Surviving Trump, Brexit and the BRICS: Resilient International Organizations for the 21st Century

The post-war international liberal order is under threat. While traditional multilateral global governance has prospered in the first two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, in recent years, the work of international organizations has become fiercely contested. Remarkably, this challenge comes not just from emerging powers such as the BRICS who feel that existing arrangements no longer reflect geopolitical realities but also the very architects of the post-war international order. A zero-sum approach to multilateralism under the Trump administration has led the United States to withdraw or distance itself from a number of international organizations. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union may reflect a broader popular sentiment that international organizations are, at the same time, too distant, too intrusive, and too ineffective.

New empirical data shows that the overall number of international organizations is no longer growing and that international organizations actually die at a rather high rate (Pevehouse et al. 2019). Is this simply a reflection of multilateralism reaching a state of maturity in its life cycle or does it point towards a profound transformation of the ‘rules-based’ global order? Should international organizations seek to accommodate new, often competing, demands? Are some organizations more resilient than others and, if so, why? And, finally, can international cooperation in the 21st century still be organized primarily through formal multilateral organizations, such as the UN, EU, IMF, World Bank, and WTO?

This keynote lecture reflects on the challenges and changing demands that international organizations are currently facing. The starting point for the debate is the publication of the fully revised third edition of International Organization (Red Globe Press, 2019) by Volker Rittberger, Bernhard Zangl, Andreas Kruck and Hylke Dijkstra. This standard textbook shows how international organizations convert the various demands of political actors into concrete policies and activities. This unique political systems perspective is particularly helpful in understanding how changing preferences and demands by various actors affect international cooperation and the ability of international organizations to address complex global problems.