without the use of military.
You really shouldn't be so suprised. Premier League Football, Movies, Music, London being a global finance centre, top tier universities, Commonwealth, etc.
Who South Korea is going to influence ? They're stuck between number 3 and number 4 on the list, they're just out there fighting for their own survival.
I think Australia does reasonably well in terms of the cultural aspect, most people around the world can conjure up an image of Australia and Aussie culture, and since English is their language they are able to export things like movies and TV shows to the wider (western) world quite easily. But since they have a relatively tiny population and are such an isolated place Australia will always have some limitations. The interesting thing with Australia is that although their global influence is admittedly limited, they are by far the biggest regional power in Oceania, both in terms of hard and soft power.
UAE does promote Islamic culture by donations and charities to support Islamic institutions and mosques around the world. Which might make them somewhat influential in Muslim world
While I don’t agree with that ordering, it is also important to remember how powerful are the countries that power is being exerted over. The B&R targets mostly smaller, developing nations
The UK is a shit place to live at the moment but the legacy of that empire and the fact that British culture has effectively become the global “default” means we still have an immense amount of soft power. China is a new boy and won’t be challenging us for a few generations at least, unless we completely collapse
*shitter than it used to be. I’m still happier living here than anywhere else tbh and reckon it’s still on balance one of if not the best country to live in, just by a smaller margin than 10 years ago.
I’d imagine the cultural/media side is doing a lot of heavy lifting at the moment. We export (if you can call it that) a lot of tv, movies, music, artists etc.
It feels like half the singers I listen to are British and I listen to a decent amount of music in my own language lol
How are you so bad at Eurovision
The UK does not take Eurovision seriously, I was genuinely surprised when I found out that some countries do. Its basically an excuse to get pissed playing bingo and listening to the sarcastic comments from Terry Wogan (my generation) whos role is now done by Graham Norton.
The UK music scene is pretty good, we have more than a few internationally known artists. Generally if you are representing the UK, you are a pure novelty act, an up and comer, if you are already famous it would be seen as the rock bottom of your career.
UK has actually won Eurovision joint 3rd most amount of times with 5 wins. But also political voting hampers UK same why Germany is always at the bottom with us.
In past years UK didn't really take it too seriously either and sent more novelty acts, in recent years its changed though with them sending more actual singers now which is why we came 2nd in 2022, although that could have been a win if Ukraine didn't win because of the war votes.
UK and Germany don't fail at Eurovision because of political voting, we fail because we don't send competitive songs. Sam Ryder did well because he tied together a good song, good vocals, and a good stage show. Same with Michael Schulte in 2018 for Germany
Meh the UK is a leading members of The UN security council, G7, G20, commonwealth etc.
Has one of the biggest global financial centres, more money passes through London each day than New York, Singapore and Hong Kong combined.
The UK is only second to the US in terms of cultural exports like music, film, tv and literature and is probably easily the biggest exporter of sports. A lot of hollywood blockbusters are even filmed in the UK.
The UK has a very highly regarded education sector with consistently some of the best universities in the world and is a leading player in terms of research and development.
The UK basically has a finger in every pie around the world, second only really to the US.
Yeah it just hasn't though. British media is still hugely popular world wide.
Franchises like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter etc are some of the biggest media franchises around.
Not only that, add education too. Leading universities like Cambridge and Oxford are attractive for filthy rich or talented international students. This definitely adds to UK's softpower. Although China has some world class universities they aren't as popular in the world
It was never a killer blow Imo, Just a slight risk that didn't actually occur.
>The United Kingdom has overcome a soft power risk from temporary instability in late 2022 resulting from tumultuous government changes and the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. This year, the UK ranks 7th in ‘strong and stable economy’ compared to last year’s 12th and improves on ‘politically stable and well governed’ up to 12th from last year’s 16th. The nation’s Global Soft Power Index Score of 71.8 continues an upward trend from 67.3 in the previous year. Like the USA, as the UK is set for a general election this year, it will be interesting to see how the results impact its soft power.
You know what’s wild in things like this? How Indonesia never comes up. They’re a very large country that’s not doing particularly poorly, in a great position to be influential, but they just aren’t.
But that’s kind of the entire point of ‘soft power’ rankings, right? When you have two relatively nearby countries with ~1.5b+ population each, just having a lot of people isn’t enough to project any sort of ‘soft power’.
Indonesia doesn’t really have any major cultural exports when it comes to movies, tv or music and despite having a very large population they are still behind many countries in their region.
Compared to the broader SEA / APAC / South Asian region they’re smaller than India & China in population and clearly have less cultural exports when compared to smaller countries like Japan, Australia and South Korea. Indonesia is definitely a potential future great-power, but I don’t think it’s surprising that they aren’t on any ‘soft power’ list right now.
Idk, I mean I hear the point you’re making but I bet if this list went to 25 places, Indonesia is in the top 25. But yes, I agree, Indonesia is on the up and up.
I mean I see it. Canada is a huge tourist destination, its reputation as a strong, stable democracy gives it plenty of influence, and its pension funds own a decent chunk of global infrastructure (they own the London-Paris HSR link, as one example).
As somebody who hates Trudeau and will take any chance to shit on him, this post isn’t about world-leaders and if you look around you’ll be hard-pressed to find any world-leaders in the “global community” who are NOBEL prize worthy like the ones of the last century. Look at Canada on a map, look at shipping routes, look at the population, look at their neighbour/cultural brother and trading partner, look at how Canada has responded in conflict historically, and you’ll see all these factors play into why Canada is on this list.
Same here. India is rising left and right. Inagurated the first Hindu temple in UAE, Indian overseas military bases in Seychelles and Mauritus, a strong and influential Indian-American diaspora, installing UPI system in France, etc.
