Looking Abroad for Growth: A Study of International Student’s Symbolic Motivations in Attending South Korean Universities

South Korean universities have been facing student shortages to sustain their growth due to its severe population decline. The Korean government has since introduced policies to attract more international students to the country. The present study examined the prestige-seeking tendencies of international students in Korea and their influence on students’ satisfaction levels. The five dimensions of prestige-seeking behavior were adopted to help explain students’ satisfaction levels. Research samples were current and former international students in Korea. The findings reveal the quality of the education did not contribute directly to the students’ overall satisfaction level. Instead, it was hedonic elements that affected satisfaction. Moreover, status, snob, and bandwagon effects contributed significantly to the quality and hedonic motives.

The Logic of Attraction: Outline of a Theory of Soft Power

This paper refines and further develops the concept of soft power with the aim of exploring the ways human power works and the assets that give rise to soft power. To this end, the paper will answer three central questions: What is soft power? Where does soft power come from? How does soft power works?Answering these questions requires fundamentally a global and systematic mapping of the power behaviors. This paper maps the power behaviors by identifying the basic ways of power, which include a hard way and a soft way of power-over and a hard way and a soft way of power-with. Soft power results from the soft way of power-with. The assets that give rise to soft power are positive agential qualities, not intangible resources as many assume. These positive agential qualities include not just kindness but also competence and commitment. This paper outlines the process that generates soft power and sheds light on the causal mechanisms, both at the behavioral and the psychological levels, through which soft power works.The paper benefits greatly from research in multiple disciplines, including biology, psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, and political science. It involves substantially and links together various phenomena discussed in different fields of study: signaling, indirect reciprocity, generalized exchange, prestige, status, and leadership. With the integration of these phenomena into a theory of soft power, the paper is able to provide a better explanation of indirect reciprocity, a more comprehensive explanation of the strategic logic of prestige-seeking, and a deeper explanation of charisma, among others.

Prestige-seeking small states: Danish and Norwegian military contributions to US-led operations

In this article we broaden the conventional understanding of prestige and show that prestige-seeking played a major role in the Danish and Norwegian decisions to provide military support to post-Cold War US-led wars. Both countries made costly military contributions in the hope of increasing their standing and prestige in Washington. Both governments regarded prestige as a form of soft power, which they could later convert into access, influence, and US support. Our findings are far from trivial. They make a theoretical contribution by demonstrating that small powers understand and seek prestige in ways that differ fundamentally from the ways great powers do. They also help to explain why smaller US allies made costly contributions to the Balkan, Afghan, Iraq, and Libyan wars at a time when there was no direct threat to their national security and their security dependence on the United States was low. The high value that small US allies attach to their visibility and prestige in Washington suggests that it is far easier for the United States to obtain military support from smaller allies than Realist studies of burden-sharing and collective action problems would lead us to expect.