Toward Effective Multilateralism: Why Bigger May Not Be Better

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements This article was adapted from a paper commissioned by the Stanley Foundation. Notes 1. See Brookings Institution, “Managing Global Insecurity,” www.brookings.edu/projects/mgi.aspx; Daniel Drezner, “The New New World Order,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 2 (March/April 2007); G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, U.S. National Security in the 21st Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, September 27, 2006), http://www.princeton.edu/~ppns; Parag Khanna, Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (New York: Random House, 2008); Ruth Wedgwood, “Give the United Nations a Little Competition,” New York Times, December 5, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05wedgewood.html?pagewanted=print. For Barack Obama's stated views, see “Renewing American Leadership,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 4 (July/August 2007). 2. Richard Haass, “The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow U.S. Dominance,” Foreign Affairs 87, no. 3 (May/June 2008): 55–56. 3. Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007), 163. 4. See Laurie Garrett, “The Challenge of Global Health,” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 1 (January/February 2007). 5. Michael Gerson, “The Despots’ Democracy,” Washington Post, May 28, 2008, p. A13, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/27/AR2008052702556.html. For a good account of South Africa's “rogue” diplomacy see Pauline H. Baker and Princeton N. Lyman, “South Africa: From Beacon of Hope to Rogue Democracy,” Stanley Foundation Working Paper, December 2008, http://www.cfr.org/content/thinktank/South_Africa_Paper_Dec_2008.pdf. 6. See Wilson D. Miscamble, From Roosevelt to Truman: Potsdam, Hiroshima, and the Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 7. See Kent E. Calder and Francis Fukuyama, eds., East Asian Multilateralism: Prospects for Regional Stability (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). 8. IMF, “IMF Member Quotas’ and Voting Power, and IMF Board of Governors,” April 9, 2009, http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.htm. The GDP figures for Belgium and India are for 2008 and were sourced from the IMF's World Economic Outlook Database. See http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2009/01/weodata/weoselgr.aspx. 9. Chris Giles and Ralph Atkins, “IMF Members Back Plans for Voting Reforms,” Financial Times, September 19, 2006, 8. 10. Martin Wolf, Fixing Global Finance (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008). 11. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “News Conference by President Obama,” London, United Kingdom, April 2, 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/news-conference-by-president-obama-4-02-09/. 12. See Richard N. Gardner, Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy: Anglo-American Collaboration in the Reconstruction of Multilateral Trade (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1956). 13. Yoichi Funabashi, “Forget Bretton Woods II: the Role for U.S.–Japan–China Trilateralism,” The Washington Quarterly 32, no. 2 (April 2009): 7–25, http://www.twq.com/09april/docs/09apr_Funabashi.pdf. 14. See “The G-20 Communique,” Brad Setser: Follow the Money Blog, Council on Foreign Relations, November 17, 2008, http://blogs.cfr.org/setser/2008/11/17/g-20-post-mortem/ (hereinafter Setser blog); “Statement from G-20 Summit,” New York Times, November 15, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/washington/summit-text.html. 15. See John Kirton and Lynn Robertson, “Is Isolation of Unpleasant Governments a Winning Strategy?” (paper presented at Berlin Roundtable Meeting on “The Role of the G-8 in an Endangered Global Economic and Political Climate,” Berlin, Germany, June 1–2, 2007). 16. See Martin Wolf, “What the G-2 Must Discuss Now that the G-20 is Over,” FT.com/Economists Forum blog, April 8, 2009, http://blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/2009/04/what-the-g2-must-discuss-now-the-g20-is-over/. 17. Brad Setser, “The Shape of Things to Come,” Finance and Development 46, no. 1 (March 2009), http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2009/03/setser.htm. 18. UN High Level Panel, “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility,” December 2, 2004, http://www.wwan.cn/secureworld/. 19. See Anne-Marie Slaughter, A New World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). Additional informationNotes on contributorsThomas WrightThomas Wright is the executive director of studies at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs