RADICAL CHANGES TO BALANCES OF POWER 5. Soft power is a concept with huge practical importance at a time when

international relations are undergoing radical transformations, with serious implications for the UK’s prosperity and security. As the British Council told us, “the tectonics of power are in flux”, forcing a reconsideration of how states can exercise influence.⁵

Geopolitical shifts in the distribution of power

6. What commentators on international affairs call the ‘rise of the rest’ is resulting in a new international distribution of power, as nation states with distinctly non-Western economic, social and political structures are experiencing rapid economic and demographic growth.⁶ As a consequence, power is moving between states, and the global centre of power is drifting from West to East and from North to South.⁷ Jonathan Glennie of the Overseas Development Institute told the Committee that it was hard to exaggerate the “mega-shifts” currently underway in what he called “the geography of power”. He referred to the rise of fast-developing giant economies such as China, Brazil and India, and of the CIVETS nations (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa); he told us that developing countries and so-called ‘emerging’ countries are beginning to dominate global economic growth, with their political power increasing as a consequence. These states have also begun to form regional groupings such as the Latin American ‘ALBA’ alliance (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America—Peoples’ Trade Treaty), and the Eurasian Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. The countries are also home to rapidly increasing reserves of global savings—almost 50 per cent of world savings, according to the World Bank—and are therefore the source of growing foreign investments, aid and concessional loans.⁸

7. An “age of choice”, in which developing economies have access to many more external financing options and expanded domestic resource revenues, has led to what Jonathan Glennie called a “new assertiveness” among developing countries.⁹ Richard Dowden, Director of the Royal African Society, told us that “In recent years African nations have become more self confident and are increasingly pushing back against the former colonial powers”.¹⁰ Such assertiveness has seen countries beyond the permanent members of the UN Security Council driving productive initiatives in

5 British Council supplementary written evidence.

6 Lord Williams of Baglan, Q36; John Micklethwait, Q36; Richard Norton-Taylor; Zakaria, F. (2008) ‘The rise of the rest’, Newsweek, 12 May, pp24–31; Nye J. S. Jr. (2013) ‘American power in the 21st century will be defined by the ‘rise of the rest’, The Washington Post, 29 June,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/american-power-in-the-21st-century-will-be-defined-by-the-rise-of-the-rest/2013/06/28/f5169668-dced-11e2-9218-bc2ac7cd44e2_story.html.

The term ‘BRICs’ and their rise first appeared in two papers by Jim O’Neill for Goldman Sachs, see:

O’Neill, J. (2001) ‘Building Better Global Economic BRICs’, Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper, 66;

O’Neill, J. (2005) ‘How Solid are the BRICs?’, Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper, 134.

7 Jonathan McClory.

8 Q127.

9 Q127.

10 Richard Dowden. See also Professor Michael Cox, Q32; Ian Birrell, Q129; Indra Adnan; British Council supplementary written evidence; Research Councils UK; Royal Society.

international relations: for example, Turkey has recently offered its mediation services in some of the world’s most intractable conflicts.¹¹

8. A growth in international recognition of the importance of non-Western norms in governance has accompanied the new assertiveness of developing nations.¹² It is now important to understand how the modernisation of other countries differs from classic European models. Rising states in Asia and Africa may hold entirely different understandings of political legitimacy, and of the primacy of national sovereignty over individual human rights, from those in the Western traditions that have dominated international discourse in recent years.¹³ Professor Michael Cox described the tensions that will arise as non-Western countries such as China assume stronger roles in the world economic order.¹⁴ As Professor Cox, Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, put it, “All those countries are coming at us … with a different set of assumptions about how the world ought to be organised”.¹⁵ They may have only local or regional ambitions, not global ones, and thus leave the political and diplomatic order fundamentally untouched.¹⁶ Nevertheless, these countries will have considerable political influence as they come to represent a greater share of the global economy and as developing countries look to them instead of Western nations to provide development models.¹⁷ Jonathan Glennie told the Committee that “poor countries no longer [only] want to be the US or France … They look to Brazil, Vietnam and, of course, China … countries are looking much [more] broadly for examples and help than ever before”.¹⁸ 9. This power shift was illustrated in 2010 by the political confidence on the

international stage shown by Brazil and Turkey in trying to bypass the UN Security Council permanent member states (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) plus Germany by offering a solution to the Iran nuclear issue.¹⁹ The British Council told us that there are “multiplying players on the international stage seeking to make their mark and challenge established

11 Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies, Coventry University.

