Smart Power

The project on Hard Power, Soft Power and Smart Power was an initiative based at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, a cross disciplinary research, teaching and training center focused on international public diplomacy, located at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.

The purpose of this project, which is directed by Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III, is to develop a new approach to national power that allows senior policy makers to better integrate the assets and tools of coercive power such as military action ("hard power"), with the resources of traditional and public diplomacy ("soft power"). The project maintained an active blog as well as an ongoing research program that is developing a glossary of terms, a wiki, bibliographies and briefing documents for policy makers in the U.S. and internationally. Dr. Wilson recently gave a plenary address in the United Kingdom on this topic to the annual Wilton Park Conference on Public Diplomacy and an international colloquium specifically dedicated to the subject of smart power is scheduled for early May. Events for this project included a Mock Congressional Hearing on Smart Power, which was hosted by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and Ernest J. Wilson III on May 14, 2007.