A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Chinese Soft Power in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Nigerian Case

Existing theoretical frameworks for understanding Chinese soft power in Africa have been derived primarily from Nye's concept of soft power and adapted through largely descriptive accounts of Chinese diplomatic, economic, and cultural instruments. This study develops an original theoretical framework for understanding Chinese soft power operations in Sub-Saharan Africa that accounts for the distinctive institutional, sociocultural, and political economy features of the African state context, using Nigeria as the primary theoretical application case. The study combines a systematic review of 120 published works on Chinese soft power in Africa with original primary research including in-depth elite interviews with 30 Nigerian foreign policy makers, civil society leaders, and Chinese Studies scholars, and 12 months of ethnographic observation in Confucius Institute settings across three Nigerian cities. Drawing on constructivist international relations theory, Gramsci's concept of hegemony, and Bourdieu's field theory, the study develops a Contextualised Soft Power Framework that distinguishes between instrumental soft power (generating compliant behaviour through transactional attraction) and constitutive soft power (reshaping norms and identities over time). Empirical application of the framework to the Nigerian case reveals that Chinese soft power operations predominantly function instrumentally in economic policy domains but show emergent constitutive effects in educational and cultural spheres. The theoretical contribution challenges Nye's liberal assumptions about the separability of hard and soft power and generates testable propositions applicable beyond Nigeria across Sub-Saharan African contexts.

Keywords: Chinese soft power, theoretical framework, Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria, constructivism