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The Troubles with Multilateralism: Two

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So this week’s Post may be ‘a bit lighter’ than usual. But I have an excuse: there is a celebration afoot in the family this weekend – my younger daughter is getting married – much activity is planned. Still here is this week’s thinking on global order matters on ‘Alan’s Newsletter’.

Now, where were we?  Ah yes, focusing on diplomacy and the difficulties of multilateralism, especially among the Formals. Now Richard Gowan recently wrote a piece examining the UN, especially in the light of the upcoming September UN Summit of the Future. Richard oversees the International Crisis Group’s advocacy work at the United Nations, liaising with diplomats and UN officials in New York. Richard also is a Research Associate and Associate Director for Policy at the Center on International Cooperation at NYU.

As Richard describes it in his article, “Redefining the UN’s Prime Purpose” there is a growing sentiment to diminish the UN’s role in peace and security matters. This seems to go all the way to the top of the UN chain. As Richard writes:

Even some of the organization’s leaders appear to think that the UN may be wise to take a lower profile on security concerns and focus its energies elsewhere. … In 2021, he [Antonio Guterres] published a report on the future of multilateralism entitled ‘Our Common Agenda’… In 2023, Guterres released a fuller New Agenda for Peace. This contained a frank assessment of the poor state of international relations, and urged states to reinvest in diplomacy. It included interesting passages on the security challenges posed by AI, new biotechnologies, and other scientific advances. Yet the document struck a humble note, emphasizing that the UN’s ability to address many conflicts is limited and that international interventions often backfire. Instead, one of its themes is that states should invest more in their domestic conflict prevention efforts.

And the bottom line, according to Richard, is reducing the UN role:

In line with the Common Agenda, the Secretary General has portrayed the summit as an opportunity for presidents and prime ministers to launch new ideas about global governance. Diplomatic discussions about the summit – and a Pact for the Future that is meant to come out of it – have further highlighted the difficulties of talking about security at the UN.

This stepping away from conflict abatement efforts seems to extend through a significant number of UN Members and somewhat surprisingly, or maybe not, depending on your point of view, it appears to be expressed by Members of the Global South. Richard has in fact picked up on this thread of thinking from the Global South:

Many UN members from the so-called Global South have made it clear that the summit and pact should focus on the economic problems that they face today. Scores of developing countries are now carrying unsupportable debt burdens, and want the summit to help them unlock affordable financing.

Many of these UN members from the Global South – what used to be referred to in the past as the Third World, or the developing world, or even as the NAM, the ‘Nonaligned Movement’  have made it clear that the upcoming Summit of the Future and the Pact for the Future should focus on their economic problems, especially in the light of significant and growing debt but also in financing the green transition that they all face today.

The dilemma of course is, if the UN backs away from conflict suppression, then who, or what, can the global order rely on. It is evident that there is a hard limit on what the UN can do in the face of great power conflict for the moment but there are many conflicts where the UN is, and has played a role in limiting, and in some instances ending, conflict. The problem has been that the efforts are slow and too often barely effective and these peace efforts can extend for far too many years. So new approaches are called for and likely include stronger immediate pressure and serious diplomatic actions backed possibly by strong sanctions and in some limited cases early intervention. As Richard concludes:

Even if the UN’s narrowly defined security role is shrinking, multilateral cooperation is still essential to addressing the security of states and individuals in a wider sense. So it is possible that the UN will see its traditional mediation and peacekeeping roles shrink, while still contributing to making the world a safer place through other strands of work.

Reliance on more active diplomacy needs to be considered especially in  a world where there is a growing threat of conflict, violent conflicts such as Ukraine and the Gaza wars. But there also needs to be a shift in thinking how, and when, to turn to force is warranted. Dan Drezner from Drezner’s World, and Tufts, and other things, points to the weakness of diplomatic thinking and action. In the case he discusses this is on the part of one of the leading powers, the United States. As Dan in this Foreign Affairs article titled, “How Everything Became National Security: And National Security Became Everything” points to US thinking and action in foreign policy and how it has become dominated for far too long by an overweening national security mindset:

Consider the history of the National Security Strategy, the report on current threats that the president is supposed to deliver to Congress annually, although in practice it is usually released less often. A review of post-1990 reports reveals a steady expansion of qualifying concerns: energy security, nuclear proliferation, drug trafficking, and terrorism, among many others.

 

In the 70 years since, the definition of national security has been stretched almost beyond recognition. New technologies have multiplied the vectors through which external forces can threaten the United States. Furthermore, because security issues command greater staffs and budgets, policy entrepreneurs have strong incentives to frame their interests as matters of national security. The forces that push issues into the national security queue are far more powerful than the forces that lead policymakers to exclude them. Nevertheless,even with this expansion, the United States has been blindsided by events: 9/11, the COVID-19 pandemic, the October 7 attacks. Simply having a longer list of threats hasn’t really helped prepare for the unexpected.

The need for strategic recalculation by the US and among the major powers is all too apparent today. What that recalculation is, and how to implement that, is a discussion for another day.

