IRENE Special Seminar: "Strategies of influence and soft power: A comparative approach"

16.11.2022

In recent years, many powers have devoted significant resources to setting up influence, image or soft power strategies: media, public diplomacy, development or investment projects, etc. However, the year 2022 has seen the resurgence of war on the European continent. European countries, including neutral ones, have been forced to reassess their vision of great power competition. Similarly, in Asia, rising tensions can be observed, from the Sino-Indian border to Taiwan, the Sea of Japan or the Korean peninsula.

In such a context, marked by the rise of tensions and the return of hard power, which countries still believe in soft power, and to what extent the existing strategies of influence have been successful? Have these concepts evolved over the years, in order to cope with a more uncertain, challenging geopolitical environment?

This online seminar will propose new insights to analyse strategies of soft power and influence in several countries, namely Japan, the United States, China, and France. What assessment can be made of successes and failures? The seminar will focus on concrete examples (media, culture, sport, language, education), and will look at lessons to be learnt in an increasingly tense geopolitical environment.

Monday, November 21, 2022 12:30pm to 3:30pm CET - Online Event

REGISTRATION HERE

Program

Welcome – by Aurélien Colson, Professor of Political Science and Director of Institute for Research and Education on Negotiation at ESSEC Business School.

Introduction on the importance of influence and soft power: Frédéric Charillon (Senior Advisor on Defense and Geopolitics and Professor, ESSEC) and Philippe Le Corre (Senior Research Fellow and Visiting Professor, ESSEC).

Keynote – Nobokatsu Kanehara (Professor in Doshisha University's Department of Political Science and former assistant chief cabinet secretary to Japan’s Prime Minister).

Panel I - Strategies of influence

Nancy Snow (Professor of Communications - Public Diplomacy and Education)
Claude Leblanc (Asia Editor, L’Opinion)
Ryoko Nakano (Professor in the Faculty of Law at Kanazawa University, Japan)

Panel II – National case studies

China: Philippe Le Corre (ESSEC)
France: Frédéric Charillon (ESSEC)
Japan: Kyoko Kuwahara (Research Fellow, JIIA)
USA: Maud Quessard (Senior Research Fellow, IRSEM)
Tomohiko Taniguchi (Professor, Keio University; former Special Adviser to Prime minister Shinzo Abe)
Guibourg Delamotte (Associate Professor at France’s National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations, INALCO)

Concluding remarks

Tomohiko Taniguchi (Professor, Keio University; former Special Adviser to Prime minister Shinzo Abe)
Guibourg Delamotte (Associate Professor at France’s National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations, INALCO)