Examining the geopolitical threat theory by comparing New Zealand's and Finland's soft power use

Employing a most-similar case design, the study examines Finland's and New Zealand's soft power actions to answer the question, why did Finland use more soft power than New Zealand during 1995-2010? The article focuses on geopolitical threat to reveal why Finland is such a high soft power user, and New Zealand is not, when these two countries should have exhibited similar levels of soft power use. The qualitative analysis finds that a strong perception of a geopolitical threat boosted Finland's soft power use, while the absence of a similar threat for New Zealand led to a low soft power use.