Millions of people around the world are watching breathlessly as teams compete in the World Cup, held in Qatar. Many others--like me--tune it out, turned off by that guy in grad school who spent a semester in Barcelona and then pretended to be a life-long Spain fan. But this year, the World Cup caught my attention for a nerdier reason: the constant talk of Qatar's "soft power" through the tournament. My fraught relationship with soft power Soft power is one of my scholarly areas of interest. I've written on conceptual issues with the way people discuss soft power, and have a chapter in a...
