The Implementation of Indonesian Soft Power through Swaggering

Strategies in Asian Games 2018

Denik Iswardani Witarti and Anggun Puspitasari

Budi Luhur University, Jakarta, Indonesia

Keywords:

Nation Branding, Asian Games, Swaggering Strategy

Abstract:

Sport has been known as an effective method for carrying out social integration, forming a national identity

and improving the global image. Sports in the modern era have been constructed as the capital of a country.

Sport can be a method of domestic political imaging, and externally can be used as a means of diplomacy.

In the Indonesian context, sports are used as soft power which is implemented into the Swaggering Strategy

to form national image (nation branding). Related to the Swaggering Strategy, sports are used as one of the

instruments for holding mega-events in an effort to show the capability of the country, in this case, Indonesia

uses the implementation of the 2018 Asian Games as an effort to implement the Swaggering Strategy. At the

end of this study, it was found that the implementation of the Asian Games was very effective in an effort to

shape the country’s image. Thus, Indonesia is expected to increase development in other sectors. The use of

the 2018 Asian Games global scale sports event can also be used by Indonesia as a media for diplomacy by

the government.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the era of globalization, the complexity of rela-

tions between countries is characterized by efforts to

outperform one country and another. At the end of

October 2018, the World Economic Forum (WEF)

published a report of the Global Competitiveness In-

dex (GCI) 2018. Hundreds of countries in the world

were assessed and examined their competitiveness

and quality. Indonesia is included in this study list and

in this report, Indonesia experienced a downgrade.

Referring to the report, as many as 140 countries were

included in the GCI list this year and Indonesia was

ranked 45th. This ranking is an increase from the pre-

vious year which placed Indonesia ranked 36

. In

addition, in Southeast Asia, Indonesia ranked 4

, far

behind Singapore that ranked 2nd, Malaysia which

was ranked 25

and Thailand which was ranked 38

(Schwab, 2017).

WEF also analyzes that Indonesia’s weak compet-

itiveness is one of them is the simulation of a culture

of investment and conﬁdence in the low business sec-

tor. Indonesia must have a strategy to create a good in-

vestment climate by making various innovative efforts

to improve the nation’s branding so that the ﬂow of

investment and conﬁdence in the business sector can

increase (Petrarca and Terzi, 2018). With the increas-

ing of a country’s nation branding, automatically the

FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) and a healthy busi-

ness climate within the country can be achieved.

In order to improve the ranking, various strategies

are needed by utilizing the power of a country. The

power of a country is theoretically divided into two

types, hard power, and soft power. Hard power is

more compelling and violent, for example by using

military force. In contrast to the transactional hard

power approach, the soft power approach is more in-

spirational in that it attracts others with the power of

emotional intelligence such as building close relation-

ships or bonds through charisma, persuasive commu-

nication, diplomacy, and cultural inﬂuences, thereby

making other people affected (Nye Jr, 2004). In the

use of state-owned soft power, there are several strate-

gies that can be implemented, one of which is the

swaggering strategy (Wrong, 2017).

After the Cold War, the soft power approach can

be more developed as a way to improve a country’s

competitiveness, one of its concrete forms is sports

culture. Sport has been known as an effective method

for carrying out social integration, forming a national

identity and improving the global image. Sports in the

modern era have been constructed as the capital of a

country. Sport can be a method of domestic political

imaging, and externally can be used as a means of

Witarti, D. and Puspitasari, A.

The Implementation of Indonesian Soft Power through Swaggering Strategies in Asian Games 2018.

DOI: 10.5220/0009104201870194

In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Social, Economy, Education and Humanity (ICoSEEH 2019) - Sustainable Development in Developing Country for Facing Industrial

Revolution 4.0, pages 187-194

ISBN: 978-989-758-464-0

187

diplomacy (Grix and Brannagan, 2016).

