So many summits recently: from the Rome G20 Summit, to the Glasgow COP26 Summit, to APEC, and finally the East Asia Summit. It is the crescendo of the annual summitry cycle. And, this year, 2021, was particularly noteworthy. In this summit cycle we had in person leaders gatherings at the Rome G20 Summit, immediately followed by the 5-year COP ‘check-in’ with many G20 leaders flying off directly to the Glasgow Summit following the Rome G20 Summit. It is not a surprise given the importance of these summits that colleagues have been attracted to assessing the advances, or the limitations of these gatherings and then more generally to examine the overall effectiveness they present of multilateral leadership. One of the key assessments, not surprisingly, is to determine whether these summits, and therefore the multilateralism underpinning them can meet the rising global governance challenges facing the international system. Prime Minister Draghi who chaired the recently concluded G20 Rome Summit had this to say about multilateralism, and inferentially the G20:
“Multilateralism is the best answer to the problems we face today. In many ways it is the only possible answer,” he said in his opening comments on Saturday.
From the pandemic, to climate change, to fair and equitable taxation, going it all alone is simply not an option. We must do all we can to overcome our differences”.
Yet the judgements from the experts have generally been measured, even rather downbeat, over the current G20 and COP26 and other summitry efforts. Broadly there is recognition of some material advances in the global governance agenda, especially concerning climate change efforts but the fundamental – and many would argue the urgent and necessary collective actions – seem to elude global summitry policy making. And, most agree that more global order needs are just out of reach. Here, my colleague Yves Tiberghien in East Asia Forum (EAF) had this to say about the G20 and the critical multilateral efforts:
The G20 is currently unable to function as the incubator for the reform of global governance institutions that the world needs to manage global markets and pressing systemic risks. It is proving unable to manage the great frictions between established and emerging powers.
According to Tiberghien there are three reasons for this incapacity to construct needed global order structures and global governance policies:
First, the United States, as the ongoing primary owner-operator of the liberal international order, is not interested in facilitating structural change at the global level. Second, the ever-accelerating US–China competition and the collapse of mutual trust between China and the West limit G20 possibilities. Third, most G20 leaders face domestic turmoil or extremely constraining domestic politics. It is hard to find any country where working for the global public good at the G20 resonates with domestic voters and can result in political rewards for leaders.
So, back to the limited progress possibilities by the current global order. Here, Tiberghien sees this G20 as useful, if only just, determining that the current global summit incrementally advances the G20 agenda:
As a consensus-based multilateral process, the G20 can only deliver incremental progress over time. By that standard, the Rome Summit had a positive impact. It was the first functional G20 since 2016, thanks to the return of the United States to multilateralism. It succeeded in keeping alive one important function of the G20 — the generation of norms, regulations and goals that facilitate global cooperation and reduce tensions.
Big policy advances – some would say necessary ones especially with respect to climate change and the critical reduction in emissions, are being met but only partially, and in the face of rising existential climate threats.
The ‘Mechanisms’ of Multilateralism
As evidenced above, the G20, and of course the much larger COP26 gathering of almost 200 countries are ‘mechanically’ driven by consensus. This is the decisionmaking ‘heart’ of global summitry. National interest, of course, generally demands it. As described in the WSJ the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres acknowledged the evident limitations that such multilateral consensus imposes on decision making, here at COP26:
António Guterres, the U.N. Secretary General, reflected the disappointment of many delegates in not getting more concrete commitments through a process that required sign off from almost all of the world’s governments.
“The approved texts are a compromise,” he said. “They reflect the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the state of political will in the world today.
… Some governments that are seen as most vulnerable to climate change voiced frustration with the U.N.’s process for the climate talks, which require unanimity among governments for a deal. They were looking for more decisive measures to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, but saw those efforts blocked by major emitters such as China and big fossil fuel exporters such as Saudi Arabia.
Tom McTague writing in The Atlantic describes, in fact, a type of leaderless order, as he sees the current order, that is generated by the demands of national interest and national decision making influence and style:
After 2011, Merkel and Germany have been too strong not to lead, yet they have also been reluctant leaders, preferring to react, preserve, and buy time, rather than pay the costs of strategic reforms. … The problem is that the new world—one with an array of powers, each pursuing narrow advantage and lacking a sense of grander strategy—creates a kind of double inaction. … And although there has been a collective sigh of relief from Biden’s fellow leaders, the sense that remains after this year’s round of summitry is not one of careful management and reform and progress, but one of decline and division and loss.
When you look at the G7 and G20 this year, you see a West that is still powerful but no longer dominant, more focused on its internal squabbles than the bigger picture. You see a leaderless West that takes nervous small steps, and then backtracks a little.
So beyond just the state of the environment, what is the state of global governance collaboration currently? Is serious collaboration possible within the context of multilateralism today? And if it can work, what are the mechanisms that are necessary for it? I have written, more formally, on what a number of us have come to call ‘effective multilateralism’. (See, “The Possibilities for ‘Effective Multilateralism’ in the Coming Global Order” (Alexandroff forthcoming)) Those of us concerned with multilateralism’s success have examined the elements which are crucial for it: “
- Are there certain actors required for contemporary multilateralism to operate successfully in today’s global order? More pointedly will contemporary multilateralism likely only work if organized or accepted by the leading powers – the United States or say possibly the US and China.
