Not by the Sword Alone: Soft Power, Mass Media, and the Production of State Sovereignty
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Authors
Warren, T. Camber
Subjects
Advisors
Date of Issue
2014-01
Date
Winter 2014
Publisher
Language
Abstract
Scholars of civil conflict have long recognized the importance of state
strength in the suppression of nascent insurgencies+ However, previous empirical investigations
have generally focused on the material and coercive dimensions of state
power, obscuring the critical role played by the generation of widespread voluntary
compliance through processes of political communication, that is, the production of
“soft power+” In contrast, in this article I focus on a factor—mass communication
technology—that can enhance state capacity only by strengthening the state’s ability
to broadly and publicly disseminate political messages+ I argue that the enhanced
capacities for large-scale normative influence generated by mass communication technologies
can be expected to produce substantial barriers to the mobilization of
militarized challenges to state rule, by strengthening economies of scale in the marketplace
of ideas+ Utilizing newly compiled cross-national data on mass media accessibility
in the post–World War II period, I show that densely constituted mass media
systems dramatically reduce the probability of large-scale civil violence, thereby providing
new evidence for the fundamental importance of nonmaterial state capacities
in the suppression of internal armed conflicts.
Type
Article
Description
The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0020818313000350
Includes pre-print and Replication File
Includes pre-print and Replication File
Series/Report No
Department
Defense Analysis (DA)
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NPS Report Number
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Format
Citation
International Organization, Vol. 68, Winter 2014, pp. 111–41
Distribution Statement
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.