Future scenarios on multilateralism: global governance models for efficient (economic) policy coordination

ABSTRACT Future Scenarios on Multilateralism: Global Governance Models for Efficient (Economic) Policy Coordination Christin Pfeiffer One has to acknowledge that we live in an extremely fast-paced, interdependent society with the Covid-19 pandemic having put the world upside down. Economically speaking, nothing is currently as it was before 2020 and global recovery is moving at increasingly different speed. This research aims at addressing the state-of-the-art of multilateral cooperation and related mechanisms, which appeared to be caught in a blind alley since a while but have recently been put under spotlight all at a sudden due to the global crisis, showing the clear need for multilateral governance models that are fit-for-purpose in the 21st century. After recalling existing fora for international exchange, the work examines selected, rather recently established platforms and initiatives with the purpose to shed light on their perception and impact when implementing international cooperation agreements, by analyzing strengths and weaknesses of their processes and functioning, and by carefully focusing on eventual potential for improvement. By deep diving into an assessment of key elements of multilateral mechanisms that promote and actively perform economic cooperation, the intention is to define good practices based on relevant characteristics that contribute positively to a fruitful negotiation process, able to reshape and upgrade multilateralism to be functional, inclusive, representative and sustainable for the 21st century. This comprises providing insights on new alliances building, elucidating the raison d’être of new groupings emerging in certain geopolitical circumstances or with regard to specific thematic issues, with the final aim to outline a balanced scenario of future global governance models which allow peaceful co-living and take a conscious exploitation of resources into account. By doing so, the research touches upon the subject of how to potentially renew international institutions including their mandate – a tightrope act, given the implications on the difficult question around possibly necessary reforms of the multilateral apparatus as such, its leadership, imprint on values, and representativeness against the backdrop of the current power distribution. This analysis finally looks at concerns targeting security (especially with regard to critical digital infrastructures) and stability, potentially assuming the main global currency would not abide by the dollar and the IMF suffer competition in a medium run. Ultimately, this culminates in the attempt to sketch ways to redesign the multilateral process, given the world’s “multiplexity”, with numerous challenges for humanity ahead as tangles to untie. Against this backdrop, the work brainstorms and puts forward some proposals on prerequisites concerning the ability of the West to accept the coexistence of open democracies and other political systems, in order to be able to jointly fight global threats as the climate crisis or future pandemics. It finally calls for heads of government showing courage and enlightened leadership skills, in order to move towards reconciliation and find a compromise for a new, rules-based world order, allowing all economies to recover and unleash their potential for resilience to a reasonable extent.