How can a Country Project its Soft Power in the United Nations?

The United Nations is the center of international diplomacy. The various bodies and institutions within its framework offer a place for countries to come together on a broad range of issues. In doing so, a country can curate its’ international personality. How a country goes about this constitutes soft power. The exercise of soft power is integral to a country’s ability to pursue their interests in the UN. This project is an attempt to gain a better understanding of how missions can build, maintain, and leverage soft power, specifically within the UN system. Based on interviews with Permanent Missions across New York, this report assessed the best avenues for developing and exercising soft power within the UN. While there was geographic and cultural diversity across respondents, there were a number of common threads throughout the interviews which constitute the central elements of a country’s ability to build and project soft power in the UN. These centered on the themes of taking the lead, prioritization, personnel quality, working through coalitions, and alignment with capital.