Plurilateralism and its Prospects

The world today is now typically referred to as ‘plurilateral’. This blog looks at what the term implies, the alternatives and the prospects

Plurilateralism
 
A plurilateral world is one where big powers are in strategic rivalry but no single centre dominates. The big four that count are the US, China, Russia and India. Around these big powers there are alliances of the weak such as the EU, The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) & the African Union. Alliances of the weak come together because they are afraid of big power dominance, by Russia in the case of the EU, the US in the case of CELAC and by former colonial powers in the case of the AU. In addition, there are two city states with a global reach – Singapore and London/UK. They exert soft power as conduits, convenors and host locations.
 
The big powers aim to assert their individual interests on the global scene. They aim to project their differences in identity, distinguished by history, religion, ethnicity and sense of nationhood. Common or shared values are missing. They do not invoke mutual assured destruction but engage in hybrid warfare. When conflicts of interest occur, they prefer to engage in war by proxy rather than face-to-face. The US looks to Israel in the Mideast and to the EU and its member states in the case of the Ukraine. They are proprietorial towards what they see as their own backyards. 
 
The EU attempts to use the size and wealth of its market to leverage its presence alongside the great powers. Regulatory difference is the instrument. It is a self-defeating strategy because over-regulation ensures that the EU’s own economic prospects lag behind those of the big four. In the name of the social market, it downplays the importance of what Adam Smith referred to as our desire for esteem and approbation reflected in entrepreneurship, aspiration and venture. More than perennial talk about closer integration between national capital markets, a change of social attitudes and business culture is required.
 
What the big powers share is authoritarian governments. In the case of Russia and China the authoritarianism takes a traditional form where the party and leader has a monopoly of force. India and the US under Trump exemplify a new form of authoritarianism where the domestic electorate is divided between friends and enemies, the ‘them’ and the ‘us’. The division reflects ethnicity, religious belief and ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The power of the majority ‘us’ is used to define the common good on its own terms and to its own benefit. 
 
Communication is through the social media in both styles of authoritarianism. The social media is manipulated to tell the stories that the leadership and its allies want. The different modes of communication and authority are blurred. Politics signals bias not debate. The judiciary is weaponised not used as an instrument to achieve accommodation. Epistemic knowledge in public policy formation is a convenience to be discarded when it does not conform to the narrative of the majority. 
 
The global canopy
The plurilateral world stands in contrast to post second world war aspirations for nations to operate under a universal canopy of shared values, expressed as fundamental human rights, common agreement on major objectives such as free trade and efforts to combat global poverty, supported by multilateral institutions such as the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions.
 
The rhetoric remains observed but the reality is different for different reasons. Fundamental human rights are commonly listed in national constitutions but not observed in practice. Trade is now an instrument for strategic advantage rather than one where each party benefits from their areas of comparative advantage and where trade builds trust in relationships. The Bretton Woods and other multilateral institutions cannot function when great power rivalries are internalised within their governing bodies. The effort to combat global poverty has also been undermined by national rivalries exemplified by China’s belt and road initiative. It has also been undercut by the US withdrawal from the aid business as part of its ‘us’ versus ‘them’ moulding of public policy priorities.
 
The rhetoric is deployed in international gatherings where so-called existential threats are discussed. These used to centre on climate change. Nowadays, AI and quantum computing hold centre stage. Action on global warming can wait. Action on AI is national. The rhetoric provides cover.
 
The multilevel
 
A different way of conceptualising the global scene is in terms of multi-level governance where networks of private and public actors all interact at the global, national and subnational level. No one single level of action predominates. No particular kind of actor dominates. Together the different actors spin a web of global connections that link interests between different levels.
 
However, a feature of the plurilateral world is that leading national governments have reasserted themselves as the main actors on the international stage. Instead of becoming an increasingly networked world we see a world of decoupling and selective relationships.    
 
Hegemony
 
For long periods of history international relationships have been shaped by hegemonic actors, notably the UK and the US. In the period 1814-2015 they could operate with considerable freedom in how they acted and could impose their own priorities on the recalcitrant. In their own eyes they were a benign force. In the multipolar world there is no hegemon, benign or otherwise. 
 
Unilateralism
 
The world is moving away from visions of a canopy of global rules that apply to all and from the substitute vision of an integrated network form of governance across the world. The end destination of this dynamic does not necessarily equate to an unrestrained unilateralism. In a plurilateral world governments of great powers can still be restrained by caution over how others may react, by what is not predictable in possible outcomes from their behaviour, and because in the long run, the great powers prefer domestic acquiescence to what they are doing compared to having to undertake active domestic repression of opposition. 
 
Prospects
 
The prospects for the plurilateral world are for hybrid wars, proxy wars and the backyard flaunting of power to become all-out conflict. Not all conflicts can be held at bay by proxy; not all rivalries contained by hybrid warfare; there is no agreed definition for what constitute backyards. The trigger and source of all-out conflict may be obscure. In 1938 UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain infamously referred to ‘a quarrel in a far-away country, between people of whom we know nothing’.
 
Is there a less gloomy prognosis? In one word – democratisation. An active citizenry in the US and India can restore the vision of forms of representative government where the diversity of individual and group identities within their borders is given space for expression and seen as a plus, not as a negative. An active citizenry in Russia and China can press for a world where their government rests on their consent and not on imposition. With democratisation comes moderation and accommodation. Unlikely? The alternative is worse.