Soft power belongs to younger concepts in international relations theory and is mostly mentioned in correlation with specific states. But in today's world it is possible to study it in connection with other membersof international system. This master thesis deals with an analysis of the soft power of the European Union (EU) as a whole, which is one of the significant and visible players in the world. Except theoretical definition of the notion the thesis introduces analysis of the essential sources and tools of the EU's soft power. The last part of the thesis is dedicated to observationof current position of the European Union in international relations with respectto soft power. The aim of the thesis is to identify key sources and tools of the EU's soft power, evaluate it and to think about whether the EU as a community of countries can be compared to some particular countries from the view of reputation measured by soft power.

This paper examines the role of the Chinese cultural production in political economy, putting some emphasis to the market aspects of culture as well as the political outcomes. The hypothesis of the paper is based on the assumption that culture is one of the main resources of soft power. Therefore, the spread of the well-favored culture through cultural trade should create an attractive image of a country represented by that culture. A specific case study of China’s cultural imports into Lithuania is provided to serve as an example to reveal this relation of politics-economics-culture and to prove that cultural interaction can influence opinion about the whole cultural group thus increasing its power. This qualitative research was conducted first of all reviewing theoretical literature on the relevant topics of political economy, culture and soft power (Chapter 2). Then a number of a recent primary data from the United Nations reports as well as the other academic and media sources was analyzed in order to establish the role of China’s cultural production in the world market, which clearly demonstrates that China is already proving the success of its cultural industries becoming the largest producer and exporter of cultural products in the world (Chapter 3). Finally, the case study, which included analysis of primary imports data, review of the Chinese services and activities in Lithuania and 25 in-depth semi-structural interviews, proved that China’s cultural products imports into Lithuania is a subsistent part of the trade market and is constantly growing since 2003 along with the cultural services proliferation. The interviews presented some insightful opinions about Chinese cultural production, Chinese culture and China in general (Chapter 4).

Despite its critical role in counselor training, empirical research on clinical supervision is generally limited (Bernard & Goodyear, 2003; Ellis & Ladany, 2007). This is also applied to an area of power dynamics in supervision. This study tested the relationship between the two aspects of power dynamics; namely, supervisors' power bases (i.e., sources of influencing others) and supervisory styles (i.e., typical ways of shaping supervision), based on the system's approach to supervision model (Holloway, 1995). This research was a correlational design. Students in masters' and doctoral counseling programs were asked to respond to an online questionnaire packet via Survey MonkeyTM. Of those who responded, 492 students who took supervision with professor or doctoral student supervisors constituted the sample. Varied numbers of participants were used for each analysis after missing or extreme data were deleted. Supervisors' usage of power bases and supervisory styles were measured by the adopted version of Interpersonal Power Inventory (Raven, Schwarzwald, & Koslowsky, 1998) and Supervisory Style Inventory (SSI; Friedlander & Ward, 1984), respectively. In part 1, results of factor analyses revealed four first-order power factors and two higher-order power factors (Soft & Harsh). Schmeid-Leiman's (1957) solution was also applied. In part 2, result of correlation analysis in revealed that supervisors' usage of Soft or Soft-type power factor (Idealized Expert) was moderately positively correlated to all three supervisory styles but that usage of Harsh or Harsh-type factors (Compensatory Obligation, Relational Power, & Collaborative Alliance) was only weakly correlated to supervisory styles, for majority of supervisors. Similarly, results of regression analyses revealed that supervisory styles did not significantly predict supervisors' usage of Harsh factor, but both supervisory styles and usage of ix Harsh factor significantly predicted usage of Soft factor at moderate and strong level, respectively. The interpersonally-sensitive styles predicted Soft factor slightly more strongly than the other styles. It was concluded that supervisors who engaged in supervision with any one of three supervisory styles also tended to use more Soft or Soft-type factor when there are disagreements, but rarely used Harsh or Harsh types.

La bibliothèque mondiale est le système spatialisé complexe de tous les textes disponibles dans le monde. Aujourd'hui saisie par la révolution numérique et le multimédia, elle est pourtant construite à partir d'une figure ordinaire : la bibliothèque de livres. Dans un usage redéfini pour la géographie, la littératie désigne les pratiques et les politiques publiques de lecture écriture. La bibliothèque mondiale et la littératie sont deux objets ordinaires de la géographie et nous proposons de les prendre au sérieux en y travaillant la question des échelles et des mobilités : le niveau national est-il toujours le niveau d'organisation dominant des littératies dans le monde ? Quels y sont les devenirs voisins aux échelles infra et supra-nationales ?Pour dépasser une approche trop abstraite, nous avons fortement sollicité la parole des acteurs à travers l'entretien,dans une démarche de recherche-action et de neutralisation de la croyance littéraire. À la manière des New literacy studies, nous avons multiplié les petits terrains dans un inventaire géographique des formes et des niveaux scalaires (bibliothèques embarquées, Aran, provincialismes, prix Nobel). Nous avons également enquêté dans deux États-nations, leMali et la Corée du Sud, choisis pour leur écart au modèle français. Le jeu scalaire observé montre que la mondialisation de la littératie se développe de manière très différenciée selon les espaces, en fonction notamment du projet national. La torsion de ce niveau autrefois central libère/contraint les acteurs : les dynamiques multi-niveaux permettent alors d'interpréter les fonctionnements complexes. L'aménagement culturel est une question politique multiscalaire