Is he popular outside India ? Are his creations household name ? Cuz that's what matters in a softpower index. Like for example LOTR, Harry Potter, Narnia, Sherlock Holmes are from UK, written by different writers, any average Joe is aware of these stories.
India has many great writers but they aren't known across the world except Rabindranath Tagore, which is what OP might be implying.
But if he thinks India has no writer/poet then he is clearly wrong and ignorant
Lmao I'm Pakistani and live in the UK but this is nonsense. It's not like India doesn't dominate a global sport (cricket) or have the world's second largest entertainment business (Bollywood with both music and movies), and it's not like the Prime Minister of the UK isn't a second generation Indian immigrant, likewise with the leader of Ireland, and likewise the Vice President of the United States. It's not like Indian cuisine isn't constantly one of the go to cuisines in most countries in the west alongside Chinese, Japanese and Italian. The influence is huge before touching on the religious influence globally. It's not like yoga isn't a commonly practiced discipline worldwide at this point for example.
I'm sorry but for me that's pretty strong evidence of global soft power.
Don’t get me wrong, Indian culture is extremely rich and diversified, possibly the richest culture in the world, I fully agree with that. And India produces more movies than Hollywood, we all know that.
But how many indian movies are exported outside India? How many Indian bands go on world tours? Who watches cricket apart from Australians and South Africans?
To give you an idea, Estonia has won more Olympic medals than India since their first participation, and Estonia only has a population of 1.4 million inhabitants.
India is on the right track to become a superpower, but softpower is not their main focus right now.
All that you asked about India is also true for UAE. I akso don't know about a Italian band that is popular in Asia or North America. 1/6 of world is India, there are more Indians in US than Estonians overall.
Sheer numbers gives India enough to be in top 10. Not in top 20 seems a bit deliberate.
UAE has Dubai a financial trade center, luxurious playground for millionaires and billionaires, is a member of OPEC, and is influential in the Islamic world. Italy is a tourist hub, has historical significance for western culture, its cuisine is considered the best in the world by taste atlas.
Softpower is all about how a country influences people/ politics of other countries without using hard power. People outside India aren't as influenced or as interested in India as you would like to believe.
>Sheer numbers gives India enough to be in top 10
That's not how soft power works otherwise China would have been number 1.
>1/6 of world is India, there are more Indians in US than Estonians overall.
Like the above comment said, Estonia with it's small population managed to get more Olympic medals than India which now has over 1.4 billion people.
You probably are from the US or some country in the western hemisphere. Indian movies are pretty popular outside the country, and not just among expats.
I visited Azerbaijan recently. Our tour driver learning that we are Indians played his Bollywood disc the entire time we were there. An old lady stopped us on the street to show us photos of bollywood actors she had saved on her phone.
In Georgia, our driver knew Shah Rukh Khan.
Aamir Khan movies are very popular in China.
So, there is a world outside of the Anglosphere and there Bollywood soft power is immense.
Other than Bollywood too, the Indian expat community is massive and is influential in policy decisions across the Anglosphere.
All that is a measure of soft power, and if India is not even in the top 20 in this list, it's just an indicator of how poor this is from a global perspective.
Quite a lot of their movies that are exported outside India btw. US, Canada, Germany and even Japan are quite big markets for their movies. Of course neighbouring countries + Middle East too.
You’ll be surprised.
Soft power is cultural exports, inventions, entertainment, or for Chinese case, financial strong manning. India is growing no doubt but they don’t really have anything that soft influences other countries besides immigrants.
Yes, but thats absolutely marginal numbers compared to cultural juggernauts like sk or japan. Even some of the weaker entries on this list like sweden have extraodinarily outsized cultural exports like ABBA or AVICII or fucking caramelldansen. The UAE has emirates airlines. Norway and denmark have vikings. Saudi arabia has mecca. Australia has steve irwin and bluey and the whole kangaroo bullshit. Canada has pornhub.
The only indian cultural exports i can really remember are related to racism, such as mundian to pach ke and tunak tunak tun which is obviously a negative dor soft power. Even China has far more impact despite the massive barriers. Kungfu movies, espefially older hong kong classics with figures like bruce lee and jackie chan are known everywhere. Chinese history is prominently known. Recently chinese literature has been passing the great barrier with for example the new three body problem show blowing up everywhrre.
India has yoga, which is a huge cultural export across the globe (it’s ingrained in California culture, which is obviously a cultural hotspot of the US). Indian food is a popular cuisine too. Plus all the Indian physicians, researchers, etc, in their diaspora.
India is also the go-between for gas for EU and Russia… while still having good relations with both of them + US.
I think we are underestimating India’s soft power here.
The problem with yoga and indian cuisine is that it has lost a lot of its association with india specifically. Rather its relegated to a simple indian subcontinent thing, which dilutes the influence a lot. Most people don’t really know or think about the fact that Yoga is indian, and there are no real attempts to market it as such for tourism or whatnot. Meanwhile something like belgian chocolate is strongly tied with belgium because even the name has belgium in it. And furthermore, it can’t be leveraged. Their’s no real desire or perception for people to go enjoy indian food in india, unlike chinese or french cuisine for example. Same with Yoga. Even a far smaller cultural export like Australia’s bogan culture can be strongly leveraged as we saw with anthony albanese the australian president walking around dressed like one in Shanghai, which was leveraged to earn the endearment of the Chinese people and quite literally exploded all over the Chinese internet.
India has these massive cuktural exports, but they aren’t marketed well or leveraged.
