Can the World Be Governed?: Possibilities for Effective Multilateralism

A Grand Coalition and International Governance

Current proposals to reform the United Nations Security Council by admitting Germany or Japan to permanent member status are unlikely to be accepted. Reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to give Far Eastern nations, particularly China, more voting leverage also will not pass muster if it were to undermine the veto the United States—with its 17 percent share—effectively has over IMF decisions. Indeed, no form of “democratization” of the leadership of international institutions will be effective if it substitutes greater “inclusion” for “representation” of the nations that, in fact, possess the economic and military power to carry out international operations. Reform will be effective, however, if it devolves responsibility on the Great Powers—the United States, China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, and perhaps India. These agglomerations of power provide legitimacy to international reform and convey the capability necessary to carry it out. They represent the crucial elements in any longterm program of reform for the international system, and they are essential to bring governance and peace to the world. Of course, all effective means of international governance involve strengthening ties among nations, and many links and institutions already join them together. Some of these are “soft” institutional procedures, like those reflected in votes in the UN General Assembly or in the muted and Richard Rosecrance * * * A Grand Coalition and International Governance decentralized strictures of international law. Between the hard and soft institutional approaches are “medium” institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the IMF: though theoretically universal in scope, they have bite only on particular issues and cover only a few realms of activity. Then there are hard institutional processes, such as votes in the UN Security Council that reflect Great Power consensus. 1 Empires and alliances also restrict state options and provide a degree of governance within their sphere. Broadly speaking, while empires have occasionally succeeded in the past, they cannot solve the problems of the world today. Alliances sometimes regulate behavior among their number, but it is less certain that they govern the actions of their targets—indeed, they sometimes exacerbate relations through positive feedback. It is by no means clear, for example, that alliance bipolarity reduces conflict—it might enhance it. In this paper, I review a range of proposed solutions to the problem of international governance—from empire to alliances to the softer institutional linkages—before generally concluding that a concert of Great Powers, when it can be achieved, is the most effective international regulator. The Prospects of Empire Empire united much of the civilized world under the aegis of Rome, but it has seldom worked since. It was efficient then because tributary and nearby agglomerations of power were linked to Rome and, for a time, provinces and client states benefited through an extensive network of 86 l Richard Rosecrance 1. Paul Kennedy (2006, 73–74) is skeptical that the UN Security Council can do much, whether or not it is reformed: Since 1950 the vast majority of American military actions were either not sanctioned by the Security Council at all (Vietnam, Central America) or were “contracted out” operations where the Council thought it had no real purview (Korea, the First Gulf War, Mogadishu, Afghanistan) … it was not pleasant for liberal internationalists at the dawn of the first decade of the twenty-first century to consider that the UN’s primary organ for security might be becoming merely a rubber stamp for the world’s largest and most assertive member. international trade. Egypt, Spain, Gaul, and Italy traded wine, grain, oil, perfume, glassware, and textiles with one another. When Rome was attacked by barbarians across the Rhine in the fourth century, trade and transport, encumbered by military vehicles, also diminished, making commerce risky and costly. Only luxury trades remained, then autarky began to intrude. The Romans raised taxes to reconstruct roads, but travel on them was frequently interrupted by brigands. The interdependence of Rome and its tributary areas proved the empire’s undoing as transport costs rose and food could no longer be imported from remote areas. A much more primitive , land-based economy then emerged, and Rome collapsed from within. Rome never succeeded in developing a stable, cooperative relationship with its provinces and tributary states, and no military danger forced them all to work together. Rome prevailed for a time because of the unmatched power of the Roman legion, but the need to travel greater and greater...