Multilateralism is a system of international cooperation in which states work together to address global challenges such as climate change, poverty, and pandemics. However, support for multilateralism seems to be waning, not only among governments but also among citizens. A vast literature in global governance has emphasised several drivers of this trend.
Some people believe that multilateralism is essential for addressing global challenges, while others believe that it is a waste of money and that it undermines national sovereignty. This can make it difficult for governments to support multilateral organisations.
Public discourse continues to attribute the root causes of failing global governance institutions to their design and internal dysfunctions. Research has demonstrated that institutional design and bureaucratic agency matters greatly. Well-designed organisations at the time of their foundation can struggle in the face of novel crises, and through ‘agency slack’, the secretariats of IOs can attain new mandates and responsibilities despite formal design constraints.
However, more recently, different strands of political science research have identified multiple external challenges. One is the fragile public support for multilateral organisations. In many countries, public opinion is divided on the issue of multilateralism.
Lack of knowledge among publics makes global governance institutions vulnerable to elite-cueing strategies. In fact, governments have actively worked to undermine public support for multilateral organisations by using them as scapegoats for unpleasant policy decisions. The rise of populist governments in powerful states intensifies this challenge: populists do not shy away from sowing mistrust against global governance institutions for self-profiling purposes.
Finally, emerging powers challenge the legitimacy of existing global governance institutions and related narratives of mutually beneficial cooperation. While lively debates have occurred within these fields, their interconnected nature has yet to be addressed. This Workshop will explore the relationships between different challenges to global governance institutions.
Abbot and Snidal 1998; Koremenos et al. 2001
Hardt 2014; Debre and Dijkstra 2021
Hooghe and Marks 2015; Heldt 2017
Dellmuth and Tallberg 2023
Copelovitch and Pevehouse 2019; Carnegie, Clark, and Kaya 2021; Kaya, Handlin, and Günaydin 2020
Vreeland 2003; Heinkelmann-Wild and Zangl 2020
Reinsberg and Westerwinter 2021
Rauh and Zürn 2020; Dellmuth and Tallberg 2020
Taggart 2022
1: What are the key contemporary challenges to global governance institutions?
2: How do domestic politics affect the policies and politics of global governance institutions?
3: How does domestic economic performance affect the viability of multilateral organisations?
4: How do geopolitical tensions affect the functioning of multilateral institutions?
5: How can governments overcome public opposition to multilateralism?
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