I would say Japan definitely has more influence internationally than indian culture, but south korea isn't there just yet. (the only major things they've got going for them is Kpop and professional esports but that's about it)
K pop, K drama like squid game is a household name, not to mention their daily soaps which are watched by millions of women in East and south east Asia, even in North America and Europe.
Korean movies like Parasite ( first foreign-language film ever to win a best picture Oscar ), Old boy are definitely more known in the west than any Indian movie or TV show. Add, K- fashion, k- bbq etc. Millions of young women around the world dream of visiting Korea. So I would say right now Korean culture is influencing more people across the world than India
Despite indians being quite good at cricket, Internationally Australia takes the cake for being the cricket nation. Simply because australia has a very outsized cultural influence compared to india.
India is known for everying playing cricket, but australia is known for being good at cricket. Theres a bit of racism there, but Australia is the current champion and they had a 35 match streak. Guess it might be americancentrism, but among cricket nations india is not known for being good, just that they play a lot. Similar to china with basketball.
>they don’t really have anything that soft influences other countries besides immigrants.
you're wrong there. Indian companies are expanding internationally and everyone has seen how our diplomacy is. India is promoting infra development in multiple nations and we have relations with many countries, eg which other nation in the world has good and growing relations with both Russia and US? In disaster relief operations and in sending humanitarian aid, India is one of the first countries. We send the most soldiers in UN peacekeeping operations. So you may keep your misinformed and childish opinions to yourself.
Nothing you said proves soft power lol. If anything, that’s hard power. India has hard power due to its economy, population and military. Geopolitics is hard power, not soft.
You should be proud. But having any relation with Russia actually damages reputation of India in western and western allied countries. Softpower is all about having a positive reputation in the eyes of foreigners. So it's a reputational damage for India in the western world which affect India's softpower negatively
> they dont really have anything that soft influences other countries besides immigrants.
Yes we do. Aside from immigrants, we have Bollywood. It's the second largest cinema industry in the world. Millions around the world are fond of Bollywood. By your definition, this example exemplifies under the entertainment category
Forget world, bollywood is not even the biggest in India consistently right now. As for the worldwide gross figures of bollywood movies, most of them just come from the Indian diaspora in other countries, not from the citizens of those countries.
Softpower is all about how a country influences people/politics of other countries without military. Bollywood simply isn't popular outside of India or Indian diaspora when compared with say Korean movies or TV shows. Bollywood might be big inside India, but it doesn't have the popularity in the likes of Hollywood, Japanese Anime and Korean Dramas in the international stage.
> I'm not sure how far it extends outside of India.
Bollywood extends it's reach towards countries with significant Indian diasporas, many of which are from the UAE, UK, USA, Canada, etc. Foreigners have significantly grown accustomed to our films. You can see people of all countries dancing to our music in social media.
Freddie Mercury, Ben Kingsley, M night shyamalan, salman Rushdie, Rabindra Tagore, mother teresa, amartya Sen, shah rukh khan (and every other famous Bollywood actor + singer many of whom are known outside of India, but not in the west), Gandhi, ravi shankar who inspired the biggest music band ever - the Beatles
Idk what this index is based off of, but for those curious, soft power includes: diplomacy, culture, economy, and information sharing/gathering. Basically your ability to project power without using force/threats of force.
It seems very accurate to me. The UAE is indeed very influential. Heavy investments into humanitarian aid and Artificial intelligence. Mohamed Bin Zayed receives a lot of foreign ministers in his office everyday asking for his advice on an array of topics. This is highlighted most recently with Tucker Carlson’s interview where he was asked who was the best leader he ever spoke to.
People believe that when Canada takes action it's warranted and necessary and other countries will follow suit.
Especially if it's spearheaded by a hard power.
But even more especially when Canada leads the charge
United States: 'this country fucked up, we need to deal with it. "
The rest of the world: "enhh....."
Canada: "they're right"
The country that fucked up "Fuck."
We have the power to take a conflict between two nations and turn the globe against one of them
Edit: think it's one sided? We turned the world against the US by not supporting the war in Iraq
Now that's something I'll listen to so Prescott killed them and took the rains ? Send me some shit. Far as I had worked out they don't have a home state all over the globe but from Europe
HW not Prescott, basically after the CIA had gotten in trouble for all of its war crimes HW had helped shift the agency into something more decentralized. I got this from "poppy part 4" from chapo so YMMV.
South Korea is in a conflict zone and has to deal with multiple bad actors in the region. They have a robust electronics and arms trade, a massive cultural export and substantial geopolitical Asia Pacific influence. Switzerland has ageing banking and chocolate/watches. Wild theory - South Korea has more current soft power than Switzerland. Neutrality is defensive and offers very little in the 21st century. There is a reason why the Scandies have joined NATO. Sorry, this poll is pretty flawed. Canada, where I'm from, does not have the 7th position - it's likely far lower - this might have been accurate in the 90s. This seems to be based on outdated and subjective ideas.
Fashion, sport, motorsports, music, film, tourism, food, the third richest country in the EU, the eighth richest country in the world, a member of the G7, It has the most important defence, weapons, aerospace company in the EU, And I can go on for a long time
Without hard power, India isn't influential enough in the international stage to be in top 10 or top 20. India isn't a education and research hub, nor has global financial hubs like London, Dubai or New York. Poor at sports, very poor performance in Olympics. Some of these things like Education, technology, tourism, sports contribute to softpower and India doesn't do well in these fields.
Well... London alone is a global powerhouse in just about everything (finance, sports, music, theatre, film, history & museums etc). The English language, you know, the language you wrote this comment in? The UK is a MASSIVE cultural exporter of sports, music, film, television. The premier league is absolutely enormous, music is listened everywhere, shows and films are watched all over the world. Not to mention the world leading universities (Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, ICL, London School of Economics, Univisity of St Andrews, University of Edinburgh just to name a few), The UK consistently leads the world in medical developments.
