Decoding the Paralysis of the De Facto Liberal International Order: Is Plurilateralism the Way Forward?
Abstract:
The phenomenon of progressive debilitation of Multilateralism and
“Westlessness” has been associated with electoral validation of both positive
assertive and insecure nationalisms globally, coupled with economic rebalancing,
that has translated into political re-balancing, emboldening an Asiacentric
epicentre of global politics, as the hegemonic articulation of the architects
of rules-based Multilateral order favouring Western line of thinking had gradually
resorted to Plurilateral approaches, ranging from the Doha Development Round of
the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to International Monetary Fund’s (IMF)
Quota Reforms. The paradigmatic shift from Western system of Grand Alliances
to myriad Minilateral and Plurilateral issue-specific partnerships and constructs
has been accentuated in an increasingly polarised, fragmented Post-Pandemic era,
where the breakdown of global governance accompanied with economic
protectionism, populist illiberal ultranationalist aspirations, vaccine nationalism
and blocking of supply chains altered global leadership footprints and saw
capabilities leveraged, commitments dissolved, exiguousness of resources,
logistics disrupted, and economic downturn due to material disruptions. As
floundering multilateralism and its gridlock can be attributed to anathema in
materialising broad-based consensus among WTO members while reducing
domestic policy space, the proliferation of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs)
indicate the desire of deepening trade integration among member-states,
positioning trade progress at the plurilateral realm. The historic weaknesses in the
reform of Bretton Woods Institutions, the rigidity and ineffectiveness of United
Nations’ bodies, structural and functional shortcomings of the World Health
Organisation got more pronounced as the COVID-19 Pandemic magnified the
Multilateral system’s fault lines. The paper highlights the evolution and critically
evaluates Multilateralism in International Relations. It anatomises the multiple
facets of Plurilateralism and attempts to demonstrate how Plurilateralism provides
the roadmap for future global governance.
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