American Hegemony's Multilateralism Behaviors and Motives
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After World War II,the United States had advocated multilateralism in international politics in order to restructure the world order. However,since the end of the Cold War period,the United States as a country of unipolar hegemony has assumed an instrumental attitude towards multilateralism. This can be mainly accounted for by the following factors. Firstly,the American historical experience determines the American approach of regarding multilateralism as a means instead of an end for international order; Secondly,different parties hold different ideas about multilateralism,resulting in different policies concerning American involvement in international affairs; Thirdly,the concerns about different targets of foreign policies influence American policy-makers' decision about whether or not a multilateralism strategy should be adopted.Cite
This chapter introduces a new concept of 'contested multilateralism 2.0' in the Asia Pacific after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC). Different from 'multilateralism 1.0' of the 1990s, which was mainly led by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), multilateralism 2.0 was initiated by non-ASEAN members either by inaugurating new institutions or by reinvigorating existing establishments in the region. Why do we witness this 'contested multilateralism 2.0' after the GFC? Will multilateralism 2.0 make any difference in addressing regional security and political challenges? How did major powers perceive and engage this new wave of multilateralism in the region? Will the 'Indo-Pacific turn' of multilateralism be a blessing or a curse for regional stability and prosperity? It is time to seriously examine the nature, processes, and impact of this 'contested multilateralism' as well as the future of regional order. By inviting the leading scholars to contribute their views on 'contested multilateralism 2.0' as well as distinctive institutional strategies of major powers, this book will shed some light on the study of multilateralism and regional security as well as offer policy insights to the policy making community in the region.
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Does multilateralism have a life-cycle? Perhaps paradoxically, this essay suggests that current pressures on multilateralism and multilateral institutions, including threatened withdrawals by the United Kingdom from the European Union, the United States from the Paris climate change agreement, South Africa, Burundi, and Gambia from the International Criminal Court, and others, may be natural symptoms of those institutions’ relative success. Successful multilateralism and multilateral institutions, this essay argues, has four intertwined effects, which together, make continued multilateralism more difficult: (1) the wider dispersion of wealth or power among members, (2) the decreasing value for members of issue linkages, (3) changing assessment of multilateral institutions’ value in the face of increased effectiveness, and (4) members’ increased focus on relative or positional gains over absolute ones. Exploring how each of these manifests in the world today, this essay suggests that current stresses on multilateralism may best be understood as the natural growing pains of an increasingly mature set of institutions. The open question going forward is what form the next stage of development will take. Will strategies of multilateralism continue or will they be replaced by smaller clubs and more local approaches?
Value (mathematics)
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The hegemon's choice between power and security: explaining US policy toward Asia after the Cold War
Abstract After the Cold War, US strategists have suggested four strategies for the hegemon: hegemonic dominion, selective engagement, offshore balancing, and multilateralism. Rather than debating which strategy is the best for the US at all times, this article focuses on examining which policy is more likely to be chosen by the hegemon – the US – under different strategic conditions. Through a neoclassical realist argument – the power-perception hegemonic model, I argue that US foreign policy depends on how US policymakers perceive US hegemonic status in the international system. Under rising and stable hegemony, selective engagement and hegemonic dominion are two possible power-maximisation strategies given the weak security constraints from the system. Under declining hegemony, offshore balancing and multilateralism are more likely to be chosen by US policymakers to pursue security because of a resumed security imperative from anarchy. US policy toward Asia after the Cold War is a case study to test the validity of the power-perception hegemonic model. I conclude that US policymakers should prepare for life after Pax-Americana, and early implementation of offshore balancing and multilateralism may facilitate the soft-landing of declining US hegemony.
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In the post - cold war era, the United States has risen to a position of unprecedented dominance in the world and has often pursued a primarily unilateral approach to international policy issues. Hegemony Constrained examines how nations, ethnic and religious groups, and international organizations cope with American hegemony. The chapters reveal the various ways in which foreign actors attempt and sometimes succeed in keeping official Washington from achieving its preferred outcomes.An international group of contributors considers how and why a variety of foreigners act strategically to avoid, delay, or change American policy with respect to a broad range of issues in world affairs. Individual chapters analyze the Kurds and Shia in Iraq; the governments of China, Japan, Turkey, and Germany; the G-7; liberalizing the international economy; coping with global warming; regulating harmful tax competition; controlling missile proliferation; limiting public health damage from tobacco; and international public opinion bearing on the politics of responding to a hegemonic America.By recognizing and illustrating moves that challenge American unilateralism, Hegemony Constrained provides a framework for understanding and anticipating the goals, motives, and means others in the world bring to their dealings with American hegemony in specific situations. Thus, it offers a corrective to naively optimistic unilateralism and naively optimistic multilateralism.
