Abstract: Over the past few years, the East Asian states, notably the Republic of Korea, have been effectively implementing soft power strategies. The concept's founder J. Nye himself draws the attention of the scientific circles to the fact that “the potential of the countries (note – the East Asian region) is rising year by year. The research of soft power of the Republic of Korea is of utmost interest, as the Republic of Korea managed to revamp its economy and political institutions in a very short period of time, establishing its position in the international arena and becoming one of the “significant” cultural exporters of today. The purpose of this paper is to outline the specifics of soft power development as one of the foreign policy and public diplomacy mechanisms of the Republic of Korea. For a more accurate understanding of the use of soft power as an instrument of foreign policy of the state under study, historical and socio-cultural methods were involved. The research also included the following approaches to the study of soft power: structural and functional, discourse analysis, and the institutional approach.
The scientific novelty lies in the elaboration of the author's definition of “soft power”. “The Korean Wave” provided an additional opportunity for the government of the Republic of Korea to take advantage of soft power as a foreign policy strategy to promote Korean cultural values in a globalizing world. The Republic of Korea's emergence as a cultural power on the world stage has been facilitated by the phenomenon known as the Korean Wave or Hallyu. This phenomenon is characterized by the extensive spread of Korean popular culture, including music, TV series and films. Hallyu brought with it cultural and social implications, especially for Asia, as the Republic of Korea changed its role from a recipient to a donor of popular culture in the region. The Republic of Korea is a prime example of the effective use of culture as its soft power, showing that global presence through creative products can significantly influence a nation's economy and international position.