Multilateralism and the Changing World Order

Abstract

This chapter argues that the traditional conception of multilateralism that underpinned the United Nations at its birth is under serious challenge, which comes from a global shift in power and ideas. The hitherto Western dominance of both is rapidly eroding. But the emerging world order is better termed as a ‘multiplex’ rather than a ‘multipolar’ world. The key drivers of change include the growth of regionalism, the proliferation of non-state actors, the decline of the West, the erosion of US primacy, the rise of non-Western powers, and the increasing fragmentation of traditional UN-based global governance mechanisms. In this world, the UN is not obsolete but has to come to terms with rapid and far-reaching changes that call for a new approach to universalism, one that accommodates the conflicting pressures of cultural and political diversity, on the one hand, and economic and functional interdependence, on the other.