Regarding to the swaggering strategy, sports can

be used as one of the instruments for holding mega

events in order to demonstrate the country’s capabil-

ities. In its history, there have been several coun-

tries that have managed to hold mega sports events

which can ultimately enhance the country’s image at a

global level, including the Olympics, the FIFA World

Cup, the SEA Games, the Asian Games, the Winter

Olympics, and others. The success of holding this

mega event has become one of the benchmarks of the

nation’s branding (pretensions), including Indonesia,

which has successfully hosted the Asian Games in

2018 (Freeman, 2012).

Through the momentum of holding the 2018

Asian Games sports event, Indonesia seeks to use its

soft power to build the Nation Branding at the global

level by using a swaggering strategy. Thus, Indonesia

is expected to increase development in other sectors.

The use of the 2018 Asian Games global scale sports

event is used by Indonesia as a media for diplomacy

by the government. This is because, there are repre-

sentations and diplomatic activities by individuals or

groups involved in sports events and in conjunction

with existing governments (Wagar, 2009).

In practice sports are used to convey messages or

shape the image that a country wants to form (Grix

and Houlihan, 2014). The holding of mega sports

events such as the 2018 Asian Games is increasingly

being used as a media for diplomacy in various coun-

tries in order to build the image of a country to change

perceptions of issues that are developing in the coun-

try and encourage rapid development of the country.

Therefore, researchers are interested in seeing how In-

donesia uses its soft power through the momentum of

organizing the 2018 Asian Games in building a posi-

tive image of Indonesia through a swagging strategy.

2 SOFT POWER, NATION

BRANDING & SWAGGERING

STRATEGY

Soft power is one of the concepts promoted by Joseph

S. Nye. Soft power is a term that is widely used to

interpret or explain a process of relations and realiza-

tion of power. The meaning of soft power itself is an

ability to do everything and control others, to make

it do something that they do not necessarily want to

do (things and control others, to get to what they oth-

erwise would). Soft power is a superior national re-

source as the ability of the state that can be used to in-

ﬂuence other countries to achieve the desired results

Figure 1: Soft power instruments

or interests. This soft power can be realized in foreign

policy instruments and techniques run by a country.

Nye explained that with Soft Power ”the best pro-

paganda is not propaganda” (the best propaganda is

not propaganda ”, and also explained that” credibil-

ity is the scarcest resource ”(credibility is the rarest

source) (Nye, 2012). Nye introduced this term in

his book, ”Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of

American Power” (Nye, 1990). Nye then developed

the concept further through his book, ”Soft Power:

The Means to Success in World Politics” (Nye Jr,

2004). According to Joseph Nye, soft power is: the

ability to get through a rather than through coercion

or payments attraction. Some forms of soft power in-

clude tourism, culture and so on. Thus, in pursuing its

national interests the state can never act alone.

This concept requires other actors such as pri-

vate agents, religious and educational institutions, and

transnational companies engaged in the business of

trade, communication and information, art, and cul-

ture (interdependence). This concept refers to the

non-military power of the state such as the economy,

culture and things that realists call low politics com-

pared to hard power such as defence and military is-

sues, soft power also has quite crucial problems for

the country. The success of soft power depends on the

credibility of the country concerned and acceptance

from the target country. Attractions and inducements

are social reconstructions so that new soft power will

have an effect if there is a two-way relationship. The

following are the components that can be categorized

as the soft power of a country.

The success of a country in competing in the

global market is very much inﬂuenced by the na-

tion’s Branding. Every country seeks to build a Na-

tion Branding to inﬂuence relations with other coun-

tries. Nation Branding is one of the main components

that can be the starting point for bilateral relations be-

tween one country and another. In this relationship,

there are also actors who play a role in it, namely

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188

state actors and non-state actors. Both of them al-

ways try their best to create a good image or image

of their country to the international community. Na-

tion Branding covers various aspects, such as politics,

economics, culture, business and sports. At present,

countries in the world focus on elevating the image

of the country through anything that can distinguish

itself on the international stage.

According to Anholt, Nation Branding is:

Nation Branding as ’the dominant’ channel of

communication for national identity and communica-

tion has been a central concept in his conceptualiza-

tion of nation branding.