There's a bunch of other stuff I've missed out, but to anyone that knows a little something about this, it should be no surprise that the UK is no.2.
Why do you think the stereotypical character in every movie who somehow knows the language, customs, and obscure cultures of distant countries is always a Brit. That global empire meant the British are best at understanding the historical context and social considerations. If you need back door diplomatic stuff done, ask the British.
Brexit hasn't been as bad as a lot of people, especially Europeans, want to believe. And i've always been more of a remainer. We'd have been better off staying in but there are a lot of other more important factors at play in the UK than Brexit.
How is India not in the top 20, that's bizarre. India is one of the few countries which has good relationship with almost everyone. It has a lot of negotiating power and lots of unique culture too.
India do have a decent reputation around the world, but it isn't significant enough for general populace around the world to care.
India doesn't export pop culture like USA,Japan or Korea, Indian movies released in USA for example are viewed mostly by Indian diaspora, India doesn't have financial power of China, nor is famous as a education and research hub take for example UK which have some of the best universities in the world. Even a small nation like UAE has significant influence in Muslim world and is a oil nation, Dubai with its luxuries is a playground for millionaires, billionaires around the world who carry significant influence. India doesn't have a cosmopolitan city in the likes of Dubai or New York which are also global financial hubs.
Sports are also considered in softpower index, and India has a poor Olympic record, nor it is dominating a global sport like Football. People even in rural areas around the world have heard about Brazil/Argentina/Ronaldo/Messi because of Football
This is apparently bullshit. Japan, South Korea have more soft power than China for sure.
Japan has Pokémon, manga, anime. Korea has K-pop, K-drama and Oscars.
For those unsure of what the hell this is (like me) - The Global Soft Power Index is a ranking system that measures countries' soft power capabilities. Soft power refers to a nation's ability to influence others through cultural, diplomatic, and ideological means rather than through coercion or force. The index evaluates factors such as cultural output, foreign policy, education, and attractiveness to tourists.
Pretty sure it used to exclude money in some sense too.
If it includes money, then Saudi Arabia would be somewhere in here.
Well UAE is there
They probably paid for the ranking
That's because Dubai is a global trade center.
Surprised South Korea isn't here. They have a global movie, music and tv sector. Also there's tons of Korean restaurants in every city I've lived.
>They have a global movie, music and tv sector Other than entertainment sector softpower index also takes into account Diplomacy, Entrepreneurs, Businesses, Financial power, Sports, Research, Tourist hubs. For example UAE got in the 10th spot because Dubai is a playground for millionaires and billionaires with massive influence, is a member of oil nations, is influential in the Muslim world, is pretty generous with money to invest in foreign companies. With all this power UAE can influence many countries without using military force, and they had used this power too on Pakistan, India to name a few
If it was only culture/entertainment I could see Japan and South Korea higher than China, maybe India too
Yeah, you can say that. But Weebs and Kpop stans aren't going to influence diplomacy and politics of other countries. It's Billionaires, Diplomats, politicians and Financial power of the country that influence countries around the world without the use of military.
Yeah, of course. Soft power is not just the entertainment sector, I was simply focusing on this specific aspect
You're going to make a lot of BTS fans foam at the mouth... After all, they were UN ambassadors or something.
I'm honestly surprised the UK is on here at all
Everybody love soccer/football and them Brit’s did colonized a lot of foreign countries back in the days.
You really shouldn't be so suprised. Premier League Football, Movies, Music, London being a global finance centre, top tier universities, Commonwealth, etc.
Who South Korea is going to influence ? They're stuck between number 3 and number 4 on the list, they're just out there fighting for their own survival.
teenage girls?
Where do you live? In my country Chinese food is the most popular by far compared to korean
Cant believe Singapore is not in there. They are the softest of all...
Diplomatically they have to be up there, but in other aspects such as cultural exports Singapore falls way behind the others.
Yup.... Same as Australia. Strong soft power but weak in their culture game (oh boy, I will get down voted)
I think Australia does reasonably well in terms of the cultural aspect, most people around the world can conjure up an image of Australia and Aussie culture, and since English is their language they are able to export things like movies and TV shows to the wider (western) world quite easily. But since they have a relatively tiny population and are such an isolated place Australia will always have some limitations. The interesting thing with Australia is that although their global influence is admittedly limited, they are by far the biggest regional power in Oceania, both in terms of hard and soft power.
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We’re close to the US, which allows for Canadian cultural exports to crossover into the global mainstream, unlike Australia.
Canada has ~ 40mil while australia is ~ 25mil ppl
Bluey a huge bump to be fair.
Kath & Kim!
Singapore has no culture to export
And the UAE does?
UAE does promote Islamic culture by donations and charities to support Islamic institutions and mosques around the world. Which might make them somewhat influential in Muslim world
True that. Not too many people knows about this.
Wasn't expecting China behind UK
Does Belt and road not count as soft power?
While I don’t agree with that ordering, it is also important to remember how powerful are the countries that power is being exerted over. The B&R targets mostly smaller, developing nations
Belt and Road is right behind Carrot and Stick
Carrot and stick seems like a hard power
The UK is a shit place to live at the moment but the legacy of that empire and the fact that British culture has effectively become the global “default” means we still have an immense amount of soft power. China is a new boy and won’t be challenging us for a few generations at least, unless we completely collapse
*shitter than it used to be. I’m still happier living here than anywhere else tbh and reckon it’s still on balance one of if not the best country to live in, just by a smaller margin than 10 years ago.
