World Order Transition and the Fate of Multilateralism

In the post-World War II years, multilateral policies towards trade, finance, security, and de-colonization have been made by a set of institutions (IMF, WB, GATT, and UN) created by the coalition of the world war victorious states under the leadership of the United States. Multilateralism was the brand-new way of making and implementing world public, i.e. applying to all, policies with the support of states bearing different values and interests under the leadership of the United States and its western allies. The fate of multilateralism is questioned today. The Section invites researchers to confront their studies about the fortunes and failures of the post-war multilateral policies and to explain why these policies have lost effectiveness, relevancy, and adequacy. Such call is based on the finding that the erosions of the multilateral policies towards the problems considered as the main problems of the world come with the declining trajectory of the world order created by the United States and the Western countries and with the transformation of the environment (namely economy, technology, ideologies, cultures, and so on) encompassing the world political system. Today, those multilateral policies are at the lowest level of effectiveness in their history, while new problems such as climate change, mass migration, cybersecurity, to name a few, remain in the pipeline of the world policy-making process. Policymakers claim to resort again to multilateralism, but they fail to explain how to meet again the conditions for achieving the goal of making world policies through the multilateral mechanisms favouring coordination and cooperation. The future of multilateralism raises hard questions. The past experience of cohabitation and co-destiny of the US-led world order and the multilateral policies that rebuilt the world’s political life after World War II is under the challenges of the opposition and de-legitimation mounted by the revisionist states and non-state actors. This is the primary research object for generating scientific and practical knowledge about multilateral policymaking, which has been the best way to respond to world problems in the global society. The optimistic view of policymakers and also the prescription of some scientists maintain that the present dis-order does not entail the power of the world policy-making institutions to make new multilateral policies. But, so far, no effort to make up multilateral policy responses to the collective problems of the world has achieved effective results. Should the decline of the world order entail the decay of the existing world policy-making institutions, the exit from the current world dis-order and the successful transition to the new world order are conditions to make new multilateral policies. The Section calls on political scientists to bring their research and knowledge on this most pressing issue in international relations to the discussion table as the world has entered a crossroads critical for world’s peace and prosperity at this moment, with the erosions of the current world order, dismantlement of multilateralism, and emergence of new alignments.