Where is U.S. Multilateral Leadership?

Abstract

U.S. leadership is essential for reconceptualizing global multilateral institutional cooperation. Yet, such leadership has by and large not been forthcoming in the post-Cold War period. There are three related political reasons for this. First, despite the victory in the Cold War the U.S. has become increasingly isolated in international organizations. Second, the new global institutional landscape is no longer structured favorably for the U.S. Third, domestic politics imposes strong constraints for delegating new authority to formal supranational institutions. I identify three ways forward. First, the U.S. can help repurpose the core institutions it helped establish in the aftermath of World War II. Second, the U.S. can adopt a more exclusionary approach to influence global rules through informal clubs, formal plurilateral institutions or the application of extraterritorial jurisdiction. Third, the U.S. can lead on inclusive multilateral initiatives without treaty commitments or meaningful delegation. I discuss the promises and pitfalls to these approaches using examples from various issue areas.