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Argues that American ambivalence about multilateral institutions (organizations), and variations in its institutional relations with Europe, reflect a basic dilemma that lies at the heart of international institutional agreements: the attraction of institutional agreements for the leading states is that they potentially lock other states into stable and predictable policy orientations, thereby reducing the need to use coercion; but the price that the leading state must pay for this institutionalized cooperation is a reduction in its own policy autonomy and its unfettered ability to exercise power. The central question that American policy‐makers have confronted over the decades after 1945 in regard to US economic and security ties with Europe (and elsewhere around the world) is how much policy lock‐in of such states is worth how much reduction in American policy autonomy and restraints on its power. The result is a potential institutional bargain that lies at the heart of America's multilateral ties to Europe and the wider array of post‐war multilateral institutions championed by the US. In this bargain, the leading state wants to reduce compliance costs and weaker states want to reduce their costs of security protection; the leading state agrees to restrain its own potential for domination and abandonment in exchange for the long‐term institutionalized cooperation of subordinate states. The first section, State Power and Institutions, develops the logic of the institutional bargain that has informed America's post‐war order building experience and continues into the new century. The next section (American Institution Building) explores various aspects of this institutional strategy as it appears in America's relationship with Europe in the 1940s and again after the cold war, and the conclusion assesses the relevance of the institutional bargain in an era of American unipolarity.

An examination is made of US policy towards and participation in several key regional multilateral organizations in the Asia–Pacific area, with the aim of establishing how central these organizations are to the overall development of US policy and the extent to which, and how, they influence or constrain US behaviour. The first section of the chapter reviews US strategic goals and briefly discusses some of the domestic and external factors that have led to the development and implementation of these goals in East Asia. The next section discusses multilateral security cooperation in the region, and gives an overview of regional multilateral security organizations, focusing primarily on the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Regional Forum (ARF), given its all‐encompassing nature and relatively advanced (by Asian standards) stage of development; other US‐instigated multilateral institutions and initiatives (the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), and the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) are touched upon briefly to assess how these more narrowly focused approaches also serve American interests. The third section looks at Asia–Pacific multilateral economic cooperation, and here the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) provides the centrepiece of the discussion; its role both in creating an Asia–Pacific economic community and, more recently, as a vehicle for political cooperation through the institutionalization of the US‐instigated Leaders’ Meetings, which bring many of the region's heads of state and government together annually, ostensibly for economic discussions. The conclusion to the chapter briefly evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of these organizations from a US perspective in order to understand better how security and economic multilateralism fits with the largely bilaterally oriented US national security strategy.

The purpose is to trace and assess the ways in which the US has used multilateral institutions/organizations (both those international institutions/organizations of which it is a member and those regional institutions/organizations of which it is not) and multilateralism itself to pursue its interests on the African continent. The emergence of a noticeable multilateral dimension to American policy towards Africa is situated against two backgrounds: the first (Sect. 1 of the chapter) deals with the general features of American policy towards Africa since the Second World War and the role that multilateralism in general has played in that; the second (Sect. 2) deals with the rise of multilateralism (and multilateral regional institutions/organizations) on the African continent as a process that has a dynamic of its own. This perspective on Africa as an agent, and not simply as an object, of US policy is important for maintaining a critical perspective on the successes but also the contradictions and failures of US policy towards Africa. The final two sections offer a detailed description and evaluation of the dimensions of multilateralism in post‐cold‐war US policy, and, in particular, the Clinton era, which, in many respects, encapsulates much of what is right and wrong with US policy towards the continent. The evaluation made and the general assumptions used to approach the theme of US policy towards Africa are informed by a broadly neo‐Gramscian appraisal of the hegemonic function of the US in the current global political and economic order, and of the place of multilateralism within that hegemonic function.

This chapter examines the politics of policy reform in low-income Africa, and specifically the double standard applied by the creditor countries in dealing with the debts of middle-income Latin American and low-income African countries. Whereas the Latin American debt was promptly dealt with by Western creditors because of the risk it posed to the stability of the Western banking system, equal attention was never given to the debt burden of the poorest African countries, whose debts were largely owed to multilateral financial institutions. Finally, the chapter examines the adequacy of the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative, which was introduced in 1996 to address the problem of debt owed by low-income countries to the multilateral development banks.

The central argument is that US power, once established as predominant in the hemisphere, has been nothing short of decisive in the founding, nature, and functioning of the regional multilateral institutions/organizations in the Americas in which it has taken part. The examples of the Pan American Union (PAU) Organization of American States (OAS) and of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are used to show this state of affairs in play; the most attention is paid to the OAS because of the lessons that can be derived from the very long history of US membership of this organization. In another case, that of Mercado Comun del Sur (Mercosur, or the Common Market of the South), it is shown how, even where the US is not a member of a multilateral organization in the hemisphere, its weight is still felt in terms of the aims and behaviour of that body. At the same time, it is seen that such organizations may on occasion be useful for the smaller states in restraining to at least some extent US behaviour, although in general such a restraining role is reserved for moments when US vital interests tend not to be involved and where Latin American, or more recently Canadian, actions to limit US unilateralism do not negatively affect goals perceived to be key by Washington. The first section gives an overview of the US and the hemisphere over the more than two centuries of its diplomatic and related action therein, the next looks at the specific experience of the PAU and the OAS, and the following two at NAFTA and Mercosur.

