multilateralism

Wise and benevolent overlord of the entire foreign policy realm FP editor-in-chief Moises Naim has an essay in the latest issue of Foreign Policy about the need for "minilateralism" in global governance. 

The pattern is clear: Since the early 1990s, the need for effective multicountry collaboration has soared, but at the same time multilateral talks have inevitably failed; deadlines have been missed; financial commitments and promises have not been honored; execution has stalled; and international collective action has fallen far short of what was offered and, more importantly, needed. These failures represent not only the perpetual lack of international consensus, but also a flawed obsession with multilateralism as the panacea for all the world's ills.

So what is to be done? To start, let's forget about trying to get the planet's nearly 200 countries to agree. We need to abandon that fool's errand in favor of a new idea: minilateralism.

By minilateralism, I mean a smarter, more targeted approach: We should bring to the table the smallest possible number of countries needed to have the largest possible impact on solving a particular problem. Think of this as minilateralism's magic number."

It's hard for me to disagree with my master someone making global governance arguments similar to my own, but agreement is boring, so here goes: 

• Even though Naim sets it up this way, I don't think this is an either/or question. There can be minilateralism within multilateralism. Indeed, there has to be a more exclusive club inside universal global governance structures for any decision-making of consequence to take place. The IMF and World Bank have their decision-making bodies, and the WTO has its own green room. 
• Naim might be underselling the benefits of multilateral organizations.  They are cumbersome and slow, but they do confer legitimacy benefits that are real even if very difficult to measure. 
• Fortunately, minilateral and multilateral approaches often complement each other -- or, rather, minilateral approaches generate attractors, which leads to multilateralism. See: the GATT/WTO system, origins of. 
• Whether they have benefits or not however is kind of besides the point. The thing is, they're not going away.  As hard as the Bush administration tried, they couldn't wish away the U.N. process on global warming. As much as China and Russia would like to rejigger global economic governance, they can't make the IMF disappear. 
• One last point, which Moises acknowledges but needs to be stressed again -- the best governance design in the world does not amount to anything if the great powers have radically different preferences.  Institutions matter, but so do power and ideas. 

In response to my post about her TNR article, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Nina Hachigian has e-mailed me the following reply: 

It was actually through researching US policy toward big powers that I have come to my belief in the importance of international institutions.  [The Next American Century: How the US Can Thrive As Other Powers Rise, co-authored with incoming White House deputy chief of staff Mona Sutphen--DD]. While I like a free pony as much as the next guy, I also like even more not being the victim of a nuclear terrorist attack, the avian flu (which is back) or catastrophic weather events--or a global financial meltdown-but too late for that.  To fight these common enemies,  China, India, Russia, Japan and Europe HAVE to work together-it's not optional.  Of course, clashes, tensions, disagreements, etc will continue in all of these relationships.  But the evidence is mounting from events like 9-11, SARS, the Mumbai attacks, and freakish weather that if we don't work together, we sink together.  And in order to work together most effectively, we need institutions.  Yes, the current ones are flawed, sometimes deeply flawed.  But they already carry our water on a regular basis and nearly zero political credit for doing so.  Want to prevent an epidemic of drug resistant TB in the US?  Need the WHO.   Want to share the costs of bailing out a whole bunch of countries?  The IMF is taking that on.  Want to run schools in Gaza or elections in Iraq?  Call the UN.  You see my point.  It's not that these institutions are a panacea.  It's that they are necessary because we haven't figured out a better way to coordinate actions between governments (and I am going to read your 2007 book on regulatory coordination) and they do deliver.  If we invest in them modest amounts of time and money, they will pay further dividends in our security and prosperity.

I have three thoughts on Nina's response:

1. Hachigian is certainly correct about the potential utility of international institutions.  The geopolitical effects of the current financial crisis, for example,  would have been much greater had the IMF not provided loans and guarantees to Pakistan, Iceland, etc. 
2. That said, Hachigian's primary thesis boils down to "failure is not an option" -- i.e., global problems are so serious that countries have no choice to cooperate.  Wrong.  Failure is not an option, it's an outcome.  When the divergence of preferences on, say, global warming is as sharp as it is right now, no degree of multilateralism short of world government is going to solve the problem.  Even action to combat SARS, which should be a no-brainer when it comes to international cooperation, can generate cross-border-frictions.
3. There's another problem -- even if preferences are close enough for there to be multilateral coordination, that doesn't mean that there will be coordination on a good idea.  One could make the arguement -- hey, come to think of it, I have -- that the issue area with with the greatest depth of multilateral coodination to date has been in high finance.  Oops. 

I hope Nina is right, and that a bargaining core exists for all of these problems.  I am wary, however, of stacking too many resources and too much diplomatic capital on hope. 

Clearly, I enjoy teasing John Bolton and John Yoo as much as the next blogger. In The New Republic, however, Nina Hachigian makes an argument about global governance that inches towards their caricature of how progressives think about international institutions. Consider this paragraph: 

Creating effective architectures of global order requires three kinds of intervention--extensive improvement of existing institutions and rules, limited creation of new mechanisms, and reliable American engagement. The agenda is both complex and controversial. In terms of security, it includes the reform of voting rules and membership of the U.N. Security Council, the founding of a workable non-proliferation regime, belated American leadership on climate change, and a fortification of the World Health Organization. In terms of the global economy, we must develop new mechanisms to regulate international banking and finance, as well as update of the roles and governance of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. In terms of human rights and justice, the U.S. must join the U.N. Human Rights Council to help make it a serious forum for scrutiny and also engage in the International Criminal Court. As daunting as these steps may be, they are just the beginning.

Maybe it's just me, but I think Hachigian forgot the fourth thing that's necessary for global governance to work -- the great powers have to have preferences that are near enough to each other for there to be a zone of possible agreement. Otherwise, you might as well add "free ponies" to this kind of wish list. 

That might exist on the financial and economic front (though I have some doubts about this). There's a chance that it exists on nonpoliferation. It's nonexistent, however, on global warming and on the reform of existing global governance structures (and, trust me, I'm a fan of the latter). 

This doesn't mean that the Obama administration should not engage with international institutions. I'm just unconvinced that Hachigian's approach would yield the foreign policy dividends she thinks it would.