This Post was first posted at my Substack Alan’s Newsletter https://open.substack.com/pub/globalsummitryproject/p/the-troubles-with-multilateralism?r=bj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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Image Credit: Geneva Environment Network

The Trouble with Today’s Multilateralism: An Intro

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So in this week’s Post I was all set to hone in on the struggles over reenergizing faltering multilateralism in the current global order. Today’s  troubles encompass the formal institutions – the Formals – from the UN, and many of its specialized agencies to the international financial ones – the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO. And the troubles extend to the Informals, the G7, the G20 to the BRICS+ and more. The struggles over multilateralism are the flip side of the return, seemingly ever more strongly power politics – the wars in the Ukraine and Gaza, and geopolitics, especially the rise in bilateral tensions between China and the United States.

But before I could go there, I couldn’t ignore the just excellent article – recommended by my colleague, and China expert, John Gruetzner – in Foreign Affairs by Zongyuan Zoe Liu, titled, “China’s Real Economic Crisis: Why Beijing Won’t Give Up on a Failing Model”. This very good piece leaned strongly into the discussion I had raised in my previous Alan’s Newsletter Post, ‘China, Seemingly, Stays the Course’. The Post chronicled the disappointment expressed by analysts and experts in the West primarily but in a rather more modulated form in China as well. The disappointment according to these experts emerged over the failure in the Third Plenum to initiate significant economic reform in the Chinese domestic economy and a clear determination to tackle domestic consumption.

Liu gets it right:

The Chinese economy is stuck. … But there is a more enduring driver of the present stasis, one that runs deeper than Xi’s growing authoritarianism or the effects of a crashing property market: a decades-old economic strategy that privileges industrial production over all else, an approach that, over time, has resulted in enormous structural overcapacity.

 

Simply put, in many crucial economic sectors, China is producing far more output than it, or foreign markets, can sustainably absorb. As a result, the Chinese economy runs the risk of getting caught in a doom loop of falling prices, insolvency, factory closures, and, ultimately, job losses.

 

Since the mid-2010s, the problem has become a destabilizing force in international trade, as well. By creating a glut of supply in the global market for many goods, Chinese firms are pushing prices below the breakeven point for producers in other countries. In December 2023, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that excess Chinese production was causing “unsustainable” trade imbalances and accused Beijing of engaging in unfair trade practices by offloading ever-greater quantities of Chinese products onto the European market at cutthroat prices.

 

Despite vehement denials by Beijing, Chinese industrial policy has for decades led to recurring cycles of overcapacity. At home, factories in government-designated priority sectors of the economy routinely sell products below cost in order to satisfy local and national political goals.

Now there continues to be some contention over whether in fact production is below cost but I I was pleased by Liu’s ‘recommendation’ that the two – the West and China – consider options other than just piling on the tariffs. Liu correctly points out the negative consequences of such trade policy:

A China that is increasingly cut off from Western markets will have less to lose in a potential confrontation with the West—and, therefore, less motivation to de-escalate. As long as China is tightly bound to the United States and Europe through the trade of high-value goods that are not easily substitutable, the West will be far more effective in deterring the country from taking destabilizing actions. China and the United States are strategic competitors, not enemies; nonetheless, when it comes to U.S.-Chinese trade relations, there is wisdom in the old saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

That is why I have suggested negotiating – and one aspect in this case could be Voluntary Export Restraints or VERS. VERS are not super policy  actions – I get that  but they do encourage bilateral discussions rather than just unilateral penalties. As Liu suggest:

The U.S. government should discourage Beijing from building a wall that can sanction-proof the Chinese economy. To this end, the next administration should foster alliances, restore damaged multilateral institutions, and create new structures of interdependence that make isolation and self-sufficiency not only unattractive to China but also unattainable. A good place to start is by crafting more policies at the negotiation table, rather than merely imposing tariffs. … If the government [China] also implemented voluntary export controls, it could kill several birds with one stone: such a move would reduce trade and potentially even political tensions with the United States; it would force mature sectors to consolidate and become more sustainable; and it would help shift manufacturing capacity overseas, to serve target markets directly.

While working through the WTO might be preferable, and many analysts suggest such an approach for multilateral trade frictions, realistically that course of action is out of reach for the moment.

So there you are on the Third Plenum and global trade.  Let me at least turn to the original subject for this Post; let’s at least open the discussion on multilateralism and its problems. I was particularly attracted to a piece published recently by Pascal Lamy. Pascal Lamy (pascallamy.eu) is currently the Vice-President of the Paris Peace Forum, and coordinator of the Jacques Delors Institutes (Paris, Berlin, Brussels). Importantly, Pascal Lamy served two terms as Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from September 2005 to September 2013. He is someone that is very familiar with critical aspects of the multilateral system. Recently his piece, ‘Reshaping the Global Order’ was published in a large edited volume by colleagues from the Center for China & Globalization, CCG,  Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao, Enhancing Global Governance in a Fragmented World: Prospects, Issues, and the Role of China. Now Lamy sets out the critical structural issues that impair today’s multilateralism efforts. As he says:

The main long-term, structural factors at play can be summarized by sovereignty as a founding principle of an international order, by the obsolescence of the previous order, and by the US-China rivalry.

It is not surprising that he identifies ‘sovereignty’ as the first key to multilateralism’s problems:

Sovereignty has been, is, and will remain the main obstacle to building a fully fledged international order as long as it is accepted as the core principle of international law.

