Supranational Entrepreneurship in Action: How the UN Secretary-General Influences Peacekeeping Policy Through Reports

This paper explores the influence of the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) on United Nations Security Council (UNSC) debates through the strategic use of UNSG reports, with a focus on those related to UN peacekeeping missions (UNPK). Drawing on Moravcsik’s (1999) supranational entrepreneurship framework, I argue that the UNSG leverages these reports not merely to convey updates or analyses but to shape discourse, advocate for policy outcomes, and influence decision-making. Using an information advantage, the UNSG is hypothesized to frame issues and steer debates toward Secretariat priorities. I further propose that the influence of UNSG reports varies depending on member states’ economic capacity and regime type, with economically weaker and democratic countries being more susceptible. Additionally, reports are expected to exert greater influence in debates on missions without direct UNSC representation or involving resource-intensive operations. To test these hypotheses, I match UNSC debates with corresponding UNSG reports and use a novel language model for embedded cosine similarity to measure textual alignment as a proxy for influence. Multilevel regression analysis evaluates the impact of economic, political, and mission-specific factors on this alignment. This research advances our understanding of institutional influence, highlighting the strategic use of information by high-ranking officials to shape interstate negotiations and policy outcomes in international organizations.