According to Raymond Miller, nation branding is

deﬁned as:

A set of theories and applications that aim to mea-

sure, build and regulate the reputation of a country

(still related to place branding).

In accordance with its deﬁnition, this nation

branding functions to build, develop, and maintain a

good image (reputation) about a country. The suc-

cess of a country in competing in the global market

is strongly inﬂuenced by the country’s brand image.

In fact, the branding and image of a country coupled

with a commensurate transfer between the images to

the products produced are as important as the prod-

ucts produced by the country itself.

Nation Branding covers various aspects, such as

politics, economics, culture, business and sports. At

present, countries in the world focus on elevating the

image of the country through anything that can distin-

guish itself on the international stage. Every country

seeks to build a Nation Branding to inﬂuence relations

with other countries. The use of Nation Branding in

an effort to promote various aspects that are motivated

by the interests of the state then combines state iden-

tity and nationalism in a real way by establishing co-

operation with various branding consultants, various

collaborative bodies in the ﬁeld of national identity

promotion both private and state, to develop promo-

tional strategies commercial. Thus, efforts to be able

to sell commercially owned and state-owned sectors

within the country have a brand that will be published

both internally and externally. Related to research

on sports and the efforts of nation branding carried

out through the holding of mega events, there have

been several studies that were previously conducted

by both researchers and outside academics. Previous

research shows that sporting events can be used as

instruments of diplomacy in relations between coun-

tries that are experiencing problems. Failure to form

diplomacy formally can be softened through sporting

events. Sports, even succeeded in initiating or open-

ing the path of the recovery process of relations be-

tween two countries that had been involved in a long

enough feud (Volcic and Andrejevic, 2011).

According to Martin Muller, events categorized

by size and size are divided into giga events, mega

events, and major events. The event category is re-

lated to the impact of organizing events. The wider

the scope of the event is held, the more complex

preparations must be made, and the greater the funds

spent. The multi-billion-dollar expenditure on mega-

events has a direct impact on host countries in cities,

regions, populations and the environment. The host

must ensure the availability of facilities such as sta-

diums, conference facilities, roads, railways, metro,

hotels or power plants. In fact, the governments of

most of the host countries make strategic use of this

mega-event to develop infrastructure and encourage

urban development (M

uller, 2015).

Conceptually swaggering is the only strategy to

use national capability that can accommodate soft

power into one of their supporting instruments. Swag-

gering was originally one of the security strategies

that has been carried out by a country where the coun-

try was trying to show the military security they had to

other countries. Swaggering is mostly done in peace-

ful situations which can be used for military training

in weapons demonstrations or making purchases or

building prestigious weapons with the aim of being

egoistic.

This strategy is usually carried out through the

holding of mega events or major events on an interna-

tional scale that are ”show off” to show the capability

of the country. Because it was carried out in a peace-

ful situation, this strategy then developed into a strat-

egy that was not only militaristic. Swaggering is now

carried out by using soft state power, one of which is

sports culture. As a reference, the dynamics of the

development of the Power Concept and its implemen-

tation of globalization can be seen in the following

scheme (Murray, 2011).

The evolution of the swaggering concept approach

from hard power to soft power can be seen in the fol-

lowing Table 1.

It is difﬁcult to measure soft power appropriately,

unlike hard power, which has more obvious elements

such as population, or area owned. Several indica-

tors offered that can be used to measure soft power

which is developed from several aspects, namely pol-

itics, economics, social and culture, diplomacy and

international relations (Changhe, 2013). For the pur-

poses of this study, a soft power analysis was devel-

oped using a swaggering theory which is usually used

in the context of military (non-military) power.