Considers how domestic political processes affect American behaviour in and towards multilateral organizations. The author first discusses the nature of American exceptionalism and looks at the ways in which what he describes as a deeply ingrained sense of American exceptionalism coupled with pragmatism affects the country's approach to multilateral institutions. An examination is then made of the ups and downs of US policies towards UN over the course of the 1990s, the contrasting politics of the 1994 decision to join the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO), and US financial withholdings in the 1990s and the steps taken towards partial payment of the resulting arrears in 1999–2000. Far more positive attitudes are noted towards the WTO than the UN, the latter being perceived as a riskier venue for the promotion of US interests. It is concluded that, while the US is generally reluctant to defer to multilateral processes, it cannot be accused of being hostile to all forms of multilateral organization: it is pragmatic and peacekeeping case‐specific in its choice of foreign policy tools.

Addresses the multilateral regime for foreign direct investment (FDI), which is a topic of central and increasing importance for the strategies and operations of multinational enterprises (MNEs). At least a minimal understanding of the institutional features of the multilateral regime is needed in order that the totality of the literature can be more conveniently and effectively evaluated. Section (2) of the chapter therefore notes the institutions involved (which include WTO, OECD, the UN, the World Bank, and IMF) describes the main elements of the system and illustrates its implications for business strategy and operations; the account concentrates on the role of WTO. Section (3) summarizes and evaluates diverse bodies of literature—from business studies, as well as economics, political science, and law. Section (4) proposes directions for future research.

This chapter on the roles and objectives of developing countries in global economic governance is organized around themes in negotiation processes rather than the specific objectives of improved global governance themselves. These objectives are considered, of course, but they are discussed within the context of a discussion of better process. The chapter addresses the prospect for fairly short-term and modest reforms, mainly relating to governance and negotiation processes for reform, within the key current multilateral economic institutions — the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organiszation. It focuses upon the importance of the selection of the agenda and the choice of appropriate forums and processes for moving toward longer-term and more fundamental reforms in the global economic governance system. The particular problems of the smallest and poorest countries in the global economic system are considered in the chapter. It also addresses the potential for improved developing country cooperation within existing systems.

As a basis for investigations of imperial responsibilities, this chapter presents a construal of the metaphor ‘the American empire,’ and argues that this usage fits current facts of power. In this usage, the empire rests on three mutually reinforcing types of domineering influence: prerogatives (such as special powers due to the global role of the dollar), threat influence (such as the threats of reduced market access used in shaping the world trade regime) and the exercise, direct and sponsored, of destructive power. The existence of the American empire is identified with the fact that the United States government has substantial domineering influence, ultimately based on all three types of power, throughout the world, more so than any other country, and uses it to shape lives in many developing countries, directly or through domination of multinational institutions. Specific mechanisms that shape national trajectories in developing countries, including structural adjustment, are described in detail.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's argument that much, though not all, distributive conflict over multilateral institutions takes place in a low-dimensional ideological space. Even if distributive conflict over institutions is not always about ideology, the geopolitical implications often are. The point of this book is not just to argue that ideological contestation matters but also to offer measures, a modeling framework, and empirical illustrations. The theoretical framework helps in better understanding how institutional commitments hang together and may unravel together as challenges to the liberal institutional order mount. If multilateralism is distinct because it advances general principles, then one must understand challenges to the multilateral order in terms of domestic and international challenges to those principles. The chapter then presents a brief illustration of the World Trade Organization.

This chapter explains how the book's theoretical framework contrasts with and complements existing theories of international institutions. It discusses four families of theories: functionalism, rational institutionalism, liberal internationalism, and constructivism. These theoretical frameworks yield meaningful insights about important aspects of the post-World War II multilateral order. Yet they can be enriched by conceptualizing multilateralism in terms of cooperation and competition in a low-dimensional ideological space. Functionalists and their intellectual descendants understand institutionalization as an incremental process driven by interdependencies and the spillover effects from previous institutionalization. Rational institutionalists argue that states delegate authority to international institutions in order to solve strategic problems that prevent states from reaping collective gains. Liberal internationalist theorists argue that the post-World War II multilateral order reflects the values and priorities of the United States. Finally, constructivists have long emphasized the ideational foundations of multilateral institutions. However, they have focused on norms, culture, and identities rather than ideology as the basis for doing so.

