Multilateral cooperation in the face of growing illiberalism.

 

Only with the abolition of feudalism in the wake of the French Revolution in 1789 did something like electoral autocracies, as we would call them today, start to develop. Democracies as regime type evolved from the mid-19th century onwards, their share steadily increasing after World War I and especially after World War II until about the early 2000s [see Figure 3]. This is why the rise of the system of multilateral institutions we are familiar with is closely linked to democracies and liberal values.

Closed autocracy: citizens do not have the right to choose either the chief executive of the government or the legislature through multi-party elections. Electoral autocracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature through multiparty elections; but they lack some freedoms, such as the freedoms of association or expression that make the elections meaningful, free, and fair. Electoral democracy: citizens have the right to choose the chief executive and the legislature in meaningful, free and fair, and multi-party elections. Liberal democracy: electoral democracy and citizens enjoy individual and minority rights, are equal before the law, and the actions of the executive are constrained by the legislative and the courts.

The historical record reflected in the changing proportions of autocracies and democracies, however, reminds us that norms have always been contested, especially in multilateral institutions with a highly diverse membership. For many years, the liberal character of the international system was safeguarded by the United States as liberal hegemon. But under the auspices of this liberal hegemon the quality of multilateralism also fluctuated from formal to superficial to substantive depending on the respective institution and its decision-making rules, the issue area and the diplomatic craftsmanship of those involved to identify common ground and strike an agreement. Today, substantive multilateralism and the liberal norms enshrined in its core principle of meaningful inclusion and equal participation are under attack. The age of geopolitical power-play seems to have returned, which resonated from the speech of the President of the European Commission cited above. In fact, there is not only open contestation. On a discursive level, we can witness a more assertive re-interpretation of core concepts like non-intervention and non-interference with reference to national sovereignty. Historically, it is due to the enlarged membership of the UN after several waves of decolonization that also economic and social rights were introduced into the catalogue of human rights. Now, autocratic regimes demand to prioritize economic and social rights over political and civil rights. However, it is not only autocratic states that are becoming more self-confident in multilateral institutions and thus are challenging liberal norms. Currently, in particular the second Trump administration, and also a number of other Western states are also refusing to cooperate in multilateral contexts, citing, for example, that their national sovereignty or social values are at risk. The UN Human Rights Council is especially fertile ground for controversy. There, not only autocratic regimes try to undermine liberal democratic values. Also states that face democratic backsliding protect autocratic states from normative scrutiny while being more critical against liberal democracies. What we are currently observing is less the end of multilateralism as social institution and means of cooperation, but rather what characterizes the new global multiplex: a world shaped by interdependence, with a diversity of actors and a plurality of norms and values. The question is what principles multilateral cooperation will be based on in the long run, what quality it will have, and if it is able to deliver for people and planet.