Can the World Be Governed?: Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism

America and the Reform of Global Institutions

America is deeply ambivalent about international rules and institutions. In the decade after World War II, the United States was the leading architect and champion of global multilateral governance. It led the way in an unprecedented burst of global institution building—establishing the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and an array of other institutions and regimes. But the United States has also been deeply reluctant—today and at various moments in the past—to sponsor and participate in international agreements in areas as diverse as security, arms control, human rights, and the environment. All sovereign states, to various degrees, are ambivalent about international rules and institutions. But the United States is the most powerful state in the world, so its ambivalence is unusually consequential for the functioning of the global system. Indeed, in recent years, America’s reluctance G. John Ikenberry * * * America and the Reform of Global Institutions I gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of Alan Alexandroff and other members of the project. Andrew Moravcsik also provided valuable comments on an earlier draft. to entangle itself in international rules and institutions seems to have grown, leading some observers to argue that, during the Bush years, the United States has essentially rejected its older postwar embrace of rules-based multilateral governance. Moreover, this new American resistance to such an approach is happening precisely when global multilateral institutions are weakening (see Ikenberry 2005b). Raising the stakes further, new sorts of global challenges are also emerging—such as climate change, contagious disease, and weapons proliferation—that call for added realms of institutionalized cooperation. So the “demand” for global rules and institutions is growing at the precise moment that the most powerful state in the system—and the previous underwriter of the multilateral governance system—is uncertain whether it is willing to help “supply” the needed rules and institutions. This paper explores the logic and changing character of American foreign policy toward global rules and institutions. I try to make sense of US ambivalence toward rules-based international order. I also explore how shifts in the international system have altered the circumstances of and incentives forAmerica’s commitment to rules and institutions. Based on this analysis, I suggest ideas for a possible American agenda for strengthening multilateral governance. 1 In the paper, I make four arguments. First, I outline a set of claims about why and how states use international rules and institutions; in doing so, I offer what might be called a “political control” explanation for institutions . In this view, rules and institutions are mechanisms that allow states to assert some control over their environment by rendering more predictable the policy actions of other states. In committing to operate within a framework of rules, a state agrees to circumscribe its policy autonomy or freedom of action—in various ways and to various degrees —so as to get other states to do the same. In other words, a state bargains away some of its policy autonomy to get other states to operate in more predictable and desirable ways, and the process is made credible through institutionalized agreements. The shifting incentives, choices, and circumstances America and the Reform of Global Institutions I 111 1. This paper builds on earlier essays, including Ikenberry (2003a, 2003b). surrounding this “institutional bargain” help explain variations in state commitments to rules and institutions. 2 Second, I argue that this same logic applies to powerful states, such as the United States. Indeed, a hegemonic state has a complex array of incentives —among others, to reduce its enforcement costs, to foster legitimacy, and to institutionalize a favorable international order for the long term— for using rules and institutions to shape its environment. But these incentives are not absolute: powerful states also have opportunities to shape their environment without making institutional or rules-based commitments. They can avoid and work around rules and institutions. They can act unilaterally outside institutionalized relationships or strike bilateral bargains directly with individual states. Critical to a hegemonic state’s choice among these alternatives is the value it attaches to the efficiency and legitimacy of its “rule” over the international order—and its assessment of its future power position. Third, I argue that long-term shifts in the global system have altered the incentives and circumstances that bear on America’s hegemonic use of rules...