This chapter focuses on how the German government, in the post-war years, sought to provide firms with assurances about their access to international markets by supporting a set of multilateral institutions that protected free trade. In matters concerning the economy, Germany's support is informed by a distinct institutional rationale which promoted forms of multilateralism that would reinforce the domestic strategy of economic reconstruction. The chapter presents a summary of the direction, scope, and dominant features of reforms to the institutional architecture of the German economy after 1950. It also examines how German governments handled the reformation of key features of that architecture; how they built support within the business community; and how successful they were in creating the conditions under which the communities adopted product market strategies during periods of structural reform.

The first 18 months after the Tiananmen bloodshed marked the height of global criticism of China's human rights record, but the years 1992–1995 quickly gave some indication of the difficulties that would be faced by those who wished to move China beyond tactical concessions towards genuine acceptance of the validity of some of the core human rights norms. Major Western states, together with Japan, continued to reduce the bilateral pressure, for economic and strategic reasons, and China's recapturing of its high economic growth rates from 1992 enhanced its ability to pose policy dilemmas for those interested in competing in the Chinese market, as well as for far weaker countries that were poised to benefit from China's economic dealings with them. The Beijing leadership, which was plainly on the defensive with respect to its international interlocutors on human rights, decided to renew its efforts to regain the initiative. China's 1991 White Paper, which signalled limited engagement in the human rights discourse, was a major first stage in that strategy, providing China with an authoritative text upon which to draw in response to international criticisms. Beijing, however, went further and tried to link up with other governments in East Asia in the exploitation of a common dislike of Western triumphalism, and a common commitment to ‘Asian values’, questioning the universal application of democracy and human rights. The Chinese leadership began to launch more extensive, direct attacks on Western countries and on the major international NGOs. Nevertheless, the relative density of the human rights regime ensured that some constraints still operated on China's international diplomacy, and as the major states’ sanctions policies weakened, governments tended to make greater use of such multilateral institutions as the UN. The different sections of the chapter are: The Uses of the 1991 White Paper; Relativism versus Universalism —in democracy and human rights; The Economic Weight of China; The Rootedness of Human Rights Policy; The UN Commission on Human Rights; China and the Thematic Mechanisms — the work of the UN Special Rapporteurs and the new 1995 Chinese White Paper; and Conclusion.

This chapter further explores issues of patients' tenacity to shape science, through advocacy on an international level, and investigates the ways that making a disease public in Africa often entails locating it within discourses of humanitarian “crisis,” emergency, and global health prioritization. In this way, tireless patient advocates of African origin living in France created the sickle cell disease umbrella organization of the International Organization for the Fight against Sickle Cell (OILD), which succeeded in getting sickle cell anemia the attention of the World Health Organization and the United Nations in 2008. The OILD's strategy of making sickle cell visible to these multilateral institutions consisted of linking the disease to other pressing global health problems for development through means that often deployed uncertainty as “data.”

This concluding chapter outlines lessons for other countries struggling with the implementation of national economic reforms amidst increased global market integration and dense forms of multilateralism. It illustrates how the design problem is situated at the center of analysis, and how economies are treated as open systems of governance in which the actions of governments and economic groups are shaped by the joint constraints of national and multilateral designs. The broader implication of the design problem is that the extent to which both national and multilateral institutions are incentive compatible affects the long-term willingness of domestic groups to support the national economic reform agenda of governments.

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate how best to provide transnational public goods (TPGs), which possess vastly different geographical ranges of spillovers and diverse characteristics. First there is the issue of how to finance these TPGs. The chapter offers many examples of these public goods at the global, regional, and national levels, and the institutions that facilitate their provision. The existence of these institutions indicates that transnational cooperation may succeed and can be promoted by clever institutional design that accounts for the strategic motives of countries. A prime notion is subsidiarity, where the jurisdictional range of the institution is chosen to match the corresponding spillover range of the TPGs. This chapter is particularly interested in considerations that inhibit or promote adherence to subsidiarity. In addition to other institutions, the chapter considers the United Nations, the World Bank, regional development banks, and governance institutions.

Health impact assessment (HIA) is an approach that holds promise to raise the profile of health within the policy formation and programme planning and assessment cycle in the extractive industries in the developing world. Reviewing our experience of conducting HIA in the mining, oil/gas, water resource and agriculture/bioenergy sectors, we note that there are currently two models at play. First, a ‘western’ multilateral lending/development approach that ties projects to defined environmental, social and health performance standards. Second, a commercial strategy that links resource/commodity development agreements with the provision of infrastructure in the contracting country. Although it is currently not possible to compare the two models from a health impact perspective due to the paucity of long-term monitoring, evaluation and surveillance systems, we believe that HIA as a resources platform in a developing country context can foster meaningful and sustainable actions as part of socially responsible development at local, national and global levels.