HEPI Soft Power Index 2024

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published its 2024 soft power index which 'measures the number of senior serving world leaders - defined as monarchs, presidents and prime ministers - educated at a higher level in countries other than their own' (HEPI Soft Power Index 2024). The index provides interesting and useful data, but I would argue it is not a measure of soft power. Rather it is simply a tally of world leaders who studied abroad which is presented in the beauty contest framework so beloved of compilers of soft power indices. This then reveals which country's HEIs are up, and which are down. To be an indicator of soft power, more information is needed.

First, can higher education be an indicator of soft power? Yes, but not in the way such metrics have us believe. Just in the same way that data that reveals the number of tourists visiting a country, the size of audiences for foreign language movies, the number of viewers tuning into an international broadcasting station, or how many international students generally are in the UK, knowing which and how many world leaders studied abroad is simply counting and tell us nothing about impact or experience. It is only when we start to take seriously the need to consider how people are responding to their experience in HEIs that will we have a better understanding of impact and therefore their soft power value.  

The Higher Education sector reflects, rather than creates soft power. We could argue that the most successful HEIs are safe spaces for innovation and creativity, dialogue, debate, critical thinking, collaboration, and dissent, and they are open to students regardless of income, race, religion, or gender. But these are indicators of a broader understanding of soft power that shapes and is shaped by what is happening elsewhere and beyond campuses - in other words, the political culture, values, and the vibrancy and autonomy of civil society. 

The Egyptian Nobel Laureate, Ahmed Zewail, celebrated the open society, the free flow of ideas, and the levels of collaboration that he discovered as a student in the US, and which nurture the essential conditions for scientific progress. In an article published in The American Interest (2010), Zewail wrote:

What I as a young foreign student in the 1970s found most dynamic, exciting and impressive about the United States is what much of the world continues to value about America today: its open intellectual culture, its great universities, its capacity for discovery and innovation (The Soft Power of Science)

I think there needs to be a clearer understanding of the way HEIs connect with more extensive approaches to soft power and that HEIs reflect the soft power generated elsewhere (which is why I argue that it is not possible to develop soft power strategies - only strategies for governing better or, in this case, investing in/developing/protecting HE).

Second, knowing which world leaders studied where is interesting and a useful starting point, but to increase the value of this data and demonstrate soft power, the research needs to go deeper. One alternative approach to simply counting is to focus more on impact - to move away from the simplistic quantitative methods that reveal limited information and move towards a more qualitative measure: how did these leaders respond to the experience of studying in an overseas HEI? What did they take away? Did they engage with local communities? Did they have a good time? There are a multitude of reasons why anyone, including leaders, may decide to study in a particular country - can we find out why and how these leaders made their choices?  

Finally, for this research to connect to soft power (and especially the often neglected 'power' part of the concept) it is important to demonstrate long term impact. Have world leaders who studied in the UK continued their relationship with the country after they left? What policies or initiatives have they introduced to deepen their country's relationship with the UK? What is the level of trade and investment between the two countries, and is this the result of the leader studying abroad? Are their political cultures, behaviours, and values aligned with those they encountered when they were students? Again, measuring impact is essential. Without this we are not talking about 'power', but merely tallying the number of people who studied abroad. 

So, while the data presented by HEPI is useful and interesting, it is only a starting point. We should be mindful that, as it is presented, it is not an indicator of soft power, and that we need to push the research further to understand the broader and longer-term impact of world leaders - or any student - studying in a HEI overseas.                

Sesame Street in Pakistan

Regular readers of this blog will know of my love for the American children's TV programme, Sesame Street, and my conviction of its role in international outreach. Its role in developing educational programmes around the world has been one of the greatest public diplomacy (or education diplomacy) success stories, mainly for two reasons: (i) it demonstrates the importance of acting positively and creating new opportunities and relationships with audiences (the importance of actually doing something, rather than just talking about it); and (ii) by encouraging local media organisations to create their own versions of Sesame Street that are embedded within local cultural contexts, the producers demonstrate a sensitivity to their audiences: "The US government thought it was on to a winner when it gave $20m (£13m) to fund a Pakistani version of the show, hoping it would raise the country's woeful literacy rates and help turn a young generation away from the siren call of religious extremism."

A report in yesterday's Guardian newspaper is therefore quite disturbing (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/05/pakistan-sesame-street-funding-withdrawn?INTCMP=SRCH). It seems that the US Agency for International Development is withdrawing funding for the Pakistani version of Sesame Street, Sim Sim Hamara, because of 'financial irregularities', mismanagment and even corruption. Obviously the local prodcers, Rafi Peer, have denied the allegations.

Whatever the reason this is a very regrettable episode, and over above the soft power interests of developing a local version of Sesame Street, the only losers are Pakistan's children trapped in illiteracy.  
   

More on Sesame Street

Regular visitors to this blog will know that I am a huge fan of Sesame Street, the long-running American television show which teaches children literacy, numeracy and life-skills such as kindness, tolerance and friendship.

On 11 April I commented on the launch of a version of Sesame Street in Pakistan. Now, Big Bird and his friends have made the trek to Afghanistan in a version of the programme called Baghch-e-Simisn. This is a co-production between the non-profit Sesame Workshop and Moby Media, an Afghan company that has made a big impact on the flow of international cultural products into the country, having been responsible for importing such western formats as Idol and Deal or No Deal. The US State Department has also provided some funding.

