What Happened to Co-operation?

The Challenges of Multilateralism

Multilateralism is widely understood as three or more states’ efforts to co-ordinate relations according to a set of commonly agreed principles. Yet goals change, principles change, and understandings about how to pursue goals according to different principles evolve.

Kathryn Lavelle, professor at Case Western

Reserve University, traces multilateralism’s evolution since pre-world War I to now, focusing on the postwar alliances meant to maintain stability and dilute the nationalism that repeatedly pushed the world into violent conflict in the past. She moves on to the multilateral order in eight issue areas, including global and regional security, trade, finance, the environment, global health, the EU and global justice. Lavelle in particular identifies three sources that push back against multilateralism in the early 21st century: job losses due in great part to neoliberal globalization, terrorist attacks and the US unilateralism that makes the role of major international organizations doubtful, and a massive global refugee crisis that has been amplifying existing opposition not only toward the Bretton Woods institutions but toward the EU and UN agencies as well. These sources combine to boost the populist forces in the US and Europe.

No less important, she sees Beijing’s growing participation in multilateral arrangements posing a new existential question about whether the liberal international order can be championed by a state not sharing the political values that previous champions have promoted. In a world where international co-operation is needed more than ever, resuscitating co-operative multilateralism remains compulsory.