So many analysts acknowledge the burst in new actors in the international system: substate actors, regions and cities and also non-state actors like NGOs, large public and private corporations but all struggle against dominant state actors. National sovereignty dominates international relations and often leads to unilateral actions that undermines wider cooperation.

Then there is ‘obsolescence’.  This focuses around the elements of the system, especially the Formals that were put in place at the end of World War Two at a time when the Global South that has had such a recent impact on international relations existed primarily as colonies of the West:

Obsolescence has to do with the origins of the current global system, the architecture of which dates from arrangements made after the Second World War. The ‘universal’ nature of these arrangements is increasingly seen as a product of a past pattern of Western dominance at a time when new nation states are now reshuffling the old power distribution …

Lamy then targets the impact of the evolving international order:

All in all, the previous international order is being shaken by increasing North-South and East-West tensions and frustrations, and by a change in the balance between geoeconomics and geopolitics, the former losing the force it had gathered in recent decades, and the latter regaining its past dominance over world affairs. We are thus moving toward less of a rules-based system, and more toward the use of force. This context obliges us to consider new paths, tentative as they may be.

And finally Lamy underlines the rise of geopolitical tensions, especially between China and the United States, and the impact that these tensions have had on the current multilateral order:

The intensification of the US-China rivalry is the third main factor shaping the demise of the international order, as this rivalry increasingly pits the two main world superpowers against each other. Indeed, they now believe they have become dangerously vulnerable to each other—hence a change of view on both sides about globalization. Whereas the US and China previously celebrated the benefits of increased economic interdependence in fostering development and reducing poverty, they are now trying to address what today they consider as overdependence and have embarked on a decoupling journey which challenges the rest of the world with hard binary choices and which permeates international life in the form a sort of ‘cold war 2.0.’

So what is to be done? How can a multilateral system be revivified and made effective – bringing greater stability to the global order and energizing transnational global governance efforts?

That’s where we will start in the next Post.

Image Credit: Geneva Interdisciplinary Centre for Economics and Law

This Blog originally appeared as a Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter – https://open.substack.com/pub/globalsummitryproject/p/the-trouble-with-todays-multilateralism?r=bj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

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What is Needed for MPD Success?

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It is really not possible to begin this Substack Post without a quick glance at the first US Presidential debate of 2024. It was ugly. It was a tough night, especially for President Biden but I will let the political pundits to have their say.

Now to the  subject of this week’s Substack Post at Alan’s Newsletter – a focus on Middle Power Diplomacy (MPD) and the capacity of Middle Powers to drive global governance activities. We start with an examination first on multilateralism. There is a strong logic to this starting point given we are beginning by targeting the institutional apex of the international multilateral system – the UN and its agencies. This introduction is also understandable given that the UN will, this September, complete a UN summit cycle which I have referenced in past Substack Posts. This UN summit cycle commenced in 2023 with the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) Summit and it will complete with the critical Summit of the Future (SoTF) this September in New York with the finalization and issuing of the Pact for the Future. In preparation for the UNGA 79th edition, and its opening gathering of Heads of State and Government for  the SoTF, and as described by IISD, the UNGA has elected its newest President:

The UN General Assembly (UNGA) has elected, by acclamation, Philemon Yang, former Prime Minister of Cameroon, to serve as President of its 79th session. His tenure will be guided by the theme, ‘Unity in diversity, for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for everyone everywhere.’

And with the usual optimism and urgency the new President declared:

I am convinced that through dialogue, through consensus, talking together and looking to the future together, we can solve problems,” Yang said speaking to journalists following the elections.

Yang underscored the continuing multilateral wish:

Outlining the thrust of his Presidency in his vision and mission statement, Yang describes the UNGA as the highest, most representative deliberative body at the global level, which serves as “the lone forum where, based on sovereign equality, States in their diverse opinions meet to jointly seek solutions” through the free expression of diverse convictions, opinions, interests, and  approaches.

To preserve peace, promote sustainable development and protect the planet,” Yang underscores, “the international community should ensure that the objectives jointly set by Member States… are achieved.” According to his statement, the need to fast-track the measures to be taken by the UNGA to ensure the effective implementation of mutual commitments will be one of Yang’s priorities.

The collective effort is heartfelt without question but after the last several decades it has to be accepted as wishful thinking, nothing more. I don’t know how else to describe the effectiveness of the UN.

If formal institutional multilateral action has faltered in the growing international disorder: the rising tensions between the two great powers US and China, and recourse to aggression in the Russian war on Ukraine,  and the Hamas-Israel Gaza war, then where can the global order firm up international stability and advance collective efforts?  Where can the  global order save the planet and improve collective efforts in critical areas of global finance, cybersecurity and AI just to mention three critical subjects?

