We currently face a baffling paradox. While since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 a seemingly inexorable process of globalisation has been foreshadowing a peaceful and frontierless world, the number of walls across the world has been rising at a steady pace. Liberal and open societies buttressed by trade, international law and technological progress were supposed to implacably contribute to the erosion of frontiers and walls between nations. However, in a context of surging populist discourses, securitarian anxieties and identitarian politics as well as concomitant flows of migration alimented by climate change, conflict and poverty, nations have recently started to barricade themselves behind new walls.
The present Dossier takes stock of the current state of the multilateral system and its future prospects. It aims to explore to what extent global governance is in crisis as the global geopolitical order is undergoing fundamental shifts and liberal universalism is losing traction. It assesses potential of reform in extant institutions as well as emerging trends, tools and forums that are reshaping multilateral practice on a daily basis.
Note – The dossier was drafted before the Covid-19 world crisis.
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I
Multilateralism Is in Crisis – Or Is It?
Reading time: 5 min -
1
The Role of Transnational Policy Networks in Contemporary Global Governance
Reading time: 4 min -
2
The United Nations at 75: Still “Resolved to Combine Our Efforts”?
Reading time: 4 min -
3
What Future Role for the Gs in the Multilateral System?
Reading time: 3 min -
4
US Pressure on the WTO: A Chance to Rebound?
Reading time: 4 min -
5
Beyond Multilateralism: The Pauli Principle
Reading time: 4 min -
6
Global Internet Governance: Is Fragmentation Avoidable?
Reading time: 4 min -
7
Governing the World outside the United Nations
Reading time: 5 min
After the outbreak of COVID-19 – a virus constituting a genuinely worldwide risk – fear internationalised in just a few weeks. As the COVID crisis has profoundly shaken societies on a global scale it has contributed to a reconfiguration – perhaps a multiplication – of risks and their perceptions. While foremost constituting a biological hazard, the pandemic has large repercussions on other types of risks, ranging from long-term economic and digital disruption to psychological distress and political confrontation. The nature and frontiers of risks are thus moving as the multilateral system, the most adequate framework to deal with global risks, is ailing and current risk mitigation strategies are increasingly put to question. The six articles of the present Dossier explore these changing hierarchies of risk and the underpinning structural issues that endanger our existence.