Racial Hierarchy, Multilateralism, and the Crises of Liberal International Order

• In Event: International Authority and Autonomy of Peoples

Abstract

According to John Ruggie and James Caporaso, ‘multilateralism’ refers to an ‘organizing principle’ of international relations that denotes ‘indivisibility, generalized principles of conduct, and diffuse reciprocity’ (Caporaso 1992). Multilateralism may refer to formal institutions, as well as to mores, or informal or less codified customs, habits, norms, and practices. Multilateralism may be contrasted with bilateralism and imperial (or other forms of) hierarchy as modes of organizing international relations. Normatively, multilateralism involves agents having broadened versus narrow notions of national interest that are compatible with developing conditions for diffuse reciprocity; forgoing ad hoc coalitions in committing to generalized principles of conduct; and eschewing policies that address situational contingencies at the expense of more comprehensive goals (Ruggie 1992). Significantly, multilateralism as a normative organizing principle may not be instantiated in formal multilateral institutions; thus formal multilateralism may still be infused with and even organized by habits and practices of various forms of hierarchy (Shilliam 2013) and ‘pecking orders’ (Pouliot 2016). Thus, as Charles Mills noted, ‘even if there is no white world state as such’ (2019), white supremacy is still global, albeit polycentric or multilateral. To the extent that multilateralism has been part of the project of Liberal International Order (LIO), diagnosing why racial hierarchy persists despite multilateralism involves critiquing the sanitized, deracinated version of liberalism that informs LIO. Understanding multilateralism in a framework of ‘racial liberalism’ (Mills 2017) provides an entry point into diagnosing and revealing the centrality of race and racial hierarchy to explaining why the LIO today confronts crises of democracy, capitalism, universalism, and ecologicalism.

Author

• Catherine Lu, McGill University