Australia has slipped further down a global index that ranks nations by their soft power, placing it again behind Russia and leading to calls for it to do more to improve its international standing.

The United States, Britain and Germany all retained their first, second and third positions, respectively in Brand Finance’s Global Soft Power Index for 2023. Australia’s decline from a once top-ten nation continued in 2023 as it slipped from 13 to 14. New Zealand slid from 21st last year to 26th, despite the international popularity of the recently departed former prime minister Jacinda Arden.

Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese..Credit:RICK RYCROFT

Soft power, first coined by American political theorist Joseph Nye in 1990, is a nation’s ability to exert international influence to produce outcomes or behaviours through attraction or persuasion rather than coercion. It is notoriously difficult to measure

Brand Finance, a firm that measures the values of brands and organisations around the world, ranks a nation’s soft power standing based on a country’s familiarity, reputation and influence and a combined assessment of eight soft power categories. These include culture and heritage, international relations, governance, business and trade, media and communication, education and science, people and values and sustainability.

In 2021, Australia ranked 10th on the index and New Zealand was the fastest-rising nation the same year, due to their initial Zero-COVID stance. But the hardline COVID isolation policies dragged down both nations’ standings in 2022.

The 2023 index, based on a survey of 111,364 people across 101 countries, saw Japan overtake China, which dropped from 4th to 5th place, largely as a result of its COVID zero settings.

Russia dropped to 13th in 2023 as a result of its invasion of Ukraine, but its overall soft power ranking remained higher than Australia’s.

Mark Crowe from Brand Finance Australia said that while Australia maintained an “enviable” reputation globally, it was not actively improving its standing.

“With the world re-opening after COVID, merely standing still causes a relative fall in performance,” Crowe said.

“Australia continues to perform well for business and trade underpinned by a strong and stable economy while enjoying an enviable reputation as being a great place to visit.

“A more attractive tax structure for business investment will help alleviate the decline in future growth potential. In these areas, Australia’s absolute score improved, but relative ranking decreased due to bigger improvements by other nations.”

Ukraine’s soft power ranking jumped from 51st place last year to 37th position, thanks to the rise in international popularity of its wartime leader Volodymyr Zelensky.

Melissa Conley Tyler of the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy and Defence Dialogue, who studies soft power, said Australia needed to do more to “harness its national assets and advantages in a more coherent way”.

“Annual soft power rankings remind of the importance of a range of tools, including international education, migration, tourism, trade, people-to-people contact and Australia’s domestic policies,” she said.

“Results show Australia’s soft power has improved but its relative ranking declined. This change in the result is a microcosm of Australia’s strategic circumstances: even if we maintain what we’re doing, in relative terms we’ll have less influence as our fast-growing neighbours move ahead.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his country’s diplomatic efforts to rally global support for its cause in defending itself against Russia’s invasion were paying off and reflected in the rankings.

“We have made a gargantuan effort to tell Ukraine’s story,” he said.

Britain’s early and ongoing support for Ukraine, as well as the global coverage of Elizabeth II’s death last year also appears to have spared it any reputational damage despite it churning through three prime ministers in as many years.

And despite coverage of their poor human rights records, the Gulf states were also big winners with the UAE entering the top ten for the first time and the World Cup boosting Qatar’s ratings.

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