RUCG IE , john Gand (oot) TA. Theory ond “roves of An bitty brmal Form fn selity bronak Foun Mg: 1. Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution ' * Jobn Gerard Ruggie 1 1989, peaceful change, which a leading realist cheorise had declared Tr very low probability event in international polities less than a decade before," accommodated the most fundamental geopolitical shift of the postwar era and perhaps of the entire ewencieth century: the collapse of the Soviet East European empite and the attendant end of the cold war. Many factors were responsible for that shife. But ehere seems little doube that multilateral norms and insticutions have helped stabilize heir inter- national consequences, Indeed, such norms and institutions appear to be playing a significent role in the management of a broad array of regional and global changes in the world system coday, In Europe, by one coune at lease fifteen multilateral groupings are involved in shaping the continent’ collective destiny.? The European Community (EC) is the undisputed anchor of economic relations and increasingly of a common political vision in the West. And che former East European countries want nothing so much as to tie their economic face to the Community, a goal that the ‘Community members have facilitated through the creation of the Buropean Bank for Reconstruction and Development and, in some cases, through the peospect of association’ agreements. Yet the author of another influential realise treatise pub- lished a decade ago gave the EC only a few fleting references—and then only co argue that it would never amoune to much in the international "seeucture” unless it took on the form of a unified state, which it shows ro signs of doing even now.? In che realm of European security relations, che centrat policy issue of the day concerns the adaptation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza- tion (NATO) to the new European geopolitical realities and the question 1 am vey grt to Rabert ©. Kev fr hi entesive al Ip crciqus oa ear dae sich forced me ro rethink al claniy several Hey iss to Cre B- Hane fr hi Comments and eo Davi Aveta or sarc asisance 34424 + John Gerard Ruggie ‘of whether supplementary indigenous West Entopean or all European multilateral security mechanisms should be fashioned.‘ The Soviet Union, contrary to most predictions, posed no obsticles to German reunification, betting thac a united Germany firmly embedded in a broader Western tional matrix would pose far less ofa security cheat than a neutral Germany cugged in differenc directions in the center of Europe,” Bue perhaps the most telling indicator of institutional bite in Europe today is the proverbial dog that has ot barked: no one in any position of authority anywhere is advocating, or quietly preparing for, a return co a system of competitive bilateral alliances—which surely is the first time that has happened at any comparable historical juncture since the Con- _gress of Vienna in 181516 Security relations in the Asia—Pacific region:make the same points in the negative. Ie was not possible co construct multilateral insticutional frameworks there in che immediate postwar period. Today, the absence of such arrangements inhibits progressive adaptation to fundamental ‘global shifts. ‘The United States and Japan are loath to raise serious questions about their anachronistic bilateral defense treaty, for example, cout of fear of unraveling a fragile stability and thereby triggering arms races throughout the region. In Asia~Pacifc there is no European Com- munity and no NATO to have transformed the multitude of regional security dilemmas, as has been done in Europe with Franco-German relations, for example. Indeed, no Helsinki-like process through which to begin the minimal cask of mutual confidence building exists.in the region.” Thus, whereas coday the potential to move beyond balance-of- power politics in its tradicional form exists in Europe, a reasonably stable balance is the best that one can hope to achieve in the Asia~Pacific region.” "Ac the level of the global economy, despite sometimes neat-hysterical predictions for twenty years now of imminent monetary breakup snl trade wars that could become real wars, “just like in the 1930s,"® the rate of growth in world trade continues to exceed the rate of growth in world output; international capital flows dwarf both; and the eighth periodic round of trade negotiations, which had been prematurely nounced dead, is moving toward completion—this time involving diff ‘cult domestic and new transnational issues that the originators of the regime never dreamed would become subject co international rules. And dlespite considerable tension between them, the United States and Japan ‘continue, in Chutchill’s phrase, co “jaw-jaw” rather chan "war-war” over their fundamental trade differences." The Anatomy ofan Unstitution * 5 Limited multilateral successes can be found even in the global secutity realm. One is in the area of nuclear nonproliferation. Many responsible officials and policy analysts in the 1960s predicted that by the 1980s there would exist some two dozen nuclear weapons states."" As it has turned out, the total set of actual and potential problem states today consists of only half thar number, at least in part due to the nonprolifer- ation treaty (NPT) regime. Vireually every nonproliferation initiative has cuened our co be much more effective chan expected when it was propoted or designed, and nonprolifers- tion success has been cheaper than expected. ‘The fact that the nucleae prolifertion problem bas been “bounded” by the NPT regime means chat policy initiatives can be focused on « handful of states.” Moreover, after years of being riveted by the cold war, the United Nations has been ediscovered to have utility in international contlice management: its figleaf role proved useful in Afghanistan, and its deco- lonization function aided Namibia, It serves as one means by which to try co disentangle regional morasses from Cambodia to the Western Sahara. And pethaps of greatest importance for the new, postcold wer cra, the posture adopted by the U.N. Security Council to sanction Iraq for its invasion and annexation of Kuwait constituted the organization's ‘most comprehensive, firm, and united response ever to an act of interna- tional ageression. Seen through the lenses of conventional theories of international rele- tions, which