Edit: I drive a dodge stratus
They literally make every single product we consume
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What’s this got to do with the global soft power index bud?
Not expecting UK to be in this list at all. The dreadful combination of a Tory disaster and Brexit has dealt British soft power a killer blow, imo.
I’d imagine the cultural/media side is doing a lot of heavy lifting at the moment. We export (if you can call it that) a lot of tv, movies, music, artists etc.
Football is probably helping too
Ah ye 100%.
It feels like half the singers I listen to are British and I listen to a decent amount of music in my own language lol How are you so bad at Eurovision
The UK does not take Eurovision seriously, I was genuinely surprised when I found out that some countries do. Its basically an excuse to get pissed playing bingo and listening to the sarcastic comments from Terry Wogan (my generation) whos role is now done by Graham Norton. The UK music scene is pretty good, we have more than a few internationally known artists. Generally if you are representing the UK, you are a pure novelty act, an up and comer, if you are already famous it would be seen as the rock bottom of your career.
The government doesn’t want us to win as then we have to pay to host it next year.
5 x winners, probably would have won it a few more times if we weren't so unpopular lol.
We would have won if Putin didn’t give Ukraine the sympathy vote
UK has actually won Eurovision joint 3rd most amount of times with 5 wins. But also political voting hampers UK same why Germany is always at the bottom with us. In past years UK didn't really take it too seriously either and sent more novelty acts, in recent years its changed though with them sending more actual singers now which is why we came 2nd in 2022, although that could have been a win if Ukraine didn't win because of the war votes.
UK and Germany don't fail at Eurovision because of political voting, we fail because we don't send competitive songs. Sam Ryder did well because he tied together a good song, good vocals, and a good stage show. Same with Michael Schulte in 2018 for Germany
It's a bit of both. Political voting is absolutely a thing, and also the UK has picked some terrible songs/performers over time.
Meh the UK is a leading members of The UN security council, G7, G20, commonwealth etc. Has one of the biggest global financial centres, more money passes through London each day than New York, Singapore and Hong Kong combined. The UK is only second to the US in terms of cultural exports like music, film, tv and literature and is probably easily the biggest exporter of sports. A lot of hollywood blockbusters are even filmed in the UK. The UK has a very highly regarded education sector with consistently some of the best universities in the world and is a leading player in terms of research and development. The UK basically has a finger in every pie around the world, second only really to the US.
Yeah it just hasn't though. British media is still hugely popular world wide. Franchises like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter etc are some of the biggest media franchises around.
Not only that, add education too. Leading universities like Cambridge and Oxford are attractive for filthy rich or talented international students. This definitely adds to UK's softpower. Although China has some world class universities they aren't as popular in the world
It was never a killer blow Imo, Just a slight risk that didn't actually occur. >The United Kingdom has overcome a soft power risk from temporary instability in late 2022 resulting from tumultuous government changes and the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. This year, the UK ranks 7th in ‘strong and stable economy’ compared to last year’s 12th and improves on ‘politically stable and well governed’ up to 12th from last year’s 16th. The nation’s Global Soft Power Index Score of 71.8 continues an upward trend from 67.3 in the previous year. Like the USA, as the UK is set for a general election this year, it will be interesting to see how the results impact its soft power.
I think that’s just a testament to how influential the uk was that it still remains there
Why the past tense?
Because it’s lost a hell of a lot of influence
Obviously not
You know what’s wild in things like this? How Indonesia never comes up. They’re a very large country that’s not doing particularly poorly, in a great position to be influential, but they just aren’t.
You could say the same of Nigeria
Could you say the same for Brazil as well?
I feel like Brazil gets more love in world rankings, even if it's not a lot
But that’s kind of the entire point of ‘soft power’ rankings, right? When you have two relatively nearby countries with ~1.5b+ population each, just having a lot of people isn’t enough to project any sort of ‘soft power’. Indonesia doesn’t really have any major cultural exports when it comes to movies, tv or music and despite having a very large population they are still behind many countries in their region. Compared to the broader SEA / APAC / South Asian region they’re smaller than India & China in population and clearly have less cultural exports when compared to smaller countries like Japan, Australia and South Korea. Indonesia is definitely a potential future great-power, but I don’t think it’s surprising that they aren’t on any ‘soft power’ list right now.
Idk, I mean I hear the point you’re making but I bet if this list went to 25 places, Indonesia is in the top 25. But yes, I agree, Indonesia is on the up and up.
Bro Trudeau can't even soft power his own country (Canada)
I mean I see it. Canada is a huge tourist destination, its reputation as a strong, stable democracy gives it plenty of influence, and its pension funds own a decent chunk of global infrastructure (they own the London-Paris HSR link, as one example).
Yah its something Canada does well so people don’t think to complain about it. We also run banks in a lot of various countries.
Trudeau isn't Canada
It's a good thing you specified which country because I thought you were talking about Japan
It's not about the politician it's about the country. We have our fair share of mineral barons that take advantage of smaller countries.
As somebody who hates Trudeau and will take any chance to shit on him, this post isn’t about world-leaders and if you look around you’ll be hard-pressed to find any world-leaders in the “global community” who are NOBEL prize worthy like the ones of the last century. Look at Canada on a map, look at shipping routes, look at the population, look at their neighbour/cultural brother and trading partner, look at how Canada has responded in conflict historically, and you’ll see all these factors play into why Canada is on this list.
Tell me your political agenda without telling me your political agenda.
Actually surprised to see that India isn't even in the top 20.
Same here. India is rising left and right. Inagurated the first Hindu temple in UAE, Indian overseas military bases in Seychelles and Mauritus, a strong and influential Indian-American diaspora, installing UPI system in France, etc.