In our discussions and work at the China-West Dialogue (CWD) we have examined MPD with growing positive reflection and a nod to Middle Power action in the face of weakened multilateral progress. The CWD lead Co-Chair, Colin Bradford has pivoted to an examination of MPD. He does this in a recent article, “Toward a New Era in Global Relations: The Potential of  Middle Power Diplomacy” in the 2024 Global Solutions Summit edition of  Global Solutions Journal. Now almost without exception raising the MPD configuration immediately encourages a discussion over what is, and what is not, a Middle Power. We found that out in one of our recent CWD gatherings. As fun as that discussion can be there is no real conclusion to it and I would note that Colin has avoided that seemingly inevitable discussion by targeting the G20. As Colin points out, the G20 consists of the following:

The 9 EMPs [emerging market powers] along with the 9 AIC [advanced industrial countries] MPs constitute a significant and diverse number of Middle Powers that have the potential to change the global landscape, if and as they choose to exercise global leadership in ways that cut across traditional groups, incorporate contradictory viewpoints and focus hard on practical policy issues and avoid ideological polemics and geopolitical theatrics.

From the start, then, Colin turns his MPD focus on the role of those Middle Powers in the G20 and more particularly the series of immediate G20 presidencies beginning with Indonesia in 2022, followed in 2023 by India, Brazil in 2024, and South Africa in 2025. As he writes:

The argument in this paper is that, as a result, 2024 could be a year of opportunity for advancing global governance in addressing global challenges by capitalizing on latent, underlying global political dynamics to tee up a new era in which global governance can advance, even as systemic competition continues between the US, China, and Europe. … The Brazilian and South African G20 presidencies during 2024 and 2025, with the US to follow in 2026, could become pivotal focal points for the transition to a new era in global relations in which middle-power diplomacy demonstrates the feasibility of advancing humanity’s quest for systemic sustainability, despite the necessary acceptance of geopolitical tensions as a reality.

What Colin then suggests is:

Middle Powers exist today and have agency and influence precisely because they are:

• Independently concerned with global threats and seek to play a role in addressing them rather than seeking a prominent role in international relations only as a projection of national strength and identity;

• Capable of self-interested contributions to global decision-making characterized by diversity of perspectives, competitive behaviors, and shifting coalitions of consensus rather than fixed allegiances based on normative values; and

• Basing their actions and behaviors in the international arena on national interests and pragmatic articulation rather than values which have resulted in ideological differences and confrontational tensions.”

And as he then concludes:

As these brief examples suggest, there could be a new global order based on secular interests, non-ideological formulations, and multiple sources of global leadership which interactively generate composite outcomes embodying contradictory but valid perspectives from different vantage points that move the world forward to addressing systemic global challenges in significant ways. This shift in the global political dynamic toward pluralism driven by middle power diplomacy does not inevitably lead to “a new global disorder”, but rather could become a more inclusive, integrated network of significant countries to drive global solutions, defining a new global order.

Middle power diplomacy is based on listening, learning, brokering, give and- get bargaining, inclusion, embracing diversity, being as comfortable with “difference” as with “like-mindedness,” understanding that “shifting coalitions of consensus” is better for global governance than fixed alliances and blocs, and adjusting pre-positioning by being open to enabling unexpected insights and different ways of seeing issues and opportunities to shift perceptions and change positions.

So Colin hones in on ‘pluralism’ and the impact of MIddle Power ‘coalitions of the willing’ in advancing global governance policies even in the face of geopolitical tensions. The diverse collective effort, it is presumed, can advance global governance policy.

This line of reasoning is underlined by Bob Carr and Gareth Evans, both former foreign ministers of Australia in an article titled, “Detente: Towards a balance of power between the USA and China”, identified by Colin and focused on Australian action in a competitive geopolitical environment. As these two former foreign ministers see it:

Lasting peace is always best achieved with others, not against them. Of course we have to prepare for worst-case scenarios, but it is in Australia’s interests to bring diplomacy back to centre stage, resist policies of containment and confrontation of China, and promote a political accord between the United States and China that could help ease tensions in the South China Sea and over Taiwan and the Korean peninsula.

Here then a further nuance of Middle Power action targeting Australia as an Indo-Pacific actor.  So it appears that there is a strong favoring of Middle Power action. It is a starting point but more needs to be fleshed out. While we can acknowledge pluralism and the construction of ‘coalitions of the willing’, where have we seen MPD in action especially in the face of great power interests that may not accord with the Middle Power goals. When does the dynamic of Middle Powers action draw together a coalition of the willing that ‘drives global solutions’? How does this dynamic gather and then advance policy? We need more on the mechanics of MPD.

More on that to come.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

 

Continuing the Middle Power Narrative

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In early February CWD highlighted, and I described in the Post at Alan’s Newsletter, “Are They All Middle Powers? Or, Are There None!” this emerging Middle Power narrative:

We hoped this session would be an opportunity to examine and critique “Asia’s Future at a crossroads: A Japanese strategy for peace and sustainable prosperity.” This very valuable Report was the outcome of years of work by the ‘Asia Future’ Research Group (Research Group)  co-convened by Yoshihide Soeya, Professor Emeritus of Keio University and Mike Mochizuki of the Elliott School of International Affairs of George Washington University. … The Research Group urged that Japanese policy not be reshaped by the rise in US-China rivalry and the growing geopolitical tensions in the international system generally and in the Indo-Pacific specifically. Alas, that may prove to be quite difficult.