12 Durham Global Security Institute.

13 See Lord Williams of Baglan, Professor Cox, John Micklethwait, Q36; Professor Nye, Q180;

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK; Professor Rooney.

14 Q36.

15 Q36.

16 John Micklethwait, Q36. See also Patrick, S. (2014) ‘The Unruled World: The Case for Good Enough Governance’, Foreign Affairs, January/February,

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140343/stewart-patrick/the-unruled-world.

17 Asia House told the Committee that Asian economies constitute 50 per cent of global GDP (Asia House);

British Council supplementary written evidence.

18 Q127. Since 2002 the EU and the US had taken turns in leading negotiations with Iran to find a deal to manage the development of Iran’s nuclear programme, but after years of failure to achieve lasting agreement, in May 2010 Brazil and Turkey announced a new compromise. When the deal was rejected by the US, Iranian state television quoted Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei as saying, “Domineering powers headed by America are unhappy with cooperation between independent countries”, and in June 2010 Brazil and Turkey voted against a UN Security Council resolution proposing intensified sanctions on Iran.

While Iran and the permanent Security Council states plus Germany finally made progress in 2013, the 2010 Brazil-Turkey approach signalled the growing assertiveness of rising powers, as did India’s spearheading of efforts during negotiations for the World Trade Organization’s first multilateral trade deal in 2013 to protect emerging markets’ agriculture sectors from new ‘food security’ policies.

19 ‘Doha Delivers’, The Economist, 9 December 2013.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/12/world-trade-organisation.

power structures”, and that “International challenges like the Syria crisis and global poverty create new alliances and bring new voices to the fore”.²⁰

10. Accordingly, Dr Robin Niblett, the Director of Chatham House, told us that

“The UK has enjoyed a privileged position in a Western-led world order that may soon be eclipsed”.²¹ The UK risks being less influential in the UN Security Council in a world of rising powers; as the Rt Hon Sir John Major KG CH reported, membership of the Security Council is already

“grotesquely out of date” having been fixed in 1946 “in a world that bears no relationship to today”.²² The UK’s relationship with the US might change as US leaders’ focus turns more to the rising nations of Asia.²³ In Dr Niblett’s view, the UK could also become “less significant in a leaderless G20 world than [in] one led by the G8”.²⁴ The small group of countries who have in recent decades or centuries enjoyed a position of considerable influence over the world’s political and economic structures, including the UK, face increasingly stiff competition.

Hyper-connectivity

11. Along with the ‘rise of the rest’ and associated power transition in international terms we could be seeing an equally important change to the Government’s role in steering the ship of state—namely the dispersal and

“diffusion” of power away from governments, and into the hands of multiple others.²⁵ As we were told by Jonathan McClory, policy and place branding consultant and author of the IfG-Monocle Soft Power Index, “power is shifting away from states altogether, as non-state actors play more significant roles and wield greater influence in world affairs”.²⁶ This move is closely associated with the new phenomenon of hyper-connectivity²⁷, which the British Council described as follows:

“People-to-people contacts are growing in importance at a dramatic pace. 24-hour broadcasting, social media and mobile services mean people are better informed than ever before and can interact directly with each other across national boundaries with limited governmental interference—even in places where government seeks to impose barriers upon the flow of information and opinion. With 6 billion mobile phones around the world, 75 per cent of which are in developing countries, the explosion in people-to-people contacts is far from being a purely Western phenomenon. Shared interests, passions and beliefs bring people together in chat rooms, the blogosphere and other online fora,

20 British Council supplementary written evidence.

21 Dr Robin Niblett.

22 Dr Robin Niblett; Sir John Major, Q347.

23 Dr Robin Niblett.

24 Dr Robin Niblett.

25 Nye J. S. Jr. (2011) The Future of Power, ppxii–xiii. See also HM Government (2010) A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy, October,

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61936/national-security-strategy.pdf, p16, p21, p29, p30.

26 Jonathan McClory.

27 British Council; British Council supplementary written evidence. For previous uses of the term ‘hyper-connectivity’ see Quan-Haase, A. and Wellman, B. (2005) ‘Local virtuality in an organization: Implications for community of practice’, Communities and Technologies p215; Friedman, T. (2008) ‘Why How Counts’, New York Times, 14 October, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/opinion/15friedman.html?_r=0.

creating a platform for people to organise themselves—with everything from Pussy Riot supporters to Twilight Fanfic to be found in the undergrowth of this rich, wild new digital jungle”.²⁸

