Policing Authority boss a ‘critical friend’ with soft power

Soft power. They were words Josephine Feehily used a number of times yesterday, writes Cormac O’Keefe

It was, she explained, how the Policing Authority — which she chairs — was going to hold the Garda commissioner to account.

As it turns out, they’re not just words she plucked out of the sky. It is actually a concept developed by Harvard guru Joseph Nye and a tactic used in international relations.