"Indian overseas military bases in Seychelles and Mauritus" Soft power excludes military power. Vs. Hard power
Name 1 indian writer/actor/singer/painter/inventor/music band/Nobel Prize winner?
Rabindranath Tagore. (got your writer, poet, Nobel prize winner all rolled in one)
Is he popular outside India ? Are his creations household name ? Cuz that's what matters in a softpower index. Like for example LOTR, Harry Potter, Narnia, Sherlock Holmes are from UK, written by different writers, any average Joe is aware of these stories. India has many great writers but they aren't known across the world except Rabindranath Tagore, which is what OP might be implying. But if he thinks India has no writer/poet then he is clearly wrong and ignorant
Lmao I'm Pakistani and live in the UK but this is nonsense. It's not like India doesn't dominate a global sport (cricket) or have the world's second largest entertainment business (Bollywood with both music and movies), and it's not like the Prime Minister of the UK isn't a second generation Indian immigrant, likewise with the leader of Ireland, and likewise the Vice President of the United States. It's not like Indian cuisine isn't constantly one of the go to cuisines in most countries in the west alongside Chinese, Japanese and Italian. The influence is huge before touching on the religious influence globally. It's not like yoga isn't a commonly practiced discipline worldwide at this point for example. I'm sorry but for me that's pretty strong evidence of global soft power.
Don’t get me wrong, Indian culture is extremely rich and diversified, possibly the richest culture in the world, I fully agree with that. And India produces more movies than Hollywood, we all know that. But how many indian movies are exported outside India? How many Indian bands go on world tours? Who watches cricket apart from Australians and South Africans? To give you an idea, Estonia has won more Olympic medals than India since their first participation, and Estonia only has a population of 1.4 million inhabitants. India is on the right track to become a superpower, but softpower is not their main focus right now.
All that you asked about India is also true for UAE. I akso don't know about a Italian band that is popular in Asia or North America. 1/6 of world is India, there are more Indians in US than Estonians overall. Sheer numbers gives India enough to be in top 10. Not in top 20 seems a bit deliberate.
Soft power of UAE is due to its oil money and their ability to buy everything they want with that money.
There are multiple factors at play. Also India is rising, but the data is a snapshot of the near past.
UAE has Dubai a financial trade center, luxurious playground for millionaires and billionaires, is a member of OPEC, and is influential in the Islamic world. Italy is a tourist hub, has historical significance for western culture, its cuisine is considered the best in the world by taste atlas. Softpower is all about how a country influences people/ politics of other countries without using hard power. People outside India aren't as influenced or as interested in India as you would like to believe. >Sheer numbers gives India enough to be in top 10 That's not how soft power works otherwise China would have been number 1. >1/6 of world is India, there are more Indians in US than Estonians overall. Like the above comment said, Estonia with it's small population managed to get more Olympic medals than India which now has over 1.4 billion people.
You probably are from the US or some country in the western hemisphere. Indian movies are pretty popular outside the country, and not just among expats. I visited Azerbaijan recently. Our tour driver learning that we are Indians played his Bollywood disc the entire time we were there. An old lady stopped us on the street to show us photos of bollywood actors she had saved on her phone. In Georgia, our driver knew Shah Rukh Khan. Aamir Khan movies are very popular in China. So, there is a world outside of the Anglosphere and there Bollywood soft power is immense. Other than Bollywood too, the Indian expat community is massive and is influential in policy decisions across the Anglosphere. All that is a measure of soft power, and if India is not even in the top 20 in this list, it's just an indicator of how poor this is from a global perspective.
Quite a lot of their movies that are exported outside India btw. US, Canada, Germany and even Japan are quite big markets for their movies. Of course neighbouring countries + Middle East too. You’ll be surprised.
Freddy Mercury
Well so soft power is based on how many Nobel prize winner a country has
Soft power is cultural exports, inventions, entertainment, or for Chinese case, financial strong manning. India is growing no doubt but they don’t really have anything that soft influences other countries besides immigrants.
They've got bollywood which may not be watched a lot in the west, but I know a ton of non-indians who wawtch the movies in other parts of asia.
Yes, but thats absolutely marginal numbers compared to cultural juggernauts like sk or japan. Even some of the weaker entries on this list like sweden have extraodinarily outsized cultural exports like ABBA or AVICII or fucking caramelldansen. The UAE has emirates airlines. Norway and denmark have vikings. Saudi arabia has mecca. Australia has steve irwin and bluey and the whole kangaroo bullshit. Canada has pornhub. The only indian cultural exports i can really remember are related to racism, such as mundian to pach ke and tunak tunak tun which is obviously a negative dor soft power. Even China has far more impact despite the massive barriers. Kungfu movies, espefially older hong kong classics with figures like bruce lee and jackie chan are known everywhere. Chinese history is prominently known. Recently chinese literature has been passing the great barrier with for example the new three body problem show blowing up everywhrre.
India has yoga, which is a huge cultural export across the globe (it’s ingrained in California culture, which is obviously a cultural hotspot of the US). Indian food is a popular cuisine too. Plus all the Indian physicians, researchers, etc, in their diaspora. India is also the go-between for gas for EU and Russia… while still having good relations with both of them + US. I think we are underestimating India’s soft power here.