As expected, Baghch-e-Simisn will be modified for the specific cultural context Sesame Street will encounter in Afghanistan. So scenes in which Ernie is barking like a dog and encouraging his friend, Bert, to copy him will not be shown, as a dog is considered unclean. Moreover, in trying to impart the fundamentals of health and safety, the production team had difficulty finding a building site on which the workers wore the kind of protective clothing one would see in New York.

This is the beauty of Sesame Street; it is not afraid to take risks, to change for local audiences and use entertainment for education. In Afghanistan, where the education infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired, such initiatives are welcomed. There will always be the nay-sayers who proclaim 'cultural imperialism', but Sesame Street's success and its genuine apolitical agenda demonstrate that international communications and American media products may actually do some good after all. Long may it continue!

Despatches from Taiwan (I)

I have been in Taiwan for less than 48 hours and already several notable stories related to public diplomacy have caught my attention.

I will gloss over the local mania for Lady Gaga as she plays sell-out concerts in Taiwan. Singing two more songs here than she did in Singapore obviously means she loves Taiwan; while TV news stations spend precious time (20 minutes in one case) detailing every detail of her life, career and stay on the island so far. Is this an example of American soft power in action?

I will likewise mention only in passing the new-found affection for Tom Hanks after he told a press conference for his new film that Los Angeles should be more like Taipei. Apparently, Mr Hanks believes that Taiwanese all ride scooters with the wind blowing in their hair. That Mr Hanks has never been to Taipei is obvious; the only thing blowing in your hair in Taipei is the pollution from all the other scooters around you. Yet naturally the media here seized on Mr Hanks’s words, as any global attention is important for a small unrecognised island competing to be heard.

Morever, I am sure that the publication of a photograph showing three students at the Ministry of Defence’s Armor Training Command and Armor School wearing Nazi Waffen-SS uniforms will not damage Taiwan’s relations with Israel. The Ministry apologised to Israel’s Representative to Taiwan who conceded that ‘it was a mistake of ignorance and not intention.’ The Representative promised to work with the relevant educational institutions in Taiwan to develop educational programmes on the Holocaust. This was an embarrassing episode for Taiwan, but not as serious as it might have been.   

Two more important stories have potential public diplomacy interest. The first is a rather frivolous story about the local reaction to a US food blogger in Texas who recalled on CNN’s iReport his bad experience with a Taiwanese delicacy, century eggs or pi dian. Legislators in Taiwan called Americans ‘chicken-hearted’ and said Westerners ‘should be more courageous and willing to try new things’. Overlooking the fact that this is exactly what the blogger had done – and found he did not like what he had eaten – the Government Information Office Minister Philip Yang said the article had ‘damaged’ the nation’s image. However, it is possible to argue that in criticising the blogger’s right to have an opinion about the food he has eaten, his detractors have damaged Taiwan’s image themselves. In writing about Chinese soft power I often discuss China’s inability to accept foreign criticism and suggest that this is a serious hindrance to that country’s soft power capacity: a serious global player must expect and accept criticism from time to time. By over-reacting in this way to a misinterpreted blog, the Taiwanese are falling into the same trap as their neighbours on the other side of the Strait. My friend Paul Rockower whom I first met in Taipei last year blogs often about Taiwan’s ‘gastrodiplomacy’ (there is a link to him from this site). I look forward to reading what he makes of this episode.

The second story that caught my attention concerns the failure of Taiwan’s institutions of higher education to recruit students from the PRC. The Ministry of Education had approved the recruitment of 2,141 Chinese students, equal to about 1 percent of Taiwanese students in the university system per year. In fact, only 1,263 were accepted and a mere 975 will actually enrol. One reason for this is the ‘three limits, six noes’ policy that the opposition DPP insisted should regulate the flow of students. The ‘three limits’ refer to caps on the numbers of students, the number of Chinese universities recognised as eligible for the scheme, and limits on the types of Chinese diplomas that can be accredited.

More damaging are the ‘six noes’, banning Chinese students from receiving scholarships or professional licenses, from remaining or working Taiwan after their graduation, from receiving extra points on exams, and from taking civil service examinations. In addition, most of the universities in Taiwan able to recruit from China are outside Taipei, and include institutions on the islands of Quemoy and Penghu. Why would a student from China wish to live and study in Quemoy, a beautiful but sleepy island and which was at the epicentre of hostilities between Taiwan and China in the 1950s?

In other words, apart from receiving a degree from a university that may be far away from Taiwan’s vibrant capital city – or perhaps on another island altogether – there is little incentive for Chinese students to study here. If soft power is about persuasion through attraction, shouldn’t Taiwan be doing more to encourage students from across the Strait to study, and perhaps live, work and contribute to Taiwan’s economy after graduation? In the past, students from beyond the Iron Curtain defected; now they acquire visas.        

Given the importance and success of the student experience in facilitating public diplomacy – a PhD student at ICS, Molly Sisson, is researching this very area (again there is a link to her blog here) – it seems incredible that Taiwan would impose such restrictions. This is Taiwan’s opportunity to showcase itself to China’s potential future political, social, intellectual and economic elites. Beijing has taken an enormous risk in allowing its students to travel abroad in such huge numbers, and an even greater risk in allowing them to travel to Taiwan – democratic and ‘Free China’ - for their education.

It is possible that most Chinese students wish to attend universities in the UK, US or Australian universities; perhaps the higher tuition fees and cost of living in Taiwan compared with China is a prohibition on the island’s attraction as a destination for students from the PRC. Nevertheless, it does seem that by imposing such a strict policy as the ‘three limits, six noes,’ Taiwan’s potential public diplomacy with Chinese across the Strait is taking an unnecessary beating.