Multilateralism and unilateralism constitute attitudes towards the external world. It is interesting to see how these fit with other characterizations. Jeff Legro presented a paper at UCLA’s international relations workshop and he distinguished three types of states: trustees, hermits, and rebels. Rebels are states interested in upending the established order (a revolutionary Soviet Union was one example). Hermits are isolationists interested in separating themselves from the world (Tokugawa Japan, for example). Trustees are states who are neither hermit nor rebels, but are integrated into the international community and upholders of the existing order.
How does Legro’s typology map onto the multilateralism/unilateralism dichotomy? Hermits are certainly not multilateralists, but isolationism would not qualify as unilateralist if the latter presumes some degree of involvement in Continue reading