Following the recent arrests of FIFA officials, Sunil Dasgupta, director of UMBC’s political science program at the Universities of Shady Grove, wrote an article for International Relations and Security Network (ISN) News about the arrests illustrating a key feature of American soft power. “Rather than blaming the media or the public for paying more attention to a sporting controversy than to developments in the South China Sea, this unlikely legal move by the U.S. Department of Justice should be taken as evidence of the symbolic nature of power in contemporary international politics. On the symbolic terrain of soft power, the governance …