12. Research by Demos in 2007 found that the internet had enabled “mass peer-to-peer cultural contact”: such contact “had originally been elite-to-elite, then elite-to-many, and was now entering a people-to-people phase, through travel, migration and the internet”.²⁹ New media technologies allow mass self-communication; anyone with internet access and basic media literacy can publish their thoughts on public forums.³⁰ This sits alongside and competes with mass communication by traditional broadcast and print media.³¹ The result is a world politics featuring many-to-many communications, which governments increasingly cannot control.³²

13. We explore below why mass people-to-people information sharing and the new, widespread ability to communicate are having a powerful impact on international affairs, but their effects are already visible. The actions of one Tunisian street vendor, Mohammed Bouazizi, triggered a regional upheaval whose consequences are ongoing and severe. By self-immolating while relatives and bystanders recorded his actions on their mobile phones and uploaded it to YouTube, his actions created awareness that soon translated into collective action.³³ While journalists could not safely reach protest areas, news organisations relied on citizens’ mass social media activity that was very difficult for Tunisian authorities to control, and created a sense among protesters that the whole world was watching. As events across the region proved, that sense was justified.³⁴

14. Hyper-connectivity will soon be enhanced by the emergence of digital infrastructures that are international in scope, and which connect not only people but devices, objects, and systems.³⁵ While the spread of mobile phones in areas of political instability in Africa is strongly correlated with upsurges in violence, crisis mapping programmes process mobile phone communications in these environments to create automated visualisations of conflict outbreaks that military and humanitarian organisations can use to target interventions.³⁶ International affairs now feature countless feedback loops of humans, devices and systems, meaning the world that international relations operates within has become markedly different.³⁷

28 British Council supplementary written evidence.

29 Demos; Professor Nye, Q181.

30 Indra Adnan.

31 Gillespie and Webb. Some experts pointed to the convergence of mainstream and social media as traditional corporate media have adapted to the challenges posed by new patterns of connectivity—for instance see Indra Adnan and Dr Cristina Archetti.

32 Professor Nye, Q181.

33 Indra Adnan.

34 Wilson, C., and Dunn, A. (2011) ‘Digital media in the Egyptian revolution: Descriptive analyses from the Tahrir data set’, International Journal of Communication, vol. 5, pp1248–1272.

35 Taylor, P. (2014) ‘CES 2014: Cisco boss hails ‘internet of everything’’, Financial Times, 7 January, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/576d2f4c-7709-11e3-807e-00144feabdc0.html.

36 Dr Ali Fisher; Pierskalla, J.H. and Hollenbach, F.M. (2013) ‘Technology and Collective Action: The Effect of Cell Phone Coverage on Political Violence in Africa’, American Political Science Review, 107.

37 Miskimmon. A., O’Loughlin, B., Roselle, L. (2013) Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order, New York: Routledge, 22, pp148–175. The Fukushima triple disaster of 2011 exemplified this trend: information systems such as weather sensors, radiation monitors and stock markets became interconnected in ways that outpaced human control, for some days at least.

Hyper-connectivity and the diffusion of power: loss of Governmental control

15. Hyper-connectivity has made the actions of states such as the UK more visible than ever before, and this involves a loss of control.³⁸ All organisations now have indelible, and vastly accessible, digital footprints comprising all of their webpages and communications. In the context of Government, this means that all Departments now have an international presence: their actions, statements, and their media coverage are instantly and freely accessible to almost anyone, anywhere. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)—or even the external affairs ‘triumvirate’ of the FCO, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the Department for International Development (DFID)—no longer has the monopoly on the British Government’s interface with the rest of the world, let alone that of the country as a whole.

16. The last decade alone has seen a massive growth in the worldwide transparency of information. Words and images can emerge or re-emerge in uncontrollable, unforeseeable ways. It is increasingly hard for governments to keep secrets, as the mass release of governmental data by Wikileaks in 2010 and by Edward Snowden in 2013 showed. The intrinsic insecurity of communications data is a new, but fundamental, feature of the modern international order: those working in Government and in Embassies must work on the assumption that their communications will not stay private. As private communications are opened to scrutiny, and as political speeches and actions become globally accessible, it has become difficult for governments (and others) to ‘segment’ their messages on a particular issue for different audiences.³⁹ Jonathan McClory wrote that “Governments no longer have the luxury of offering domestic audiences one message whilst feeding another to the international community”.⁴⁰ In the words of Professor Laura Roselle, Professor of Science and Policy Studies at Elon University, “Elites have lost relative power over information, timing, and audience as political actors, including individuals, non-state actors, NGOs, terrorist cells, and international organizations have access to communication technologies that will reach a vast audience”.⁴¹ We note that access to the internet is not universal and that there are parts of the world where governments seek to constrain internet usage, but the trend is clearly towards greater openness and a lower degree of state control.