The story of emerging Middle Powers is about to continue with a new Report, this by the Körber Foundation. As noted by Colin Bradford our lead co-chair at CWD in his invitation to CWD participants to join a coming session on March 28th:

Driven by demographic and economic factors and an increasingly self-confident presence on the world stage, emerging middle powers (such as Brazil, India and South Africa) are gaining international influence.

  • ​What foreign policy challenges do emerging middle powers face?  How do they position themselves vis-à-vis China and the war in Ukraine?    And, where do they find common ground with the West, particularly on reforming the international system?

The Report is, “Listening Beyond the Echo Chamber: Emerging Middle Powers Report 2024”. This Report, front and centre in our coming CWD session, presents an intriguing survey and various findings from the following:

The first Emerging Middle Powers Survey polled nearly 1,000 politicians, diplomats, journalists, researchers and private-sector representatives from

India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) as well as from Germany.

The CWD gathering has the good fortune of welcoming Julia Ganter, Programme Director Körber Emerging Middle Powers Initiative to introduce the Report to CWD. In addition we have remarks from:

  • Steven Gruzd, Head, African Governance and Diplomacy Programme, South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA), Johannesburg,
  • Manjeet Kripalani, Executive Director, Gateway House Indian Council on Global Relations, Mumbai, and
  • Paulo Esteves, Researcher & fmr. Director, BRICS Policy Center, Rio de Janeiro

The Report identifies the purpose of this research initiative on the part of the Korber:

The aim of our Körber Emerging Middle Powers Initiative (KEMP) is to promote dialogue between Germany and emerging middle powers, such as Brazil, India, and South Africa. With their growing political, economic and demographic weight they are key players for global problem solving and also form the G20 troika in 2024. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown that in Germany, among other places, geopolitical perspectives, foreign policy traditions, and national interests of emerging middle powers

are often not assessed in a realistic manner. To address this, the Körber initiative conducts an annual expert survey and facilitates various dialogue formats in cooperation with Gateway House India, the Brazilian BRICS Policy Centre and the South African Institute of International Affairs.

The initiative is valuable in part because it targets three quite important Middle Powers – India, Brazil and South Africa – all large democratic emerging market powers –  that formed IBSA with the Brasilia Declaration in 2003. While overshadowed by the BRICS and now BRICS+, IBSA remains a useful gathering of key EM powers. Moreover, India, last year, Brazil this year, and South Africa in 2025 will each host the G20 Summit. With the troika mechanism these three countries will be influencing the organization and policy initiatives of the G20.

Back to the current Körber Report. The Report opens with a rather surprising conclusion in its Executive Summary:

despite differences among the four countries, there is a common basis for more meaningful engagement and joint approaches for international reform.

The survey findings are varied and interesting.The broad conclusions:

respondents in India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) identify a different foreign policy challenge as most important for each country – climate change for Brazil, relations with China for India, the war in Ukraine and the Middle East for South Africa – as well as international trade for all three. These are global concerns and respondents in Germany share them.

The Report is particularly interesting in highlighting differences of view between IBSA experts and German ones.

These aspects divide [Germany] them from the IBSA respondents, who perceive international trade as a foreign policy challenge, prefer to mediate between Russia and Ukraine instead of supporting either, view the dollar’s dominance unfavourably and are optimistic about BRICS+. But even in IBSA, some are critical of the group’s expansion to include the likes of Iran.

Finally, the Report brings into focus  what Western interests, I suspect, need to understand and to advance more collaborative action:

Understanding the challenges of the West’s partners must begin with an examination of their specific concerns. Brazilian respondents most often cite climate change and the environment as the most challenging foreign policy issue for their country. Indian respondents see China, which their country has a ‘hot’ border with, as the biggest challenge. In South Africa, the most frequently cited issue is maintaining an autonomous foreign policy between the demands and pressures of different major powers, followed by the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. … Taking their ideas seriously would show that the West is ready to include them as equals at the new global high table. Ultimately, this shift in thinking will transform the Western echo chamber into a symphony of voices.

The Report is very revealing and I suspect the CWD session will be lively and likely to advance our Middle Power thinking between and among the participants at the CWD.

More on that later I anticipate.

This Post first appeared at my Substack, Alan’s Newsletter. Comments are welcome and feel free to subscribe to receive new posts and support my work.

The First Informal Falters

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Yup, a little late in the weekend it is. But then for some Monday is a holiday. Mea culpa, but I was deep into completing a draft chapter for a yet to appear volume – which, in fact is scheduled to be released by 2025. The publication year, by the way, is important. My chapter will be part of a planned edited volume by Edward Elgar Publishing. There will be many chapters, so I am told, that will review and analyze the G7. It will do so on the 50th anniversary of the initiation of the G7 Leaders Summit. Yup, Rambouillet, the acknowledged first G7 Leaders Summit – it was actually, the G6 – France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, US at that moment in time – met in 1975.  All the chapters, I suspect, will cover aspects of this ‘First Informal’, the G7, and, I suspect, the other Informals as well – that is the G20 and the BRICS.

Wow, the 50th anniversary of this First Informal! Certainly, I was interested in examining the role of the First Informal not to mention the Others.

Unfortunately, as you explore the Informals – indeed the promise of the Informals, you come face to face with the state of effectiveness of this leader-led summit. Has this multilateral instrument been effective?  It is hard not to assess that the Informals have not met the hopes of those initiating and managing this and all of these informal institutions.