Swaggering is a behaviour used to increase na-

tional pride, fulﬁll the ambitions of leaders, and im-

The Implementation of Indonesian Soft Power through Swaggering Strategies in Asian Games 2018

189

Figure 2: The National Power Scheme

Table 1: The Evolution of Swaggering Strategy Concept

SWAGGERING

Characteristics Hard Power ISoft power

Demonstration

(Show off)

Military Capa-

bilities

Culture

Uniqueness

Object Exhibition,

Pre-test, Arma-

ment Test

Cultural per-

formances,

education,

tourism or

sports exhibi-

tions

Final destina-

tion

Egoistic and

militaristic

achievements

Nation brand-

ing

Media Major and

Mega Event

Major and

Mega Event

Situation Peace Peace

prove the image of a country (Art, 1980). The discus-

sion of swaggering, in this case, is a form of peaceful

use of military power. A study explains the possi-

bility of using sports as soft power using swaggering

analysis (Freeman, 2012). In the context of military

power, swaggering usually appears in the form, for

example by displaying a troop title or a national exer-

cise demonstration. This can be replaced by display-

ing the toughness of athletes competing in the arena

of the prestigious world sports competition. Whereas

the purchase of sophisticated weapons to show the

strength of a country can be replaced with pride in

buying and building modern sports facilities and sup-

porting infrastructure.

The organization of mega sports events such as

the World Cup and the Olympics can be a place for

a country to demonstrate its capabilities and reputa-

tion in the eyes of the international community. The

Olympics can be used by the host country to show its

identity to the global community. Developing coun-

tries can accentuate themselves as ”debutante ball” or

”coming out party” by becoming organizers. An ex-

ample is when Japan hosted the Olympics in 1964.

The implementation of the Olympics became a sym-

bol of the forgiveness of sins as well as a ”total

welcome back” of Japan after losing all-out in the

1945 world war. While China used the 2008 Beijing

Olympic Games to strengthen its identity in the power

hierarchy globally (Fraser and Herbert, 1980).

The host who succeeded in holding a mega sports

event will raise his pride in the international arena.

The desire and ambition to host the event can show the

ability and image of a government (Freeman, 2012).

Strengths like this used to be usually pursued through

military aspects (hard power), now can be obtained

through sports achievements as a form of soft power.

But the purpose of self-assertion as in the sense of

swaggering can still be obtained.

Although it is difﬁcult to measure its success,

some scholars have offered a number of indicators in-

cluding soft power scope. Nye (Nye, 2005) empha-

sizes that persuasive attraction is the key to the suc-

cess of soft power rather than coercion. In a context

like this, soft power can be pursued through diplo-

macy. Su (Changhe, 2013)states that the implemen-

tation of public diplomacy by using culture is an ef-

fective method of soft power, of course by involv-

ing all parties. Government, private individuals or

groups can directly or indirectly inﬂuence behaviour

and public opinion.

In the context of relations between countries, soft

power can be used to increase the power of a country.

One of them is in the form of increasing friendship

with other countries. The aim of a country’s diplo-

macy must be focused on friendship (growing friends)

and instilling a culture (cultivating a culture), rather

than adding enemies or establishing military alliances

(Changhe, 2013). Based on this understanding, the

2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang are the

implementation of soft power diplomacy that Indone-

sia can use to strengthen friendships with Asian coun-

tries.

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3 ASIAN GAMES 2018:

INDONESIA’S SOFT POWER

DIPLOMACY THROUGH

SWAGGERING STRATEGY

The biggest event in Asia, the 2018 Asian Games

have been held. The event, which took place Au-

gust 18 to September 2, 2019, competed for 40 sports.

The Games have been attended by 15,000 athletes

and ofﬁcials from 45-member countries of the Asian

Olympic Council. Indonesia’s appointment was mo-

tivated by Vietnam’s unpreparedness to host. This

is the second time Indonesia has hosted the Asian

Games IV in Jakarta in 1962. For this reason, the

government established the Indonesia Asian Games

2018 Organizing Committee (INASGOC) as the ex-

ecutive committee. INASGOC is responsible as the

executive committee that will plan, prepare and orga-

nize the 2018 Asian Games. The INASGOC National

Committee is responsible directly to the President of

the Republic of Indonesia.

