Mapping the intellectual evolution of global soft power research: A longitudinal bibliometric analysis (1991–2025)

Abstract

Since the end of the Cold War, Joseph S. Nye’s concept of soft power has become a central analytical framework for understanding national attraction and non-coercive influence in international relations. Despite the rapid expansion of both theoretical and empirical research, the field still lacks systematic bibliometric evidence concerning its knowledge structure, thematic evolution, and patterns of scholarly collaboration. To address this gap, this study constructs a comprehensive bibliometric map of global soft power research based on 2,772 English-language social science articles indexed in the Scopus database from 1991 to 2025. Using VOSviewer and RStudio (Biblioshiny), the analysis examines publication trends, citation structures, country collaboration networks, author co-citation relationships, keyword co-occurrence patterns, and thematic evolution pathways. The findings indicate that soft power research experienced steady growth after 2005, followed by a pronounced acceleration after 2015. While the United States, China, and the United Kingdom remain the principal research hubs, Australia emerges as an important cross-regional bridge, suggesting a shift toward a more multi-center structure of knowledge production. Keyword co-occurrence and thematic evolution further reveal a transition from early concept-oriented debates to a more diversified and policy-focused research agenda. In addition, soft power is increasingly conceptualized as an observable and comparable form of international influence, with growing attention to practical domains such as higher education cooperation, sports diplomacy, digital diplomacy, vaccine diplomacy, and the Belt and Road Initiative. Overall, this study systematically maps the intellectual structure and emerging frontiers of global soft power research, highlighting the rise of multipolar soft power and a shift toward policy-oriented and interdisciplinary inquiry, while providing a bibliometric foundation for developing measurable soft power assessment frameworks.