While the West loses its soft power

by Sedat Laciner

“The most important reason of the Western global hegemony for the rest of the World has been its ‘soft power’ in the fields of politics, economy, art, sport, science, education and morality. The rest of the World felt that they had already been defeated before the West’s incomparable power. The West’s invincibility and inapproachable hegemony were providing to the Western World an influence over the rest beyond its natural limit and real power. Thus not only Turkey but also other developing countries have followed it and imitated the Western World, and perceived it as the ne plus ultra for more than a century. Although the Western ‘legend’ deteriorated during the World Wars and the Cold War it was still strong until recent years. Western countries have skillfully used this power in the fields of diplomacy and politics. […]

The rise of Chinese, Indian, Turkish and Brazilian economies etc. has the responsibility in some degrees for the West’s deterioration in the field of economy, sports and some other areas. But the relatively more fundamental fields for the Western superiority have always been politics and morality.“

See also this interesting blogpost: Bush Losing the Soft-Power War Badly