Smart Power in Imam Khomeini's Political Thought: Application of Joseph Nye's Theory

Although soft and smart power have been important sources of influence in the course of history, changes in politics in the modern world have added to their utility. While in the 18th century power was determined by the one who had the best sources of power at his disposal, in the 21st century, the information revolution and innovations have created new sources of power. In Joseph Nye’s definition, smart power “is a combination of soft and hard power in an effective way”. The objective of this paper is to study the applicability of Nye’s theory to Imam Khomeini’s political thought. The hypothesis of the research is: many of the indexes of Joseph Nye’s smart power theory are applicable to Imam Khomeini’s political thought. Descriptive-analytical research method was used for this research. The findings of the research indicate that some indexes of smart power are applicable to Imam Khomeini’s political thought, while the ones based on Western doctrines are not applicable. Although Imam Khomeini did not use the concept of smart power and this concept had not been yet introduced in his time, he practically used smart power in confronting the challenges.