Hyper-connectivity and the diffusion of power: the empowerment of citizens

17. This new level of exposure has joined a torrent of commentary, critique and citizen journalism made possible by the internet and social media. While politicians in the West have been concerned for some time about falling trust in political leaders⁴² (although not in political institutions⁴³), the change is

38 Gillespie and Webb; Indra Adnan; British Council; British Council supplementary written evidence; Dr Ali Fisher; Professor Scott-Smith.

39 Universities UK and the UK Higher Education International Unit (UUK and IU).

40 Jonathan McClory.

41 ProfessorRoselle.

42 ‘Eurobarometer 76: Public Opinion in the European Union’, December 2011, http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb76/eb76_first_en.pdf; for explanations see Hay, C. (2007) Why We Hate Politics, Putnam, R. (2001) Bowling Alone.

now more profound. In a hyper-connected context, the very nature of political trust and confidence are altered due to the number and diversity of information sources on offer, and the greatly extended reach of commentators dissecting and criticising that information. As Professor Marie Gillespie and Dr Alban Webb of the Open University wrote (in evidence hereafter referred to as ‘Gillespie and Webb’), “Citizens and publics now expect credible and convincing explanations and appropriate evidence from governments and if they don’t get [it] in mainstream media they look to social media”.⁴⁴ In the hyper-connected age, it is also easier than ever before to find voices closer to one’s own; social media users are now more likely to trust and believe their peers than politicians or the media.⁴⁵

18. As the ability to create content, access information and disseminate opinion is democratised, citizens increasingly expect to be, or at least to feel, empowered.⁴⁶ The Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University wrote that “rapid developments in the global communications infrastructure [are] empowering citizens and enabling them to make their voices heard, pressure their representatives and participate in decision-making”. Hyper-connectivity is “redefining the balance of power between the state and citizens in many countries, including in those that may have previously lacked a culture of public consultation and accountability”.⁴⁷ The rapid movement of information has made individuals more powerful than they have been at any point in history, according to Jonathan McClory:

influence is moving away from governments and towards individuals and civil society groupings, even as some governments gather more information about citizens than ever before.⁴⁸

19. Alongside this empowerment, the real-time monitoring of public opinion facilitated by the internet makes publics appear extremely volatile and disruptive to anxious authorities.⁴⁹ There is no evidence that individuals’

opinions about political, economic or social issues have become more changeable over time, but politicians, journalists and bloggers can now identify small, rapid surges and dips that give the appearance of substantive

43 Based on over-time and cross-sectional analysis of public attitudes to political authorities, Harvard/Sydney political scientist Professor Pippa Norris concluded: “no significant erosion of system support was detected from the indices of composite institutional confidence (with the notable exception of declining public confidence in parliaments), attitudes towards democratic governance and rejection of autocracy, or feelings of nationalism. Instead, trendless fluctuations over time (suggesting explanations based on either actual or perceived performance) or a relatively stable pattern can be observed”. Professor Norris therefore agreed with Professor Margaret Levi and Professor Laura Stoker who found that: “Finally, despite all the verbiage decrying the decline in trust, there is little actual evidence of a long-term secular decline, either in the United States or in Western Europe across the board. If it is true that political distrust is the norm for Americans, then surveys that date only since World War II may not be of sufficient duration to sustain the claim of a major and unusual decline. And even then, the time-series evidence available suggests that trust levels have been moving both up and down since the mid 1970s. The evidence in other countries is

43 Based on over-time and cross-sectional analysis of public attitudes to political authorities, Harvard/Sydney political scientist Professor Pippa Norris concluded: “no significant erosion of system support was detected from the indices of composite institutional confidence (with the notable exception of declining public confidence in parliaments), attitudes towards democratic governance and rejection of autocracy, or feelings of nationalism. Instead, trendless fluctuations over time (suggesting explanations based on either actual or perceived performance) or a relatively stable pattern can be observed”. Professor Norris therefore agreed with Professor Margaret Levi and Professor Laura Stoker who found that: “Finally, despite all the verbiage decrying the decline in trust, there is little actual evidence of a long-term secular decline, either in the United States or in Western Europe across the board. If it is true that political distrust is the norm for Americans, then surveys that date only since World War II may not be of sufficient duration to sustain the claim of a major and unusual decline. And even then, the time-series evidence available suggests that trust levels have been moving both up and down since the mid 1970s. The evidence in other countries is