Ordinea economica globala si rolul culturii în structurarea raporturilor de putere

The first part of the article is concerned with a brief description of the world economic order. In this part, we consider this order as being made up of three main domains which are interconnected: the domain of the global, the domain of the networks and the domain of the local. We argue that at the end of the 20th century the domain of the global has gained momentum on the two other domains. Another point is that globalisation has increased state interdependencies so that strong ties have developed among states forming an international system. However, the nature of the power relations is asymmetrical. Thus, there is a hegemon which has a greater power than the other states. Furthermore, the article briefly reviews the main theories on hegemony emphasizing the differences between the neomercantilism and the neoliberalism which are the classical theories on hegemony. In a second part of the article, we put forward another vision on hegemony and we try to shed light on the link between culture and power, considering culture as a more subtle form of power. This thesis was first developed by the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, but it has been recently reappraised and enlarged in the context of accrued culture interaction due to the speed of globalisation. At the beginning of the nineties, Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye creates a new concept to designate what is in fact a very old form of power. This is how the notion of soft power came into being. The power of seducing can be at least as effective as the power of weapons. Soft power can rely on more than just cultural values, as most often it involves also a political ability of the state to pull the right strings. Soft power is however not an attribute that belongs only to the hegemon. Although, the hegemon is in the position to best use and transmit its soft power weaving a world web, in the last part of the article we argue that countries should become aware of the channels through which they can transmit their soft power and develop policies to target these channels. Further on, we give the example of diasporas as a source of soft power, focusing especially on the Indian diaspora and putting forward the importance of the human mobile capital. By using its soft power a state can come to play a greater role on the world scene than it could have played using only its limited local resources.