Running away from Weltschmerz: Global Governance and a Double Challenge for the Future of Multilateralism

Abstract

The article addresses challenges facing the designers of global governance, as well as the consequences of the mechanisms that trigger changes to the established international order. The latter, as a social construct and ultimately an ideological projection based on the interests, values and ideas that originated in the West, is challenged by emerging powers, seeking to change their status, and the electorates and anti-establishment movements in Western states, who are disillusioned with the asymmetric formula of globalization. The main aim of this article is to analyze the impact of the two aforementioned catalysts of change on the established international order. The analytic approach combines, especially, institutional tools from the field of International Relations, public statements, observations, and literature analysis. It deploys content analysis tools, especially metaphors, symbolized in the article by Weltschmerz which - as a negative scenario of global governance - is expressed by an inability to act, pessimism regarding the possibility of finding consensus, and a belief in the re-emergence of the inevitable, almost tectonic divisions between states.