The Soft Power Exertion of the Roman Empire in the Pax Romana Period: The Cases of the Iberian Peninsula and Southeast Asia

Abstract

Introduced in the 1980s by Joseph Nye from Harvard University, the concept of soft power refers to one country’s ability to influence other nations and gain political dominance through the attraction and persuasion of cultural values, political ideologies, and government policies. As a popular research topic, the soft power exertion of many modern nations, including the US, China, and Russia, has been thoroughly examined by previous papers, but the research subjects are largely limited to modern nations. This paper first explores the means of soft power exertion of one of the most successful ancient empires, the Roman Empire, and then examines the subsequent political and economic consequences of Roman soft power in the Iberian Peninsula and Southeast Asia. The paper finds that soft power exertion can effectively enhance domestic political control of conquered regions and facilitate international trade activities with foreign countries.