My thesis paper mainly focuses on the China cultural diplomacy and its soft power policy. China¡¦s economic reforms have transformed the international status. China is raising power recently. However China suffered the question about the political validity and the doubt of China threat, in order to keep maintaining a peaceful international environment, China has learned to use soft issues to serve its national interests. Cultural soft power is the best choice for China in such situation. According to Joseph Nye¡¦s idea, soft power is attracting force derived mainly from intangible resources such as national culture, political values, and its foreign policies. This thesis discovered that Beijing although wants to remold the civilized great nation image, it has to deal with the domestic belief crisis. Even, China on the one hand must construct the opening national image; on the other hand still continue to suppress the domestic Internet opinion. The Chinese Communist Party which cultivates the soft power is the destroyer. China ignores that the cultural diplomacy intrinsic essence is to sell the truth. China packs the national image with the cultural soft power without thinking of the national prestige. Although China repeatedly emphasizes the harmonious peace, the international society is still filled with anxiety about the China's power.

Putin’s authoritarian rule reaches all areas of Russian society, this can be attributed to the soft powers that the regime uses to further establish their power. The basis of this research is a theory from the book Authoritarianism goes global, where the authors describes the importance of soft powers in an authoritarian regime. The soft powers analysed include election monitoring, disinformation, cyberspace security and civil society repression. The aim is to examine which soft powers play a part in the consolidation of the Russian regime, and the strategies used to further legitimise their political agenda. The three questions answered in this research is how did Putin’s first eight years in power affect the use of soft powers in Russia today? What soft powers have led to the consolidation of an authoritarian regime in Russia? And how does Putin use these soft powers to further legitimize his political agenda? A qualitative text analysis was performed to answer the questions. The conclusions drawn is that Putin’s actions today are heavily influenced by his first presidency. Furthermore he extensively use the soft powers, and they have a significant influence on how the Russian authoritarian regime manage to consolidate power. Moreover the proficiency shown while manipulating these arenas leads to Putin being able to further legitimise his political agenda.

This thesis examines the operations of the Confucius Institute in contemporary Thailand. By the end of 2012, there were already 400 Confucius Institutes around the world, 13 of which are in Thailand. It took the Confucius Institute less than a decade to rapidly expand around the globe. Despite its putative neutral objective of promoting Chinese culture and language globally, this thesis argues that the Institute is closely affiliated with the Chinese government, and is in fact part of the Chinese government’s broader hegemonic project. I define hegemony as dominance that rests on generally based consent and is established by social forces occupying a dominant role within a state that are projected outward on a world scale. I look at three aspects of hegemony: the negotiation of norms, the conferring of common interests and mutual benefits to members, and the lived social experience through selective and dominant cultural symbols. This thesis presents empirical data that was collected during three months of field research in Thailand in 2012. It shows that the Confucius Institute attempts to create a norm of international harmony which has its roots in the Chinese government’s domestic policy to construct a harmonious society by 2020. Furthermore, this thesis illustrates that students and people who are involved with the Confucius Institute perceive their participation as resulting in mutual benefits that are “real.” Their perceptions are related to international policies that show Thailand as benefiting by subordinating to China’s political and economic dominance. Lastly, cultural public events organized by the Confucius Institute demonstrate how hegemony is a lived social experience for participants. / Graduate / 2019-12-30 / 0615 / 0616

Russian foreign policy is particularly associated with the application of hard power resources. The aim of the thesis is to examine, whether is the Russian Federation trying to create soft power, as J. Nye defines it. The text is divided into 3 chapters. The first chapter describes the theoretical concept of soft power and public diplomacy. The second chapter addresses the foreign policy development in the Russian Federation; the main part of this chapter defines Russia's soft power resources, split into the culture, political values and foreign policy. The last chapter is dedicated to application of the use of soft power in the post-soviet region focusing on a specific case of Georgia. In the end there should be clear, whether Russia has soft power resources, what instruments uses and whether its new strategy is successful in Georgia.

The Arctic is except being one of the Worlds’ most remote regions also experiencing the heavy impacts of climate change. This means an opportunity for the Arctic nations – access to a brand new ocean. The melting region is from a military perspective of strategic importance, as well as it provides new shipping routes and holds up to 30% of the worlds undiscovered natural resources being worth billions of dollars. One nation having taken a keen notice to this is Russia, it has claimed land in the Arctic several times and in 2007 it planted its flag on the seabed of the North pole declaring the Arctic belongs to them. This lays out the purpose of this report – to investigate how the Russian use of soft and hard power in the Arctic has changed during the years of 2007 to 2017. In order to examine this, Kristensen and Sakstrup at the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhage along with several others, suggest analysing Russias military and diplomatic behaviour. The results finds that the Russian use of soft power in terms of diplomacy and cooperation with the other arctic states was mainly present, and increased in the years 2007 to 2014 prior to the Ukraine crisis, while again being present after a long haul in 2017. The use of hard power in terms of military might and presence has during the same period of time steadily increased.

Thesis advisor: Jonathan Laurence / In the decade following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, global focus has shifted towards analyzing how to combat terrorism. "Countering Violent Extremism" policies, or CVE, emerged as a means to combat the growing threat of extremist attacks against Western and Western-backed governments around the world. CVE promotes the use of deradicalization and integration techniques to develop trust in communities considered "at-risk" of becoming radicalized and executing extremist attacks. Problematically, CVE policies have been adopted and adored without having been scrutinized. I consider three historical cases of policies very similar to CVE, in France, Great Britain, and the United States, and analyze how CVE may distract from a concerning trend towards immigration, law enforcement, and military action instead of meaningful engagement. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Politicaql Science.