RIAC Working Paper No. 62 / 2022
RIAC Working Paper No. 62 / 2022
Practices and principles that underpin multilateralism are currently facing multiple challenges and major opposition, including one-sided rhetoric employed by leaders across the globe, a grave crisis of many multilateral organizations and regimes, both global and regional. Politicians are shifting the responsibility for the shortcomings of multilateralism onto one another, blaming their opponents for departing from legitimate multilateral...
... debated either as free-riding (abusing the international system with a view to gaining unilateral advantages) or as far as revisionism, which implies taking advantage of their important standing to revise the codified and uncodified rules and norms in international relations [Tammen et al. 2000; Davidson 2016; Schweller2015]. The rise of new powers, though, contributed just as well to debates on multilateralism and multipolarity of today’s world [Sakwa 2020].
As China was becoming increasingly assertive, the problem of the “hegemon” and the “contender” was singled out as a separate issue. This stride explored the possibilities of a new power taking the ...
Multilateralism, like any other format of diplomatic activity, will always be as effective or ineffective as the players who practice them want
The term “multilateralism” is not specifically elaborated in Russian international relations theory. For a long time, it has remained in the shadow of the much more popular term “multipolarity,” although the latter is gradually being replaced in Russian literature by the term "polycentrism.” Sometimes, it seems that “multilateralism” and “multipolarity” are used in Russian scientific and political discourse as ...
... the United States emphasised market freedom and democracy. An important distinction in this sense was that the US saw itself as a source and guarantor of fairness, whereas Russia avoided this role in the belief that sovereign equality is an axiom in international relations.
In other words, for Russians and Americans polarity and world order itself mean fundamentally different things. Russians see multipolarity as important in itself and a marker of equality and fairness. For Americans, it is of secondary importance. The number of poles is not so important in a US-centric world. What is important is the existence of this order. But the problem ...
