Broadening Soft Power in EU-US Relations
This article introduces the research problem and questions guiding the special issue, situating them in the relevant academic context with references to the literature on soft power and its historical and contemporary relevance for the transatlantic relationship. Based on a reconceptualization of the notion of soft power in the context of ‘Transatlantica’, defined as the political and geographical space inhabited by the EU and the US, it provides an overview of the key insights of the research articles and synthesizes the findings emerging from the different policy domains studied in the special issue. It concludes by deriving the broader conceptual insights – in particular an expanded conception of soft power – as well as the normative, policy-relevant implications from these findings.