The emergence of the Informals reflected in part the fading power of the Formals – the institutions of the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and some others – and the intent to advance collective global governance policymaking . A more cynical view would suggest that these major western powers – the US, UK, and Europeans, not to mention Japan, sought to resolve growing global economic problems in the 1970s impacting them and more broadly the global economy without interference of others in the global economy – newly emerging market economies and more broadly the Global South. As I wrote in the early paragraphs of the draft chapter:

“Beyond just a question of representation, however, there is the continuing question, quite crucial, of the effectiveness of all these Informals.” As I concluded: “… their structures and processes have not led to the desired policy leadership as was hoped by early leaders.

There are various explanations, I believe, in undermining the success of First Informal – and helping to explain the current weakness of it and all the Informals. These ‘forces’ are, I believe, hobbling global governance progress in the current global order. One element, of course, is the lack of  broad representation – this is after all just the G7. But there is more. Recently the United States has focused the G7 on like-mindedness and beyond that, at least in a US view – expressed in part by the statement of Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, that the G7 is:

… the steering committee of the world’s advanced democracies, demonstrating unprecedented unity of purpose and unity of action on the issues that are defining the 21st century.

This US “steering committee” focus on the G7 has arisen at the same time, or in part because of, the return of geopolitics, particularly the growing rivalry and competition between the US and China in international relations. While the US-China rivalry does create tensions in the G7, still these tensions are nothing like that in the G20 with the mix of developed and developing members and most obviously including the US and China and in fact the US and Russia.

The US-Russia tension speaks to the growing global disorder erupting with various regional conflicts. There is nothing more dramatic than in the past two years and more of the Russia-Ukraine war in the heart of Europe. Then there is a more recent but no less dramatic war between Hamas and Israel in the Mideast that is spreading regionally.

As described by the President and the CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG), Ero Comfort and the ICG Executive Vice President, Richard Atwood (2024) in a recent FP post:

Worldwide, diplomatic efforts to end fighting are failing. More leaders are pursuing their ends militarily. More believe they can get away with it. … So, what is going wrong? The problem is not primarily about the practice of mediation or the diplomats involved. Rather, it lies in global politics. In a moment of flux, constraints on the use of force—even for conquest and ethnic cleansing—are crumbling.

And then there is uncertainty of US commitment to the multilateral order as we watch the possible return of a second Trump presidency. Even without that the current Biden Administration has too often exhibited a tepid commitment to a multilateral order.

All these forces have weakened the actions of the Informals and the broader multilateral initiatives. Multilateral weakness is a threat to the current global order and raises the prospects of growing harmful global disorder.

This Post first appeared at Alan’s Newsletter, a Substack Post – https://substack.com/@globalsummitryproject

Image Credit – Japan’s Office of the Prime Minister

‘The Decline of US Hegemony and its Consequences for the Global Order’ – A Roundtable at the International Studies Association

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ISA 2023: Exhibit, Advertise, and SponsorSo, the International Studies Association (ISA) just concluded in Montreal  after a visibly energetic in-person gathering following several years of virtual meetings only.

I was fortunate enough to chair the roundtable. All sorts of good folk attended including panelists: Arthur Stein, UCLA, Lou Pauly, University of Toronto, Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia, and Kyle Lascurettes, Lewis and Clark College. Unfortunately, our colleagues, Janice Stein could not join but I was fortunate enough to receive her speaking note and I have tried to reflect some of her thinking with the notes from other colleagues.

What didn’t surprise me, of course, during the session was the recognition from all that we have a fraught period of transition in the international system. There is the obvious Russian aggression against Ukraine and the challenge by Russia to some of the basic tenets of the current order – most notably territorial integrity and national sovereignty. There is also the obvious growing leading power tensions between the US and China and the growing threat of confrontation and conflict especially over Taiwan that currently stock the relationship. There was the obvious attention to US determination to sustain dominance even in the face of a dramatic power transition with the emergence of China and more broadly the Global South – India and other Indo-Pacific nations including Indonesia, etc. and other Southeast Asian states and then, of course, the return of Lula to Brazil.

But raw geopolitics did not dominate the discourse of the Roundtable. Equally significant in our discussions was the acknowledgement of the continuance of the intergovernmental institutions and collective actions of states to advance global order and achieve collective action within the framework of the current and evolving Order. While some decried the faltering of the global institutions, nevertheless, there was general acceptance that regional and other informal order-based institutions continued advance policies in various ways. AS one of my colleagues Kyle Lascurettes noted: “There is a truly global rules-based order that stands a good chance of outliving American hegemonic decline. But the so called “liberal” or “Western” rules-based order is and will be in trouble.” Indeed, the liberal order or the Liberal International Order (LIO) disappeared, I’d argue with the Global Financial Crisis” in 2008 but the Global Order does indeed remain. And, as Yves Tiberghien focusing on the dramatic power transition suggested: “today is a time of disruption and transition – a special phase. Major shocks, change, crises, innovation will take place over the next 1-2 decades … Also shift in awareness. Western dominated order was an anomaly of last 200 years, with a rise phase for 300 years before that. Return of multiple voices all over the world. Return to a diverse, polymorphic, poly polarity.” As Jagannath Panda recently wrote in an EAF blog on March 20, 2023:  “Obituaries of the US-led liberal international order may be exaggerated, but the shift towards multipolarity is in motion.”

