Toward a Political Model of Soft Power

Soft power, the idea that states can achieve their goals through attraction rather than coercion, has been applied to various contexts, leading to significant concept creep. Still, it remains appealing as a way to describe state behavior beyond military and economic factors. This article proposes a model that returns to the core of soft power, which involves both a positive affective response (“sentiment”) and an explicit political goal (“politicality”). This model clarifies the concept of soft power and offers a practical framework for both policymakers and scholars. We test our model by analyzing the reception of a South Korean government initiative: the 2021 visit to the UN General Assembly by former president Moon Jae-in and BTS. Sentiment analysis and topic modeling of 116,758 YouTube comments reveal strong positive sentiment but limited engagement with the political message. These findings challenge assumptions about soft power and have implications for foreign policy.