Christopher Walker Revisits Sharp Power

About this episode

Christopher Walker discusses the concept of sharp power and its implications for democratic institutions.

Sharp power seeks to exploit the openness of free societies because their institutions are open. Christopher Walker Christopher Walker, a leading expert on authoritarian influence, returns to the origins of the concept of "sharp power," a term he helped develop to distinguish coercive and manipulative forms of influence from Joseph Nye’s idea of soft power. While soft power relies on attraction and persuasion, Walker explains that sharp power instead works by penetrating democratic institutio...

People in this episode

Host: Justin Kempf

Guest: Christopher Walker

Topics covered

• authoritarian influence
• sharp power
• soft power
• democratic institutions
• political manipulation

Keywords

• sharp power
• soft power
• authoritarian influence
• democracy
• political manipulation

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: sharp power

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