It has become a truism of foreign policy debates nowadays that the world is at the dawn of a multipolar era. Whether such an international order would ever fully emerge is debatable, but the process of “multipolarization” is already under way, as a larger number of states gain the ability to influence global developments.
However, a more worrisome aspect of multipolarization is that these ongoing power shifts have been accompanied by deepening polarization within and between countries. Governments’ incompatible visions for the new global order make it harder to compromise and find solutions to shared challenges.
These divisions are evident in the deepening bifurcation between democracies and autocracies, especially in policy fields such as human rights, global infrastructure and development cooperation. Polarization is also visible in new power brokers pursuing their own visions for their respective regions.
Illustration: Mountain People
The Kremlin, for example, is clearly working toward a Russian-led order in Eurasia, while China, buttressed by its Belt and Road Initiative, is seeking to establish hegemony over East Asia. Global rules, principles and structures of cooperation are being supplanted by multiple competing and conflicting orders.
Polarization has intensified within countries, too. In the US, Donald Trump’s return to the White House epitomizes the new power of divisive politics and is bound to strengthen illiberal forces in European and other countries where an “us versus them” mentality has taken hold.
The shift to multipolarity might well have played a part in spurring this domestic polarization. In many Western democracies, the shift of power to emerging countries has raised concerns about their own relative decline. The liberal international order, the thinking goes, has unfairly benefited not only global elites at home, but also rising powers abroad — China most of all.
At the same time, by throwing governments into gridlock and leaving them very little room for maneuver, domestic polarization ties the hands of democratic leaders, rendering them unable to improve foreign relations and strengthen global cooperation. Illiberal populist leaders, for their part, have few incentives to help build consensus among countries, given that a divided international environment chimes with their narrative of “all against all.”
Against this backdrop of intensifying political polarization at the national and international levels, the hopes and aspirations that many — particularly in the global south — have for a more multipolar world will go unmet. The multipolar world that is now emerging will likely be riven by conflict in the absence of shared rules and institutions.
Instead of enabling powerful countries to keep each other in check and ushering in a new era of relative peace and stability, multipolarity risks fueling instability. It looks set to trigger new arms races and trade wars, and prolong existing intrastate conflicts, and could even sow the seeds of a great-power war.
Moreover, rather than fostering more inclusive global governance, multipolarity might undermine cooperation: A larger number of countries now wields enough influence to disrupt collective decisionmaking, while positive leadership is in short supply. Moreover, while some hope that this shift would strengthen international law by reducing Western countries’ ability to apply their principles selectively, more governments might end up claiming special rights for themselves.
The world urgently needs to “depolarize” politics, but it is far from clear how this can be achieved — or who would even be willing to take up the effort. Some believe that the divisions associated with greater multipolarity could be overcome if global governance structures embraced the new power centers, but others fear that this will not be enough to build the consensus needed to strengthen common rules – let alone reform them or create new ones.
Few of today’s leading governments have shown a genuine interest in devising a great-power agreement that would benefit the broader international community. Instead, many seem intent on exploiting the deepening polarization of global politics to achieve domestic and geopolitical goals. Multipolarity and the polarization of both national and international politics are thus deeply intertwined. A better future depends on whether a world with more poles can find ways to mitigate dangerous divisions. What is clear is that such efforts must start at home.
Tobias Bunde, professor of international security at the Hertie School in Berlin, is director of research and policy at the Munich Security Conference. Sophie Eisentraut is head of research and publications at the Munich Security Conference.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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