Selective or Effective Multilateralism? The Bush Administration’s Proliferation Security Initiative and China’s Response

Abstract

Debates about effective multilateralism have focused fundamentally on whether multilateral inter-governmental organizations that were established predominantly in the period after the World War II are equipped in the contemporary era to provide solutions to complex global governance problems requiring transnational action.¹ As one sceptic of post-1945 global institutions put it in 2009, ‘the old international system, based on arrangements worked out by instructed representatives of national governments, is too cumbersome, too slow, and too narrowly crafted to solve cross-border problems’.² From this perspective, the development of informal, ad hoc groupings — such as coalitions of the willing or expert groups — that tailor their actions to specific, disaggregated and, therefore, presumably more manageable problems, are likely to have greater success in dealing with difficult global issues. Furthermore, for those concerned with maintaining a United States or other major state commitment to multilateral institutions — either to soften the impact of dominance, constrain unilateralist impulses or help legitimate policy positions — these informal institutions are also worthy of support. Supporters of informality argue that such institutions are attractive to the powerful because they increase its levels of strategic autonomy beyond that available in multilateralist gatherings, and offer it a flexibility in response that matches its range of policy options.