ICR Research 2026 #4: Trust is not enough

Why the character of trust decides soft power’s future

Stuart MacDonald, Nicholas Cull and Hendrik Ohnesorge

26 February 2026

This blog is a shorter version of a longer blog we wrote after participating in this year’s Munich Security Conference, that was published by the British Council yesterday. The blogs were both prompted by our participation in “Is the West Losing Young Minds? Global Trust and the New Soft Power Race”, a panel session organised by the British Council and held at Amerikahaus Munich on 13 February 2026 as part of the Conference’s Emerging Leaders programme. The discussion drew on the British Council’s new comparative research across 25 countries (due to be published on 4 March) and on its Global Perceptions 2025 report on young peoples’ views of the G20 nations. The session convinced us that the question of trust in soft power has never been more urgent or more complex.

Governments invest heavily in developing soft power through cultural programmes, international education, development cooperation and digital diplomacy. But a stubborn question has shadowed this investment since Joseph Nye first defined soft power as the ability to shape others’ preferences through attraction rather than coercion: how do you know if it is working?

That question has always been difficult. It has now become critical. The Munich Security Conference’s 2026 report, titled “Under Destruction,” documented something qualitatively new: the most powerful state in the international system was no longer merely withdrawing from multilateral commitments, but actively dismantling the institutional architecture it had itself built over eight decades. This changes the measurement problem entirely.

It starts with trust

The link between trust and soft power is well established. Soft power depends on being perceived as trustworthy, and that perception must be earned: it cannot simply be projected. British Council research has consistently found that perceived trustworthiness predicts a wide range of international behaviours from study destination choices to trade preferences and diplomatic alignment. What propaganda seeks to circumvent, soft power depends upon.

But the current moment makes something else unmistakeable: trust matters not only because it enables soft power, but because our adversaries understand this perfectly. The disinformation operations of authoritarian states are not primarily aimed at military capacity or economic advantage. They target credibility through attacks on confidence in institutions, journalism, democratic processes and the reliability of international partners. Soft power depends on trust in ways that hard power simply does not, and those who wish to diminish Western influence know it.

Trust also has an inherently temporal character. It is a narrative: the trusting party draws on a shared history to form a judgement about a partner, while projecting forward an expectation of how they will behave. Reputations in international relations are simultaneously retrospective and prospective. Norm-breaking behaviour does not merely damage the immediate relationship, it rewrites the anticipated story for years to come.

Not all trust is equal

Here is where the analysis becomes more interesting, and more uncomfortable. A large body of research associates high social trust with institutional effectiveness and openness to international engagement. At first glance the policy implication seems clear: higher trust equals stronger soft power. But social capital carries no inherent normative value. It is a capacity for coordinated action, and the ends it serves can be constructive or destructive. Tightly bonded communities may enforce conformity rather than foster openness. The structural features social scientists associate with civic virtue can equally sustain deeply exclusionary enterprises.

The 2026 Munich Security Report illustrates this with uncomfortable precision. The “demolition men” it identifies have mobilised genuine reserves of trust among their supporters to tear down structures that were themselves built on trust in institutions and procedural fairness. Their domestic political success and their corrosive effect on international credibility spring from exactly the same source.

This brings us to a distinction that is analytically essential: the difference between generalised and particularised trust. Generalised trust is a broad moral orientation: a willingness to extend good faith to strangers, including those from different backgrounds or nationalities. Particularised trust remains confined to known and fundamentally similar groups: family, community, co-religionists. Countries characterised by high generalised trust consistently achieve disproportionate soft power returns relative to their size and spending; those shaped by particularised trust tend not to. The question is therefore not simply whether a country is trusted, but what kind of trust it has built, and whether that trust environment can withstand the assault it now faces.

What this means in practice

Our research points to three priorities for any government or cultural institution seeking to strengthen its soft power foundations.

The first is institutional integrity. Generalised trust is generated by institutions perceived as operating fairly, impartially, transparently and in the public interest. Investment in governance quality, the rule of law and independent oversight is not a separate agenda from international influence. It is a prerequisite for it.

The second is authentic reciprocity. Influence built on genuine exchange is more durable than influence built on projection. Cultural relations programmes that listen as well as broadcast, educational exchanges that benefit both partners, and development cooperation built around mutual interest rather than donor conditionality all contribute to trust that crosses borders. In an era of widespread scepticism about top-down messaging, this reciprocal quality is no longer merely desirable but essential.

The third is generational engagement. The Munich Security Index reveals a striking paradox: the populations most disillusioned with current institutional arrangements are often precisely those most willing to invest in collective problem-solving, provided it takes credible new forms. Younger cohorts show consistent appetite for cooperation on climate, technology and economic fairness, but less attachment to the specific architecture of the post-1945 order. Rebuilding trust with these groups requires a demonstrated willingness to reform and genuinely share agency in designing what comes next.

An opportunity in the rubble

None of this is quick or easy. Trust of the generalised, boundary-crossing kind is slow to build and quick to destroy, a profound asymmetry that the current moment cruelly exploits. But the same research that reveals this vulnerability also reveals an opportunity. Particularised trust bonds, but it does not bridge. It is inherently self-limiting. Survey data from the Munich Security Index consistently show that populations worldwide have not abandoned the desire for rules-based cooperation. The space for rebuilding generalised trust has not disappeared. It has merely been vacated, and it awaits actors with the institutional quality and strategic imagination to fill it.

Stuart MacDonald is Founding Director of ICR Research. Nicholas Cull is Professor of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California. Hendrik Ohnesorge is Managing Director of the Center for Global Studies at the University of Bonn.