And what then do we have as the Global Order, and how will it advance. Arthur Stein recalled the fragile nature of the Order, which he described for me in his opening chapter of my 2008 edited volume – Can the World be Governed? The global order, he wrote then, and repeated at our Roundtable was:  ‘a weakly confederal world’. As he said at the time (2008, 52) : ”In fact, one could argue not only that multilateralism is an existential reality but that weak confederalism is the nature of modern reality.”

So the LIO has faded,  and what remains is the global RBIO (rules-based international order). Weaker and less collaborative – indeed as Arthur pointed out, the low hanging fruit of cooperation has passed and it is and will be increasingly difficult to reach collaborative solutions . But as Yves points out that there is continuing support for aspects of the Order including with China where Yves notes the significant China support for COP15 the Conference on  Biodiversity where the multilateral conference came together to agree on a new set of goals to guide global action through 2030 and to halt and reverse nature loss and the recently concluded agreement on the text for the critical High Seas Treaty. The challenge for the leading powers is to maintain a forward collaborative thrust, and as Lou Pauly warned, it is critical for the US to accept: “The challenge is to overcome perennial tendencies toward either insularity or spasmodic over-extension, toward temporizing on necessary decisions, toward shifting the costs of adjustment to the relatively poor internally, and toward exporting the rest of those costs to other countries.” It will not be easy; and Arthur reminded us that American domestic politics has been a problem since 1919 and continues today with the failure to approve through the US Senate, international agreements and the often strained effort to use executive power.

As Janice Stein alludes to in her notes: “Plurilateral and minilateral institutions – from AUKUS to IPEF to Trade and Technology Councils will be the principal sites of innovation. I have called this process “taking it offsite.” New institutions are being stood up, led by the willing, who set rules and invite others to join if they wish. One could argue that we are entering a period of start-up innovation in the creation of new, smaller, more flexible, and more focused institutions.

Although Janice may be a touch pessimistic over multilateral collaborative action, the Global Order has its worked cut out for it to avoid great power conflict and achieve critical global governance policies in climate, global finance, global health and much more.

 

Image Credit: ISA

Indonesia’s G20 Win: behind-the-scenes gatherings and unity in a time when global governance needs it most – and now to India

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Dominating our smartphone screens, televisions, and front pages were photos of Justin Trudeau, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, and Giorgia Meloni in traditional Indonesian attire, participating in a ceremonial mangrove tree planting event and gathering late night to discuss the missiles that killed two Poles, contemplating potential next steps using NATO’s Article 4. These leaders are – whether they want to be or not – celebrities. They are simultaneously praised and critiqued depending on who is watching them. Yet, what is not seen by mainstream audiences, perhaps even those more politically astute, is the intricate machine of behind-the-scenes work taking place throughout 257 meetings between December 2021 and December 2022 under Indonesia’s presidency of the G20 Summit.

In 2011, the Director of the Global Summitry Project, Alan Alexandroff, wrote about the notion of the G20 not being solely about its leaders, but rather surrounding the Leaders’ Summit an array of complementary “personal representatives, ministers, other officials, IFIs, IOs, [and] global regulators that make the G[20] system work – or not”. Whether the G20 is successful (a subjective term, in any case), is a different conversation.

Alexandroff’s Iceberg Theory of Global Governance positions the G20 Leaders’ Summit at its tip, but the vast bulk of the iceberg is situated below the surface, and often goes unnoticed by the majority of observers and experts.

This underwater all-encompassing mass is formed by numerous assemblies: from Ministerial meetings regarding health, environment and climate, women’s empowerment, trade investment and industry, the energy transition, development, labor, research and innovation, and tourism; to Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor meetings, Finance-Health Deputies meetings, joint Sherpa and Finance Deputies meetings, individual Sherpa meetings, Foreign Ministers meetings, G20 Digital Ministers meetings, and Education Ministers meetings; and lastly, engagement group gatherings (including the U20, B20 on climate/energy, integrity, compliance, and business leaders; the T20, with numerous recommendations from think tanks around the world, the Y20, with priority areas on digital transformation and youth empowerment, and the L20 Employment Summit).

It would be hard to contest that the G20 indeed has been a platform that has developed and advanced key collaborative actions toward policies and priorities, from the Leader Declaration identifying the Pandemic Fund, the Financial Intermediary Funds for Pandemic Prevention, which employs the World Bank and World Health Organization.

The incoming G20 Troika – Indonesia, India and Brazil – will mark a unique shift in global governance deliberations. It will be led by three Global South countries with emerging large market economies hosting the year-long activities. The hosting will pass from India in 2023, Brazil in 2024, and South Africa in 2025.

We anticipate this three-year spread of Global South presidencies will tackle issues that have been brushed to the side or missed in other G20 Summits. This is certainly a significant step in the effort to construct a multilateral network to seek mutually beneficial responses to growing challenges impacting all countries.