The Asian Games, which were ﬁrst held in 1951

in New Delhi, are mega event sports for Asian coun-

tries. The trust given to Indonesia as the host of the

18th Asian Games is, of course, intended that the

sporting events run well, smoothly and successfully.

Since a year before, Indonesia has prepared and is ac-

tively promoting good. President Joko Widodo who

inaugurated the Asian Games countdown at the Na-

tional Monument, Jakarta on August 18, 2017 invited

all components of Indonesian society to support the

success of this event. All parties involved in the 2018

Asian Games want to achieve success at this sporting

party, both in terms of success and achievement. The

organization of the Asian Games also has a strategic

meaning for Indonesia.

Sports events such as the 2018 Asian Games

can simultaneously become an effort for Indonesian

swaggering to the international community. Freeman

describes the use of sport as a form of non- mili-

taristic swaggering transformation (Freeman, 2012).

First, the appearance of athletes who compete in mega

events can lift national pride. Second, prestige as the

host of mega sports events that will enhance the image

of a country in the world. Pride is the goal of a swag-

gering strategy so that both are appropriate as a form

of non- military swaggering. Finally, extensive me-

dia coverage of the event being held will also bring a

message to the world outside about the existence and

capabilities of the host country.

In this study, the analysis of swaggering in the im-

plementation of the 2018 Asian Games was developed

by focusing on achieving two things, attractions and

prestige. Attractions are shown by the international

media interest that covers the event. Whereas Indone-

sia’s prestige and image are seen from the appearance

of athletes at the 2018 Games Games, including con-

sidering the sports that are aired and medals.

3.1 Media Coverage

The Asian Games are covered by 3,500 international

media crews. While in Indonesia the media will not

only cover sports activities, but also various other in-

teresting events and objects in Indonesia. If all this

time the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of For-

eign Affairs invites dozens of foreign journalists to the

Familiarization Trip (Fam Trip) and Journalist Visit

Program (JVP), of course the presence of 3,500 me-

dia workers is a very large number to cover Indonesia.

INASGOC set a budget of 800 billion Rupiah for

Asian Games broadcasting costs. The funds are in-

cluded in the cost of the live broadcast of 38 sports,

the opening ceremony, and the closing ceremony of

the Asian Games which took place in Jakarta and

Palembang. INASGOC provides the International

Broadcasting Centre (IBC) located in the Jakarta Con-

vention Centre in Jakarta and the Sriwijaya Promotion

Centre in Palembang. The IBC 2018 Asian Games

covers an area of 7,100 square meters located in the

Jakarta Convention Centre (JCC) Hall B, Jakarta, so

that it can accommodate the broadcast room requests

of a number of countries.

To maintain the quality of broadcasts of the Asian

Games, INASGOC is partnering with a Swiss broad-

cast management company, International Games and

Broadcast Services (IGBS) as a management partner

for broadcasting the 18th Asian Games. IGBS had

previously been an Asian Games broadcasting partner

in the previous three editions, the 2006 Asian Games

in Doha, Qatar, 2010 in Guangzhou, China and 2014

in Incheon, South Korea. In the ﬁnal stage of the auc-

tion held by INASGOC in Jakarta in June 2017, they

defeated NEP, a media company from Australia. The

Asian Games broadcasting will be distributed in all

Asian countries even to Latin America except Brazil.

A total of 427 high-resolution cameras will be pre-

pared to broadcast live all sports except bridge and

squash branches.