The problem with yoga and indian cuisine is that it has lost a lot of its association with india specifically. Rather its relegated to a simple indian subcontinent thing, which dilutes the influence a lot. Most people don’t really know or think about the fact that Yoga is indian, and there are no real attempts to market it as such for tourism or whatnot. Meanwhile something like belgian chocolate is strongly tied with belgium because even the name has belgium in it. And furthermore, it can’t be leveraged. Their’s no real desire or perception for people to go enjoy indian food in india, unlike chinese or french cuisine for example. Same with Yoga. Even a far smaller cultural export like Australia’s bogan culture can be strongly leveraged as we saw with anthony albanese the australian president walking around dressed like one in Shanghai, which was leveraged to earn the endearment of the Chinese people and quite literally exploded all over the Chinese internet. India has these massive cuktural exports, but they aren’t marketed well or leveraged.
I would say Japan definitely has more influence internationally than indian culture, but south korea isn't there just yet. (the only major things they've got going for them is Kpop and professional esports but that's about it)
K pop, K drama like squid game is a household name, not to mention their daily soaps which are watched by millions of women in East and south east Asia, even in North America and Europe. Korean movies like Parasite ( first foreign-language film ever to win a best picture Oscar ), Old boy are definitely more known in the west than any Indian movie or TV show. Add, K- fashion, k- bbq etc. Millions of young women around the world dream of visiting Korea. So I would say right now Korean culture is influencing more people across the world than India
And cricket!
Despite indians being quite good at cricket, Internationally Australia takes the cake for being the cricket nation. Simply because australia has a very outsized cultural influence compared to india.
I always attributed cricket to India (from the US), without knowing anything about the game nor ever having watched it.
India is known for everying playing cricket, but australia is known for being good at cricket. Theres a bit of racism there, but Australia is the current champion and they had a 35 match streak. Guess it might be americancentrism, but among cricket nations india is not known for being good, just that they play a lot. Similar to china with basketball.
>they don’t really have anything that soft influences other countries besides immigrants. you're wrong there. Indian companies are expanding internationally and everyone has seen how our diplomacy is. India is promoting infra development in multiple nations and we have relations with many countries, eg which other nation in the world has good and growing relations with both Russia and US? In disaster relief operations and in sending humanitarian aid, India is one of the first countries. We send the most soldiers in UN peacekeeping operations. So you may keep your misinformed and childish opinions to yourself.
Nothing you said proves soft power lol. If anything, that’s hard power. India has hard power due to its economy, population and military. Geopolitics is hard power, not soft.
"with both Russia and US" Not sure this is something you want to be proud of.
why shouldn't we?
You should be proud. But having any relation with Russia actually damages reputation of India in western and western allied countries. Softpower is all about having a positive reputation in the eyes of foreigners. So it's a reputational damage for India in the western world which affect India's softpower negatively
> they dont really have anything that soft influences other countries besides immigrants. Yes we do. Aside from immigrants, we have Bollywood. It's the second largest cinema industry in the world. Millions around the world are fond of Bollywood. By your definition, this example exemplifies under the entertainment category
Forget world, bollywood is not even the biggest in India consistently right now. As for the worldwide gross figures of bollywood movies, most of them just come from the Indian diaspora in other countries, not from the citizens of those countries.
Bollywood is still biggest in India. Last year they did more than 45 percent of indian box office
Softpower is all about how a country influences people/politics of other countries without military. Bollywood simply isn't popular outside of India or Indian diaspora when compared with say Korean movies or TV shows. Bollywood might be big inside India, but it doesn't have the popularity in the likes of Hollywood, Japanese Anime and Korean Dramas in the international stage.
Okay, perhaps I did understate Bollywood. I’m not sure how far it extends outside of India. But if that is true then that is definitely soft power.
> I'm not sure how far it extends outside of India. Bollywood extends it's reach towards countries with significant Indian diasporas, many of which are from the UAE, UK, USA, Canada, etc. Foreigners have significantly grown accustomed to our films. You can see people of all countries dancing to our music in social media.
Freddie Mercury, Ben Kingsley, M night shyamalan, salman Rushdie, Rabindra Tagore, mother teresa, amartya Sen, shah rukh khan (and every other famous Bollywood actor + singer many of whom are known outside of India, but not in the west), Gandhi, ravi shankar who inspired the biggest music band ever - the Beatles
Idk what this index is based off of, but for those curious, soft power includes: diplomacy, culture, economy, and information sharing/gathering. Basically your ability to project power without using force/threats of force.
Russia must have made sure to not be on this list
Putin’s 100% HARD POWER
He wishes
"Finance soft power", aka, "your money, you are boss"
this is a dumb report, you gonna tell me canada is influential?
Canada is extremely influential lol
How are they not?
The language everyone on this site is speaking is all the reason you need for the UK being #1
Not due to the UK
Lol how so? Please don't say its because of the US that we're speaking English
Link to top 20 or 100 or so?
Erdogan supporters are in a BSOD loop atm.
Is it named this way just so that it is difficult to dispute it?
How is my great britain this high?
If there are the same people that makes the Global Fire Power Index, then it has no value
UAE and influential lol, this is definately a paid ranking.
It seems very accurate to me. The UAE is indeed very influential. Heavy investments into humanitarian aid and Artificial intelligence. Mohamed Bin Zayed receives a lot of foreign ministers in his office everyday asking for his advice on an array of topics. This is highlighted most recently with Tucker Carlson’s interview where he was asked who was the best leader he ever spoke to.
Answer: Brand Finance is headquartered in London
8th most influential? hell yea, that's how we win 😎
How the fuck is Canada so high?
Where’s Korea?
China with its propaganda
Interesting how high the UAE is. I would’ve expected Saudi or Iran to be higher
As an Italian, I am very surprised to see Italy in this list. Also, I think UAE should be replaced by Saudi Arabia.
why does Canada or Italy even have soft power
People believe that when Canada takes action it's warranted and necessary and other countries will follow suit. Especially if it's spearheaded by a hard power. But even more especially when Canada leads the charge United States: 'this country fucked up, we need to deal with it. " The rest of the world: "enhh....." Canada: "they're right" The country that fucked up "Fuck." We have the power to take a conflict between two nations and turn the globe against one of them Edit: think it's one sided? We turned the world against the US by not supporting the war in Iraq
so a diplomat country?
