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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.

An explanation and assessment of Asian regional institutions first requires a definition of the key dimensions of institutional design. Three are key: decision rules, commitment devices, and membership rules. Asian regional institutions display particular characteristics on these dimensions. Structural characteristics shape the configuration of regional institutions in Asia and elsewhere. Feedback effects, distinctive links between security and economic integration, and differing weights assigned to regional, global, and sub-regional institutions mark the trajectories of regional institutions. Regional institutions in Latin America and other developing regions diverge less from Asia than European institutions. Radical change in Asian regional institutions is unlikely. The likeliest route to change will be elite-based and demand-driven: a calculation that the agenda of deeper integration is necessary for continued economic growth and political survival.

This chapter looks at financial crises as a challenge to the international financial system and investigates the “public bad” nature of the phenomenon. The conclusion: excessive financial volatility is a global public bad. Instability is not purely a technical by‐product of the production of financial services. Rather, it is the outcome of market failures, for reasons not yet fully understood. Having laid out this diagnosis, the chapter looks at how existing institutions and policies deal with international financial instability, both to limit its acuity and to deal with its implications. The main emphasis is on drawing lessons from recent experiences (Europe, Mexico, and East Asia) and recent theoretical advances, especially those that have improved our understanding of crises. The chapter presents five main proposals. (1) Proceed with caution in promoting capital liberalization; (2) avoid the restrictive macroeconomic policies, huge loans, and deep structural policies of recent packages; (3) complement today's ex post conditionality with ex ante conditionality; (4) suspend debt repayment in the event of a major crisis accompanied by a collapse of the exchange rate; and (5) end the monopoly of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by creating regional IMFs.

This chapter introduces the second main thesis of the book. State parties threatened by the electoral growth of peripheral parties need to react in order to retain their electoral majorities or pluralities. The threat will be larger the more disproportional is the electoral system and the more the electoral pluralities or majorities of the state party are concentrated in electorally relevant peripheral regions. An immediately available response is to tactically defend some of the policies of the peripheral parties’ programmatic agenda. This would allow the threatened state party to retain those voters that are close to it along the left–right dimension but who have intense pro-periphery preferences. The problem becomes that in centralized states the state party’s pro-periphery moves are so hindered by credibility constraints that programmatic convergence will not be an effective strategy. Devolution is a way to solve this problem since it allows transforming the tactical pro-periphery moves of state parties into a credible long-term electoral strategy. However, devolution does not make strategic sense in all circumstances; when and how it does is determined by the country’s electoral geography.

Economic crises can facilitate the development of more effective regional institutions, depending on initial conditions, and institutions can in turn shield regions from crises, if they are well designed. This chapter compares six regional economic crises over the last four decades and the responses, institution building or decay, which followed. Five conditions are found to be important in generating a constructive regional response: a significant degree of regional economic interdependence, a secretariat or intergovernmental body charged with cooperation, webs of interlocking economic agreements, and, as elements of the multilateral context, conflict with the relevant international organization (such as the IMF) and the support of the United States. Asian regionalism would be well served by laying the institutional groundwork for integrative response, ratcheting cooperation upward after crises, pursuing unexploited gains from cross-issue bargains, and advancing cooperation between regional institutions and those at the global level.

The proliferation of interstate regional institutions in the late twentieth century is the focus of this chapter. These institutions, launched with only partial success in the 1960s, gained momentum in the 1990s after the successful completion of the peace process initiated in the 1980s. This chapter singles out the major institutional developments while discussing whether such institutions reflect regional identity or contribute to it. In this new stage, institutional steps aiming at coordinated action proliferated and broadened to include dozens of regional institutional mechanisms such as a confederation of public universities, a disaster agency, and a regional transportation council. Such institutional development has been dictated by, among other processes, trends of globalizing economic circuits and the transnationalization of migration, whether of a legal, an informal, or an illicit nature.

World War I was not inevitable, but the balance of power allowed war to occur. Local conflicts were allowed to escalate into more general conflict, globalization did not prevent conflict, and there were no general or local institutions which contained the crisis. Today, however, globalization is stronger, but Chinese disputes with its neighbors are chronic and Beijing does not accept the restraints of the Western international system. New regional and international institutions bringing China and the United States together are sorely needed.

This chapter summarizes the main conclusions of the book, draws out its empirical and theoretical implications, and reflects on the broader policy debate about informal organizations. It begins by integrating the different pieces of evidence that have been presented in the book to assemble a more complete picture of the origins of informality. The main theoretical and empirical implications are then discussed. These primarily relate to current theorizing about informal organizations, research on the broader informal order these bodies are a part of, and the study of international relations and international organizations, broadly conceived. With respect to the policy debate, the chapter argues that the theory provides reasons to doubt some of the more optimistic claims made about informal organizations. Informal bodies are, in fact, less likely to be well matched with the problems they are supposed to solve.