Meanwhile, the 2018 Asian Games broadcasting

rights are held by Dentsu, a Japanese broadcasting

company, while in Indonesia broadcasting rights are

held by Elang Mahkota Teknologi (EMTEK Group)

which has broadcast rights over broadcasts of terres-

trial television (SCTV, Indosiar, O Channel), satellite

(Nexmedia), digital channel (Vidio.com) and through

the BBM application. The Emtek Group also shares

The Implementation of Indonesian Soft Power through Swaggering Strategies in Asian Games 2018

191

Figure 3: PR Value Analysis of Asian Games News

the broadcasting rights with a number of national tele-

visions except for broadcasts of soccer and badminton

matches. In addition to the Emtek Group, the 2018

Asian Games will also be broadcast by other ter-

restrial television such as TVRI, MetroTV, TV One

(speciﬁcally Aquatic branches), all pay television ser-

vice providers, Usee TV, MNC Play, and MAXStream

applications provided by Telkomsel. For broadcasting

rights on radio broadcasts, it is held by RRI as Emtek

Radio Partner.

On the other hand, the number of a foreign ofﬁcial

and media teams at the 2018 Asian Games exceeds

capacity. INASGOC predicts the number of broad-

casts and future foreign media covering 7,000 peo-

ple. But in reality, the number of media registering

exceeds expectations. A total of 11,000 media crews

have been registered in the media covering the 2018

Asian Games with 500 media outlets.

Media attention to cover the 2018 Asian Games

supports the swaggering strategy. The large num-

ber of foreign media covering international interest,

especially in Asia, is about the implementation of

the 2018 Asian Games held in Jakarta and Palem-

bang. Throughout the 2018 Asian Games, namely

from August to September, it managed to attract view-

ers (readers and viewers) and viewers. Their inter-

est was not only about the matches held, but also ev-

erything related to Indonesia, especially regarding the

cities of Jakarta and Palembang. Spread news brings

positive sentiment and builds a positive image of In-

donesia. Based on the PR Value analysis that has been

carried out related to the Asian Games news in In-

donesia, there are the following results.

Based on the PR Value, it can be seen that neg-

ative reporting on the Asian Games is only around

1%. This shows that efforts to establish a positive

national image are going very well. Especially with

the very active reporting from foreign media making

the spread of national image to a global scale can be

easily implemented. In the context of the swaggering

strategy, the Asian Games 2018 sports event became

effective soft power diplomacy to build Indonesia’s

nation branding in international relations.

Based on the success of the PR Value, in accor-

dance with the concept of nation branding, it can be

said that the host who succeeded in organizing a mega

sports event will raise his grip on the international

arena. The desire and ambition to host the event can

show the ability and image of a successful govern-

ment. Indonesia’s success as the host will strengthen

the image of being a country that has the ability to

hold mega sports events. This brings beneﬁts to the

identity of the Indonesian nation as a country that has

developments especially in the economic and political

ﬁelds which are quite stable so that the Asian Games

can be held well.

The implementation of soft power diplomacy dur-

ing the 2018 Asian Games has involved many stake-

holders in all aspects so that it can be said to be a

form of successful public diplomacy. Public diplo-

macy is fully integrated with the process of forming a

country’s image (Ginesta and de San Eugenio, 2014).

This is an advantage of implementing a swaggering

strategy that uses soft power because it can be done

by non-state actors. Their involvement in the 2018

Asian Games also shows Indonesia’s integrated pub-

lic diplomacy.

3.2 Medal Earning

As the host, Indonesia won 98 medals, consisting

of 31 gold, 24 silver and 43 bronze. With this re-

sult, Indonesia ﬁnished 4th in the highest number of

golds medallists at the 18th Asian Games. This in-

cision has become its own history for Indonesia be-

cause Indonesia has never before received this much

gold. In rank, occupying the fourth position was the

second-best achievement after the 1962 Asian Games

in which Indonesia which at that time also appeared as

the host managed to become the runner-up. Indone-

sia’s success at the 2018 Asian Games cannot be sep-

arated from the great contribution of the Pencak Silat

sports. This traditional Indonesian martial art has be-

come the golden barn of Indonesia. Of the total 16

gold contested, Indonesia won 14 medals. This is a

“clean sweep” because Indonesia does not include its

representatives in two numbers.