- What actors can be active participants in multilateralism and in particular what do analysts’ mean when they reference, as they often do, ‘middle powers’ in multilateralism?
- What is the possible meaning for ‘effectiveness’ in our effort to describe ‘effective multilateralism and does it include, in fact, multilateralism without the leading powers? How would such effective multilateralism look like and how would it function in the contemporary global order?
Our conclusion is relatively straight forward. Multilateralism can operate successfully but it relies on two mechanisms that we believe underlie its effective use. First, we believe that for multilateralism to work such multilateralism requires the active effort of ‘shifting coalitions of consensus’. Now it is interesting that this concept ‘shifting coalitions of consensus’ emerged some time ago – in fact around the early G20 summits in 2008 and 2009 and especially around the Korea G20 summit in 2010. The G20 appeared to be at that early period of its existence as the successor to the G7/8 made up of like-minded states, except for Russia. Instead the G20 was made up of the key established powers, the US, Europe and Japan and the inclusion of significant developing and emerging economic powers – China, Indian, Brazil and others. It was seen by colleagues such as CFR’s Patrick Stewart (2010) at the time as:
The very size and diversity of the G20 – while not without drawbacks – may inject new dynamism into global governance by facilitating the formation of shifting coalitions of interest. As such, the G20 presents particular strategic advantages for the United States, which will likely remain the indispensable partner for most winning coalitions within the new steering group.
He went on to say:
As the G20 matures and expands its agenda, it has the potential to shake up the geopolitical order, introducing greater flexibility into global diplomacy and transcending the stultifying bloc politics that have too often hamstrung cooperation in formal, treaty based institutions (including the United Nations).
‘Shifting coalitions of consensus’, then, and now have applicability in my opinion beyond just the G20. Critically, these coalitions represent then and now again shifting subsets of members within the larger multilateral consensus of multilateral settings. Multilateralism in effective multilateralism would by the very character of shifting coalitions replace multilateralism by plurilateralism. And plurilateralism by definition is not restricted either to two actors – bilateralism nor to the larger whole, multilateralism. At its origin shifting coalitions were not limited by the consensus rule of most multilateral global governance entities. Yet what was agreed to plurilaterally could become a consensus decision over a period of time.
If shifting coalitions of consensus could advance a policy outcome the next pertinent question was determining the ‘who’ of shifting coalitions. I suggested in exploring effective multilateralism that “What remains unclear is whether multilateralism can operate effectively without the leading powers. … Can it follow, then, that multilateralism can be anchored on principles of governance that are not tied to power and may be constructed in some circumstances without the leading powers?” Here, then, for plurilateral construction was a vital question. For many analysts such groups could not be constructed without China and the United States, the two leading states. For many power remains the defining aspect of global order and ordering. But the Vision20 Principals*in their research of contemporary global governance have suggested otherwise:
Indeed, these Principals (Vision20 2019) have pressed the case for ‘effective multilateralism’ at least in the context of the G20 Leaders’ Summit. The Principals argued that effective multilateralism in the context of the contemporary global order Informal could be seen as (Vision20 2019, 3): “We assess that ‘effective multilateralism’ today resides in those fora and coalitions that are prepared to move forward on policy and act on a collective action basis whether they include all, or not.”
Shiro Armstrong in a recent Weekly EAF hinted at the plurilateral policy possibilities in the Indo-Pacific context:
With China and the United States locked in strategic competition, small and middle powers need to work in coalition to protect their interests and shape the behaviour of the major powers. Major powers rarely consider the spillovers from their actions on smaller countries, even if they are allies. But coalitions of small and middle powers can make a difference and that’s where groupings like APEC present a crucial opportunity. Chinese exercise of raw economic muscle against Australia has seen other countries get behind Australia’s pushback in the WTO against China, even as China becomes a more important trading partner for almost every country.
The Vision20 researchers have discovered other critical G20 instances where coalitions of consensus have formed without the leading powers though multilateral consensus may ultimately be achieved. These coalitions are possible but they demand leadership that is not mesmerized by leading powers. Only some leadership is capable off seeing the possibilities of effective multilateralism. But global governance will increasingly be reliant on it.
There you have it: two mechanisms for our multilateral future: plurilateral decisionmaking built on ‘shifting coalitions of consensus’ and effective multilateralism. To date they remain scarce but highly needed for: the planet, people and prosperity.
Endnotes
The Vision20 was founded by Yves Tiberghien prior to the G20 Hangzhou Summit in 2016. It is an informal engagement group of the G20 focused on the relationship of the G20 leaders to their citizens in the G20, Yves is a Professor of Political Science and Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. Besides Yves, there is Colin Bradford a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and myself Alan Alexandroff.
Works Cited
Patrick, Stewart. 2010. “The G20: Shifting coalitions of consensus rather than blocs” in Colin Bradford and Lim Wonhyuk, eds., The consolidation of the G20: From crisis committee to global steering committee. 2010. Seoul: Korea Development Institute and Washington: The Brookings Institution: 358-370.
Image Credit: Erin Schaff The New York Times