المستخلص: |
In his book titled “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics”, the American political thinker Joseph Nye proposed his concept of soft power that refers to the ability of attraction and persuade. Soft power rises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies. Such attractiveness leads to shape positive stereotype of country and allows it to reinforce its hard existence which means its economic and military role in other countries. Since its openness to Africa, Iran has been strengthening its integrated strategy; soft as well as hard power (smart power) to spread its influence around the continent. In this regard, this paper discusses the Presence of Iranian Soft Power in West Africa. The first section refers to the motives of Iranian pivot to Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA) as whole and focuses mainly on the Western region. The second section shows some examples of Iranian soft power in the region. The last section will refer to the impact of such soft Iranian tools on the stability of West Africa and the reactions of its countries in order to contain the negative impact of Iranian soft power.
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