Unilateralism
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Russia's pursuit of multilateral approach has dual characteristics. As a medium-sized great power in world politics, Russia tends to perform rhetorically as a proponent of the kind of multilateralism embodied in the United Nations. On the other hand, Russia has revealed stronger ambitions to assert itself as a regional power in its immediate neighborhood. Here, it tends to act either unilaterally or as an ‘instrumental multilateralist’, predominantly making use of regional institutions to legitimize its actions. In this context, Russia can be seen as both an instrumental and a principled multilateralist, in other words, multilateralism in Russian foreign policy is both a tool and a value.
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In an era when multilateral institutions and global cooperation are under attack from the United States and under threat around the world, should Canada restore and maintain its historical commitment to global multilateralism? This paper argues that it should for three reasons: 1) the greatest problems facing the world demand multilateral solutions; 2) multilateral commitments acknowledge and mirror the cosmopolitan nature of Canada; 3) recent NAFTA negotiations have proven the US to be an unreliable ally and dangerous to Canada's economic well-being. Developing alternatives to the US market is imperative. The Liberal and Conservative parties' approaches to multilateralism reflect the two parties' divergent visions of Canada. The Conservatives favor an ethnocentric view of Canada that, increasingly, caters to the right-wing populism sweeping the Western world. The Liberal vision of Canada is more inclusive. This latter view is, ultimately, more sustainable and accepting of Canada's diverse ethnic and religious reality.
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With the end of the George W. Bush presidency and the inauguration of the Obama administration, observers and policymakers around the world hailed the potential for the United States to engage in a new era of multilateralism on issues ranging from nuclear proliferation to climate change to humanitarian intervention. In contrast to the perceived unilateralism of the Bush era, the Obama presidency raised expectations of international cooperation and increasing interdependence between countries, as well as promising to usher in a more diplomatic and consultative approach by the US to the challenges of global governance. This article disaggregates the concept of "multilateralism", and generates a set of indicators that are used to examine the character of US engagement in multilateralism in the "Age of Obama". It focuses in particular on analysing the Obama administration's response to international crises in the area of global security governance.
Unilateralism
Presidency
Global Governance
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Abstract The rise of modern institutional multilateralism is a phenomenon dating back less than a hundred years, and there is no reason to infer that it is either immutable or permanent. With the end of the Cold War, there was an expectation of global consensus and the implementation of collective security. But this depended to an excessive extent on the United States and its willingness to use force, and the level of subjectivity in US-led interventions gave rise to questions of whether multilateralism could survive in conditions of unipolarity. Now the primacy of the United States is slipping, and its pre-eminence will decline as manufacturing, technology and innovation spread. From being the major lending country, it has become the biggest debtor. Despite American military superiority, the world will be increasingly poly-centric and the new emerging powers will exert a strong and increasing influence in world affairs. The character of international cooperation in the next few decades will be shaped by a process by which about half a dozen new major powers seek to mould regional orders of their own. A return to something akin to the 19th-century Concert of Powers seems possible, but this time on a global scale, and with the participation of the emerging strong nations in formal and informal governance structures. The United Nations will continue as a symbol of state sovereignty, and its remit in humanitarian, cultural and developmental good works will be unchallenged, but peace and security decisions at the regional level will be taken by the regional powers on the basis of their self-interest and without reference to the United Nations. Notwithstanding the reasons for the future world order, the existing foundations of security management will not be replaced by anything more reliable, just or legitimate.
Realpolitik
Global Governance
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Offensive
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Winner of the 2020 Friends of ACUNS Biennial Book Award Group Politics in UN Multilateralism provides a new perspective on diplomacy and negotiations at the United Nations. Very few states ‘act individually’ at the UN; instead they often work within groups such as the Africa Group, the European Union or the Arab League. States use groups to put forward principled positions in an attempt to influence a wider audience and thus legitimize desired outcomes. Yet the volume also shows that groups are not static: new groups emerge in multilateral negotiations on issues such as climate, security and human rights. At any given moment, UN multilateralism is shaped by long-standing group dynamics as well as shifting, ad-hoc groupings. These intergroup dynamics are key to understanding diplomatic practice at the UN.
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