Vol.:(0123456789) Chinese Political Science Review https://doi.org/10.1007/s41111-021-00182-5 1 3 BOOK REVIEW Hendrik W. Ohnesorge, Soft Power: The Forces of Attraction in International Relations, Cham: Springer, xxi + 307 pp., 88.39 € (hardcover), ISBN 978‑3‑030‑29921‑7 Saleh Shahriar 1 Received: 19 May 2021 / Accepted: 8 June 2021 © Fudan University 2021 The concept of power is central to the analyses of international relations, politics, society, economy as well as human life. Power could be regarded as the lifeblood of a social and political system. Power is multifaceted and, therefore, is hard to meas- ure in concrete quantitative use of the term. It is of two basic types: hard and soft power. Nearly three decades ago, American political scientist Joseph Nye put forth the idea of soft power, a concept that caught fre and went on to defne the post-Cold War era (Nye 1990). He asserts that soft power is the ‘ability to afect others by attraction and persuasion rather than just coercion and payment’ (Nye 2017, p. 17). A country’s soft power comes from its civil society and culture rather than from the government. The conceptual defnition of soft power ofered by Nye is indeed pre- cise, useful and also impactful. The state apparatus; especially the military, police, para-military, and border forces constitute the core of the hard power. The use of force is conceptually linked to hard power. Soft power and hard power are not mutu- ally exclusive, and that soft power complements hard power. This current book entitled, Soft Power: The Forces of Attraction in International Relations by Hendrik W. Ohnesorge, Managing Assistant and Research Fellow at the Center for Global Studies/Chair in International Relations at the University of Bonn (Germany) is a new addition to the literature on the study of soft power. The book, originating from a doctoral dissertation, provides a detailed examination of the concept of soft power both from theoretical and empirical perspectives. It seeks ‘to elucidate and elaborate on the concept of soft power in international relations’ (p.1). In total, the book has fve chapters. In chapter 1, the author illustrates the concept of soft power, its current state of research and importance of the study in light of the existent research gap. The author raises a number of pertinent questions, including: * Saleh Shahriar saleh.shahriar@northsouth.edu https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=v95QVRYAAAAJ&hl=en 1 School of Humanities and Social Sciences, North South University, Bashundhara, Dhaka-1229, Bangladesh