The Financial Times released an article following Indonesia’s Leaders’ Summit, deeming its outcomes “remarkable”. Russia, represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, seemed isolated on the world stage as China put forth a more neutral stance in its support towards Moscow. Xi commented that his administration “resolutely opposes attempt[s] to politicize food and energy issues or use them as tools and weapons”.

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Constructing an Inclusive Order: Avoiding Fragmentation and Worse – Disorder

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Two summits completed and another off in the distance, but impacted by these just completed summits. A crowded summit schedule has begun.

The statements were voiced and the Leaders’ Communique issued by the G7 at Schloss Elmau to be followed by more speeches and statements and the issuing of the “Strategic Concept”  a once ever ten year statement by NATO at Madrid.

What have we learned from this G7 and the NATO gatherings? Let me first focus on the G7 Summit. Well, first it is relevant that we take into account the position expressed by one of the longstanding observers of the summit process, Sheffield’s Hugo Dobson. As he concluded, along with his colleague Greg Stiles in Global Policy , reflecting their review of the German G7 and in particular the Leaders’ Communique:

In summary, and despite what we have tried to do here, beware reading too much either positively or negatively into a single summit document. Rather, this communiqué should be placed in the context of a network of summits – most immediately the NATO Summit in Madrid later this week and looking further ahead to the Indonesian-hosted G20 Summit later this year.

And it is a summary and caution well worth heeding. Nevertheless, the tone is worth further comment. The G7 took the time and the Communique to underscore their self characterization as a democratic forum. In their Communique opening the G7 declared:

 As open democracies adhering to the rule of law, we are driven by shared values and bound by our commitment to the rules-based multilateral order and to universal human rights. As outlined in our Statement on support for Ukraine, standing in unity to support the government and people of Ukraine in their fight for a peaceful, prosperous and democratic future, we will continue to impose severe and immediate economic costs on President Putin’s regime for its unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine, while stepping up our efforts to counter its adverse and harmful regional and global impacts, including with a view to helping secure global energy and food security as well as stabilising the economic recovery. 

 

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Struggling to Keep UN Multilateral Institutions Relevant

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She sought to put her best foot forward in her first appearance following her controversial visit to China. In the opening moment of her statement Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reflected the positive aspects of her trip:

Let me start by thanking the Government of China for its invitation. For the first time in 17 years, a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been able to travel to China and speak directly with the most senior Government officials in the country, and other interlocutors on key human rights issues, in China and globally I appreciate the Government’s efforts in making this visit happen, particularly the arrangements for my virtual meeting with President Xi Jinping.

She has received dramatic criticism from the human rights community. As identified in the NYT, the comments from Sophie Richardson, the China director at Human Rights Watch dismissed the Commissioner’s efforts: “That mandate requires a credible investigation in the face of mountains of evidence of atrocity crimes, not another toothless dialogue.”  A second comment by Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch underscored the harsh negative view expressed by the human rights community (NYT, June 13, 2022) : “There was no condemnation from Madame Bachelet even remotely commensurate with the severity of the atrocities being committed in Xinjiang, … She gave up her most powerful weapon for a back room dialogue which will be meaningless.”

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Summit for Democracy – Who and Where is the Threat?

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So, the Summit for Democracy has come and gone. Much commentary preceded, accompanied, and then followed this December 9th and 10th gathering. Truth be told there is a continuing stream of observations still. Various countries openly applauded the Summit though unsurprisingly those uninvited pushed back starkly including in the case of China holding a conference of many of the uninvited.

The lingering question for the global order and its key participants remain: what does this Summit announced early on by then presidential candidate Joesph Biden tell us about current US foreign policy; what is Biden’s strategic policy framework particularly in relationship to China and Russia – the two most evident rivals and authoritarian states; and what is the conclusion drawn by close US allies and partners? What has been gained; what has been hindered and harmed?

The lack of clarity over the purpose of this Summit is fairly evident. This Administration has left seemingly a variety of presumed goals ‘on the table’. It appears in fact as though  the Administration identified at least three goals: an anti-corruption initiative; a protection of human right and more broadly a protection of democracy; and an autocracy versus democracy foreign policy approach, presumably part of a US democracy promotion goal.

On the democracy protection front the Administration offered a number of policy initiatives, including funding: As President Biden identified these efforts in his opening remarks:

Working with our Congress, we’re planning to commit as much as $224 million[$424 million] in the next year to shore up transparent and accountable governance, including supporting media freedom, fighting international corruption, standing with democratic reformers, promoting technology that advances democracy, and defining and defending what a fair election is. 

This initiative was part of the US effort to encourage all participants to set goals and report back in a follow up on these commitments. As the President expressed it:

… and to make concrete commitments of how — how to strengthen our own democracies and push back on authoritarianism, fight corruption, promote and protect human rights of people everywhere. To act. To act. This summit is a kick-off of a year in action for all of our countries to follow through on our commitments and to report back next year on the progress we’ve made. 

Still the clarity surrounding the Summit was never very evident to most.  Indeed there appears to be no agreement on the nature of the declared initiatives . Observers have taken the above to be democratic promotion and not protection.  This multiplicity of goals and their accompanying confusion have enabled experts, officials and commentators to choose their own goal from the menu of options offered by the Administration. Ben Judah at the New Atlanticist described one view of the Summit: Continue reading →