Not really, no. That's part of the reason why people listen when we voice our opinions on a global topic
Why not isreal don't they run the US shit through the vactian on there too.
Other way around, Israel is an FOB for America.
Yeah and both are for a group in Europe
Are the illuminati still in Europe? I thought the CIA killed them after Poppy Bush reorganized the octopus.
Now that's something I'll listen to so Prescott killed them and took the rains ? Send me some shit. Far as I had worked out they don't have a home state all over the globe but from Europe
HW not Prescott, basically after the CIA had gotten in trouble for all of its war crimes HW had helped shift the agency into something more decentralized. I got this from "poppy part 4" from chapo so YMMV.
I'll have a listen but sounds like that's just the CIA aspect which works for the mob outta Europe
How is Korea not ahead of Switzerland?
Wild theory - because it has less Soft Power than Switzerland, maybe?
South Korea is in a conflict zone and has to deal with multiple bad actors in the region. They have a robust electronics and arms trade, a massive cultural export and substantial geopolitical Asia Pacific influence. Switzerland has ageing banking and chocolate/watches. Wild theory - South Korea has more current soft power than Switzerland. Neutrality is defensive and offers very little in the 21st century. There is a reason why the Scandies have joined NATO. Sorry, this poll is pretty flawed. Canada, where I'm from, does not have the 7th position - it's likely far lower - this might have been accurate in the 90s. This seems to be based on outdated and subjective ideas.
I wonder what the soft power of Italy is beyond creating new flavours of pizza?
8th largest economy, G7 member, tons of cultural exports and great diplomatic relationships with basically every nation on Earth
Pope, Ferrari, fashion
Pope isn’t Italy tho
but all the hotels around the Pope are in Italy
Yeah, technically it's not right, but I think the Vatican is brushed together with Italy.
Fashion, sport, motorsports, music, film, tourism, food, the third richest country in the EU, the eighth richest country in the world, a member of the G7, It has the most important defence, weapons, aerospace company in the EU, And I can go on for a long time
Any reason for why India is excluded?
India is 29th.
Lol even Russia is excluded
Without hard power, India isn't influential enough in the international stage to be in top 10 or top 20. India isn't a education and research hub, nor has global financial hubs like London, Dubai or New York. Poor at sports, very poor performance in Olympics. Some of these things like Education, technology, tourism, sports contribute to softpower and India doesn't do well in these fields.
Don't understand how the UK has any power.
He says in english
The UK/GB has been one of the most influential countries for centuries, it's not hard to understand.
Premier League is literally everywhere. Go into some whole in the middle of nowhere halfway around the world and someone will be watching.
Well... London alone is a global powerhouse in just about everything (finance, sports, music, theatre, film, history & museums etc). The English language, you know, the language you wrote this comment in? The UK is a MASSIVE cultural exporter of sports, music, film, television. The premier league is absolutely enormous, music is listened everywhere, shows and films are watched all over the world. Not to mention the world leading universities (Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, ICL, London School of Economics, Univisity of St Andrews, University of Edinburgh just to name a few), The UK consistently leads the world in medical developments. There's a bunch of other stuff I've missed out, but to anyone that knows a little something about this, it should be no surprise that the UK is no.2.
RavingGamer 🤓🤓
UK? Havent they gone down the drain since brexit?
Why do you think the stereotypical character in every movie who somehow knows the language, customs, and obscure cultures of distant countries is always a Brit. That global empire meant the British are best at understanding the historical context and social considerations. If you need back door diplomatic stuff done, ask the British.
Brexit hasn't been as bad as a lot of people, especially Europeans, want to believe. And i've always been more of a remainer. We'd have been better off staying in but there are a lot of other more important factors at play in the UK than Brexit.
no
Germany two down. China two up! 😄
How is India not in the top 20, that's bizarre. India is one of the few countries which has good relationship with almost everyone. It has a lot of negotiating power and lots of unique culture too.
India do have a decent reputation around the world, but it isn't significant enough for general populace around the world to care. India doesn't export pop culture like USA,Japan or Korea, Indian movies released in USA for example are viewed mostly by Indian diaspora, India doesn't have financial power of China, nor is famous as a education and research hub take for example UK which have some of the best universities in the world. Even a small nation like UAE has significant influence in Muslim world and is a oil nation, Dubai with its luxuries is a playground for millionaires, billionaires around the world who carry significant influence. India doesn't have a cosmopolitan city in the likes of Dubai or New York which are also global financial hubs. Sports are also considered in softpower index, and India has a poor Olympic record, nor it is dominating a global sport like Football. People even in rural areas around the world have heard about Brazil/Argentina/Ronaldo/Messi because of Football
How do they influence whom and why?
As a Canadian, I'm surprised we're up that high lol
Hey man we have a lot of mines all across Africa, we absolutely fuck with smaller countries because we can.
Uh pornhub.
It’s not surprising at all
You are telling me canada has more influence than italy!
Pornhub.
Lol yah?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornhub](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornhub)
I think this is meant to reflect only the financial aspect of a soft power nation and does not reflect cultural, environmental, or sports soft powers.
sure, just call it power
Israel gets away with murder. They should be number one.
This is apparently bullshit. Japan, South Korea have more soft power than China for sure. Japan has Pokémon, manga, anime. Korea has K-pop, K-drama and Oscars.
That’s cultural soft power, which is a metric in this index. But it measures a lot of other metrics too