The project on Hard Power, Soft Power and Smart Power is 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 maintains an active blog, and 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.

On May 14, 2007, the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and Ernest J. Wilson III will host a Mock Congressional Hearing on Smart Power.
For more information please click here.

Principal Investigator

Ernest James Wilson III
Visiting Professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication
Senior Fellow, USC Center on Public Diplomacy