On Friday, June 6, 2025, a roundtable dedicated to the recently deceased American professor and influential international relations theorist Joseph Nye (1937–2025), titled “Joseph Nye and His Scholarly Legacy,” was held in the main hall of the Institute of Social Sciences.
The event was opened by Predrag Jovanović, President of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Social Sciences, and Marko Mandić, researcher at the Center for Political Science Research and Public Opinion at the Institute. This was followed by three panels, during which fifteen prominent domestic political scientists and experts on Professor Nye’s work delivered their presentations.
During the first panel, titled “Joseph Nye: Between Soft Power and Hard Reality,” speakers provided a brief biographical overview of Nye’s rich and productive academic and political career as a “liberal realist,” and analyzed the status of soft power in the United States and Russia in today’s context. The second panel focused on Nye’s insights into global politics, followed by an engaging discussion among participants about the (in)applicability of the soft power concept by authoritarian states. The third panel centered on soft power in global and regional practice, presenting specific examples of how this concept has been used by the United States, China, Russia, Turkey, and small states such as Serbia.
The event concluded with an active debate during which roundtable participants agreed that Professor Nye, as the creator of the concept of soft power, made an immeasurable contribution to international relations theory. They also emphasized that, even in today’s world where states increasingly return to classical tools of coercion and bribery as instruments of “hard power,” soft power continues to play an indispensable role in international affairs.
