“Soft Power” as a Political Instrument of the European Union (1990s – 2020s)

"Soft power" is the ability to change someone else's values, ideas, interests. Successful use of soft power leads to a change in attitudes and behavior. "Soft power" can be seen as managing the mass consciousness by indirect means that do not encounter conscious resistance. "Soft power" resources belong to civil society networks. Following the British referendum on June 23, 2016, the EU's global power of influence diminished. Traditionally, the European Union is seen as a stable center of material wealth, high social status, social optimism and justice, spiritual and physical comfort. However, as a rule, they forget about the fact that there is no permanent dependence between subjective well-being and changes in economic conditions of life. Until now, European optimists are pushing European integration as the only effective answer to the challenges of globalization, while European pessimists have said that federal Europe would be too centralized, inflexible and wasteful. The European Union is not so much a generator of European peace, as its result. The EU has emerged as a unique conglomerate of democratic states. This is not a federation or collective bargaining agreement, and it is not a classic nation-state, and most importantly not an empire with a metropolis at its center. It is an experimental form of peace-based integration as a norm. Instead, the empire is usually a centralized militarized state, the possession of which is a conglomerate of national territories of subjugated peoples. The EU is a social institution that implements collective action based on democratic approval and consent to their adoption. Despite governance weaknesses, the EU remains an important layer of capital regulation in the face of three global crises: the financial, environmental and security crises