Enhancing Vietnam's soft power in the context of international integration

This article explores Vietnam's soft power potential through an interpretive constructivist lens. Specifically, it asks how Vietnam discursively constructs soft power as a post-socialist middle power in multilateral settings, and why its diplomatic credibility has not translated into wider global visibility. Conceptualizing Vietnam as a post-socialist norm entrepreneur, the study frames soft power not merely as the possession of attractive assets, but as the active discursive negotiation of legitimacy within an asymmetrical international order. Drawing on an interpretive discourse analysis of Vietnam's multilateral engagements, specifically its 2020 ASEAN Chairmanship and 2020–2021 UN Security Council tenure, alongside secondary global indices, the study finds that Vietnam possesses significant symbolic capital, yet underperforms due to institutional fragmentation, weak communicative structures, and the absence of a coherent strategic narrative. This credibility–visibility gap limits the translation of diplomatic achievements into international recognition. The article contributes to Global South scholarship by offering a constructivist and narrative-based framework for understanding soft power in post-socialist contexts. It argues that international influence depends less on symbolic resources themselves than on how they are discursively performed and received. For Vietnam, enhancing institutional coherence and narrative integration is crucial to transforming soft power potential into sustained global influence.