«Soft power» in contemporary world politics: theoretical concept operationalization issue

The idea of soft power, proposed in 1990 by Joseph Nye, has grown today into one of the most popular concepts in the theory of international relations. However, despite the obvious growth of interest in terms of content, the soft power concept is still not entirely clear. In recent years, the efforts to operationalize, measure and evaluate national soft power were an important step in turning this concept into a real instrument of international policy. Nevertheless, a number of such studies are not free from methodological limitations which cause doubts about the obtained results. For example, the use of similar content indicators as indexes of different aspects of soft power, as well as their different numbers when describing the same parameters, complicates the comparison the results of soft power measurements (composite indices and sub-indices). A serious problem is the fact that the indicators, used to assess soft power, characterizes (estimates) the different aspects of this concept. This is often the result of excessively narrow interpretations of the "soft power" concept that forms the basis for numerous critical comments and evaluations of measuring soft power. It should be noted that many researchers often don't understand the "results", like the final (desired behavior), but only as intermediate (appeal) effects. This clearly indicates that, in fact, the logic of all measurement projects, based on the assumption, that the degree of possible changes in the preferences of a particular state -recipient, approximately corresponds to the attraction to another state, which is commensurate with the amount of available resources of soft power. And if it so, the estimate of soft-power resources can be a proper assessment of soft power as a result, but with some limitations. Thus, the soft power is converted into the corresponding amount of resources. The value of them is easier to measure. In this article there is the authors' opinion about the detailed structural pattern of the "soft power" concept to clarify and streamline its main components The need and the importance of a more detailed discussion, concerning this problem, according to the authors, based on the understanding that soft power can really enhance national power and strengthen the position of the state on the international arena.

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