A Shift in the Architecture of International Order and Multipolar Cooperation
International affairs have long been doomed with the concept of anarchy in various aspects, but more specifically in the political sphere. Hailed by neorealists, anarchy on an international level is an undeniable truth that we have witnessed in this world of sovereign states. The end of the 1st World War, or “the Great War” as it was earlier called, gave us the League of Nations in 1920, but it was soon ushered into the dump of forgotten ideas with the advent of the 2nd World War.
Roosevelt and Churchill gave us the United Nations, igniting a spark of hope in the realm of international cooperation. However, its capabilities stand in the dump of the 21st century’s world order with recent events worldwide for instance, the middle eastern confrontations, Israel- Palestine conflict, humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan etc. The vacuum for hegemony that was filled by two competing superpowers [United States of America and United Soviet Socialist Republic] during the Cold War also ended with the US reigning on the throne of unipolarity. The later half of the 20th century witnessed a similar position in the context of the UN for the liberal-aspirational prospects of cooperation which it had to offer.
Interestingly, world leaders didn’t consider the UN to be the only resort; rather, multiple regional organisations also emerged with different backgrounds of colonial history, regional aspirations, collective security, economic interests, etc. These organisations dispersed among themselves what the founding fathers of the UN and neoliberals claimed to be the regulatory and peace-forming duties of an overarching international authority.
In the current scenario, we are spectators of a multipolar world order; some with buckets of popcorn, some with their hearts clutched, while some gasp for breath in conflicts and wars. The only thing that remains certain is uncertainty; economic, political, environmental, and most importantly, international.
This uncertainty has been running as a thread through the events of world politics, but regional organisations have provided a little stability to this. At this stage, we may ask a crucial question: is the UN truly the hegemonic international authority formed by all for the benefit of all? Does it truly reflect “We the People of the United Nations,” or is it a regional organisation serving the interests of a particular region, just as the EU has done for Europe and ASEAN for Southeast Asia? I believe the only difference lies in the acceptability of the true motives.
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Coming back to the idea of entering into a multipolar world order, we may not just think of it in the context of states but also the creation of this non-unipolar world for organisations. This answers two important questions:
- Do we require a single international overarching authority to establish world order, especially with the deformities as are in the UN? And,
- Can regional organisations be empowered enough to serve the interests of cooperation and negotiations internationally?
With this, we enter into a wide realm of complexities, for example, neighbourhood disputes in the context of India, religious denominations in the Middle East, economic vulnerability and opportunities considering the African continent, etc.
This also opens the door to positive diplomacy and a forum for regional dispute redressal. We live in a multipolar world of organisations. Do we need only one is a question of the past, but how we empower the rest is the one we can delineate our resources on.
Therefore, 21st century may pave the way for the argument concerning the redistribution of responsibility in a fragmented yet interconnected world. A truly stable international order may not emerge from centralisation, but from the effective coordination and empowerment of multiple regional organisations. In this constantly evolving and globalising structure, cooperation must replace control, and adaptability must define authority.