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3.3 Sport Divisions

The Asian Games event as Asia’s four-year grand

event involves 40 Sports Divisions. For the ﬁrst time,

Pencak Silat sports competed in the Asian Games

even though they had competed regularly since the

Southeast Asian Games, the SEA Games 1987. Pen-

cak silat is an Indonesian martial art form which was

formally recognized as a form of sport in 1948. There

are several ways for a sport can enter sports competi-

tions that are in accordance with Olympic rules. The

traditional way is through the international sports fed-

eration to petition the International Olympic Commit-

tee, but the alternative is that the local organization

committee encourages the branch to be competed.

Youth and Sports Minister Imam Nahrawi in July

2018 renegotiated with the Asian Olympic Commit-

tee so that pencak silat was contested. The ofﬁcial

statement is ”Indonesia is ready to host the Asian

Games as long as various conditions from us can be

fulﬁlled. The main requirement is to present Pencak

Silat which is a typical Indonesian sports branch.” As

the host of the 2018 Asian Games, Indonesia can in-

deed add to the other three sports.

The competition of Pencak Silat at the 2018 Asian

Games is considered to be able to help its recognition

as a world heritage. The United Nations Educational,

Scientiﬁc and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and

the Indonesian government are discussing the submis-

sion of Pencak Silat as the world’s non-cultural her-

itage for humanity. Over the past year, dossiers (ﬁles

and documents) have been carefully prepared by a

team of various stakeholders.

3.4 Mapping Perceptions of

International Media

News management is communication management on

daily issues involving the contents of domestic and in-

ternational policies. The government in shaping pol-

icy in the modern era is always looking for efforts

to make the policy a concern so that it can be con-

veyed to the wider community. But in general, the

government only focuses on delivering in the domes-

tic sphere and does not deliver it to the international

scope. Whereas the delivery of policies at the interna-

tional level is very important in the ﬁrst dimension of

public diplomacy (Leonard, 2002).

Therefore, the government’s efforts to form pol-

icy can be delivered not only in the domestic sphere

but also internationally, news management is needed

that can facilitate the government to connect with the

outside world. News management serves as a chan-

nel for the government to disseminate policies made

to the public and not only to the domestic public but

also internationally. From here it can be seen that

the role of the ﬁrst dimension of public diplomacy,

namely news management, is very important in sup-

porting traditional diplomatic efforts carried out by

the government.

According to the facts, the measurement of the

soft power effectiveness, are calculated based on Me-

dia Coverage, Medal Earning, Sport Divisions, Map-

ping Perceptions of International Media. From the re-

sults of the research, it was found that in some of these

categories, the responses of the Asian Games showed

a positive trend. Based on the analysis above, there

are several beneﬁts of 2018 Asian Games diplomacy

and promotion. First, to improve and strengthen peo-

ple to people relations, because people are the leading

actors in diplomatic activities, especially public diplo-

macy. Second, to increase the promotion of Indonesia

abroad, with the amount of foreign media coverage

during the Asian Games. Third, it will clearly im-

prove the economy of the community.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Indonesia uses its soft power strategy through the

Asian Games 2018 to increase Indonesia’s Nation

Branding in the eyes of the world. Nation Branding

is one of the main components that can be the starting

point for bilateral relations between one country and

another. In these relations, there are also actors who

play a role in it, namely state actors and non-state ac-

tors. Both of them always try their best to create a

good image or image of their country to the interna-

tional community. Based on the research above, it can

be concluded that the sport held in mega events can be

a power in the form of soft power and is used in the

efforts of nation branding carried out by countries in

the world.

In this study, researchers found that Indonesia is

not just holding the 2018 Asian Games as a mere

sports tournament. But it is also one of the efforts

to use soft power through a swaggering strategy to

build a Nation Branding Indonesia as an international

tourist destination country as well as to promote In-

donesia’s potential with the aim of achieving broader

national interests. Through the holding of the 2018

Asian Games, Indonesia seeks to form a positive im-

age of Indonesia’s potential in the form of tourism,

economic openness, state stability, and so on.

The Implementation of Indonesian Soft Power through Swaggering Strategies in Asian Games 2018

193

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