Trust, Soft Power, and UNESCO: Dr. Elika Dadsetan on Repairing U.S. Credibility
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/12/17
Dr. Elika Dadsetan is the CEO and Executive Director of VISIONS, Inc., a Boston-based nonprofit that equips individuals and organizations with the tools to build inclusion, trust, and belonging. Since 2020, she has led efforts to translate behavioral and social science into everyday practice, helping workplaces and communities reduce conflict, strengthen communication, and repair trust between institutions and the people they serve.
Her commentary explores themes such as grief, rest, and institutional distrust, offering no-shame, no-blame frameworks and community-centered strategies for connection. With a background spanning law, social work, and global humanitarian and development work, Dadsetan supports teams and leaders build and deepen (and heal) relationships, and to co-create norms that sustain well-being, dialogue, and shared accountability. She champions practices that honor lived experience and nurture both personal and collective resilience.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Any quick primer information relevant to the discussion today?
Dr. Elika Dadsetan: Drawing on my background in law (JD), social work (MSW), and education (EdD), and more than a decade of work with UN agencies and INGOs in global development, I approach questions of international engagement through VISIONS’ Four Levels: personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural.
At every level, our model reminds us that feelings are messengers: emotional responses like frustration, pride, or fatigue are not obstacles to understanding but instead signals of where trust, belonging, or fairness have been disrupted and where repair is possible.
Jacobsen: How might the U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO affect its long-term credibility?
Dadsetan: From a governance standpoint, repeated exits and re-entries from a founding member undermine the institutional and cultural trust that credibility depends on. These actions tell other nations that the U.S. commitment to multilateral cooperation is conditional, not continuous.
Through the VISIONS lens, the global disappointment or skepticism such moves generate are data revealing the desire for stability, partnership, and follow-through. Restoring credibility begins with acknowledging that emotional truth before offering policy fixes.
Jacobsen: What practical consequences might U.S. disengagement have on UNESCO programs?
Dadsetan: Practically, U.S. disengagement means funding gaps, delayed projects, and shifts in influence toward other powers. It slows the work on global education, culture, and science, the very areas that support collaboration and peace.
VISIONS’ framework reminds us that institutions rebuild trust through feedback loops, showing what was heard and what has changed. If the U.S. wants to minimize harm, it can continue supporting field programs through NGOs, universities, or city partnerships, ensuring that affected communities still see responsiveness and shared accountability.
Jacobsen: How does soft power relate to trust?
Dadsetan: Soft power is the ability to attract and inspire through values, credibility, and care, rather than coercion. It is essentially institutional trust made visible.
When that trust erodes, people and nations alike rely more on emotional intelligence, reading signals of humility, reliability, and relational intent. As we teach in VISIONS, trust grows when proximity and accountability replace (or at least also include) prestige and performance (or rather, more of a both/and). The U.S. can rebuild soft power by consistently showing up, listening, and modeling collaborative correction, the “we got it wrong, here’s what we changed” approach.
Jacobsen: What role can civil society organizations like VISIONS, Inc. play in maintaining cross-cultural dialogue?
Dadsetan: Civil society is where relational repair happens when political relationships falter. Organizations like VISIONS can:
Convene across ideological and cultural lines using structured dialogue grounded in mutual respect, shared values, and psychological safety.
Train local messengers (educators, journalists, community leaders, like local faith leaders) in tools for cross-cultural communication and conflict transformation (and overall relationship building and healing/restoring).
Model co-design: including all affected voices in program creation and evaluation, demonstrating accountability beyond bureaucracy (and collaboration/co-creation).
These actions work across all Four Levels of Change: cultivating personal awareness, interpersonal empathy and relationship building/deepening/healing, institutional fairness, and cultural humility.
Jacobsen: How might the U.S. absence reshape the balance of influence?
Dadsetan: Influence flows to whoever shows up consistently. Without U.S. participation, UNESCO’s cultural and science agendas will increasingly reflect the priorities of other global actors, including China and the EU.
From a social justice perspective, this shift is not inherently negative; it opens opportunities for Global South leadership, AND, it also risks reinforcing new power imbalances if not intentionally inclusive. The U.S. can still act as a partner, not a patron, by amplifying underrepresented voices through education and cultural exchange rather than directive policy.
Jacobsen: UNESCO’s cultural heritage programs often intersect with Indigenous and spiritual traditions. What message does withdrawal send to those communities?
Dadsetan: Withdrawal sends a painful message of inconsistency, especially to communities that have fought for decades to have their heritage, languages, and sacred sites recognized.
In VISIONS’ terms, these communities’ disappointment and anger are reminders of historic exclusion and extractive partnerships. Repair means honoring free, prior, and informed consent, supporting community governance of heritage sites, and ensuring funding and decision-making power remain close to those most affected.
Jacobsen: How does UNESCO’s climate and sustainability agenda connect to the broader idea of climate justice?
Dadsetan: UNESCO’s approach links science, culture, and education, the three pillars needed to move from technical adaptation to equitable transformation. It asks, “Who decides, who benefits, and whose knowledge counts?”
From the VISIONS model, climate action must engage all Four Levels of Change:
Personal: cultivating awareness of consumption and privilege;
Interpersonal: strengthening local and cross-border solidarity;
Institutional: embedding equity and transparency in funding;
Cultural: valuing Indigenous and ancestral ecological knowledge as science AND folklore (as an example).
My work in humanitarian contexts has shown that sustainable adaptation begins when policy meets story, and when lived experience is treated as expertise.
Jacobsen: What would a constructive re-engagement look like if the U.S. were to reconsider?
Dadsetan: Re-engagement must start from humility, not nostalgia. A trust-repair stance means:
Acknowledge harm from prior withdrawals (and other decisions’ impacts) and the uncertainty they caused.
Meet financial and ethical obligations without delay.
Create visible feedback loops (public dashboards showing what changed based on member-state and community input).
Center co-leadership with educators, artists, Indigenous leaders, and youth (those who hold the moral imagination for shared futures).
Institutionalize accountability through bipartisan agreements that protect participation from domestic political swings.
VISIONS calls this moving from avoidance to engagement, not through blame/shame, and instead through transparent, sustained relationship. Trust isn’t rebuilt by statement; it’s rebuilt by steady behavior.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Elika.
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