attribute outcomes to the underlying cal of economic power, the roles played by normative constraints and insticutions in the current international transformation must seem para- doxical. Norms and institutions do not matter much in that literature to begin with; they ate viewed as byproducts of, if not epiphenomenal adjuncts to, the relations of force or che relations of production. Whee is ‘more, insofar as the conventional literature has any explanation st all of ‘extensive insticutionalization in the international system, the so-called theory of hegemonic stability is it, But in addition to all the other historical and logical problems from which that theory suffers,"* merely finding the hegemony co which the current acray of regional and global insticutional roles could be ascribed is a daunting, if not insurmountable, challenge. he face that norms and institutions macter comes as no surprise £0 the “new insticutionalists” in international relations; after all, that has Jong been their message." But, curiously, little explicit and detailed6 + Jobn Gerard Ruggie ieracure ¢o a core feature of analytical arcention has been paid in this ‘cutene incernational institutional arrangements: their multilateral form, ‘A literature search keyed on the concept of multilateralism cucns up relacvely few entries, and only & tiny number ofthese ate of any interest to the international relations eheoris. The focus ofthe new insticutional- ists has been on “cooperation” and "instieutions” in a generic sense, wich internacional regimes and formal organizations sometimes conceived as specific institutional subsers."© For example, no scholar has contributed more co the new insttucionalism in internacional relations chan Robert Keohane, Yet the concept of multilateralism is used sparingly in his work, even in a literature survey on that subject, And the definition of mulelateralism chat he employs is purely nominal: “the practice of co- ordinating national policies in groups of three or more states." The nominal definition of multlaterelism may be useful for some purposes. But it poses the problem of subsuming institutional forms chat traditionally have been viewed as being expressions of bilaerlism, not muleilaceralism—instances of the Bismarckian alliance system, for ex- ample, such as the League of the Three Emperors. In short, the nominal definition of multilateralism misses the qualitative dimension of che phe- nomenon that makes ie distinct." In a superb discussion of this issue, aetempring to sort out the enor- mous variety of erade relations in the world today, William Diebold insists for starters on the need ro distinguish becween “formal” and substantive” multilaeralism—by which be means roughly what I mean by nominal vs. qualitative. “But chat is fac from the end of the matter. The bilateral ageeements of Cordell Hull were basically different from those of Hjalmar Schacht." That is co say, the issue is nor che number of parties so much, Diebold suggests, as the kind of lations chac are ingtcuted among them. Ie is this substantive or qualica OF multilateralism that concerns me in the present essay, aot only for trade, but also for the instieutional dimension of incernational relations in general Nor is the missing qualitative dimension captured entirely by the concepts of international regimes or intergovernmental organizations. Instances of international regimes exist chac were not multilateral in form, such as the Nazi trade and monetary regimes, to which we will recurn momentarily. As for multilateral formal organizations, although they enrail no analytical mystery, all practitioners of the new institution- lism agree thac these organizations constitute only one small part of a broader universe of international institutional forms chat interest them. re characteristic ‘The Anatomy ofan Institaton © ‘The missing qualitative dimension of multilateralism immediarely comes into focus, however, if we return co an older instieutionalist discourse, one informed by ehe postwar aims of the Uniced States co restructure the international order. When we speak here of multilaceral- ism in international trade we know immediacely that it refers ro crade organized on the basis of certain principles of state conduct, above all, rnondiscrimination.”” Similarly, when we speak here of muleilaceralism in security relations we know that i refers to some expression or other of collective security ot collective self-defense.” And when President George Bush coday enunciates a "new world order” for che Middle East and clsewhete—universal aspirations, cooperative deterrence, joine action against aggression whether ie constitutes vision of theroric, the notion evokes and is entirely consistent with the American postwar multilateralist agenda, as we shall see below, In sum, what is distinctive abour muleilae~ cralism is not merely that it coordinates national policies in groups of three or more states, which is something that other organizacional forms also do, but additionally that it does s0 on che basis of certain principles of ordering relations among those states ‘Thus, a compound anomaly exists ia che world of international « tions eheory today. Aa institutional phenomenon of which conventional theories barely take nore is both widespread and sigaificant, but ac che same time, the particular features chat make ic so are glossed over by most students of international insticucions themselves. This essay is intended to help resolve both parts of che anomaly. ‘The premise of the present paper is chat we can better understand the role of multilateral norms and institutions in the current international transformation by recovering the principled meanings of multilaceralism from actual historical practice, by showing how and why those principled _meanings have come to be institutionalized throughout the history of che modern interstate systent, and by exploring how and why they may perpetuate themselves today even as the condicions that initially gave rise to them have changed. ‘My “grounded” analysis of the concept suggests a series of working hypotheses, which require more extensive testing before strong, validity claims ean’ be made for chem. Nevertheless, we believe that they are sufficiently ineeresting, and thae che case we make for them is sufficiencly plausible, to warrant such further study, and we present chem here in that spirit. The argument, in brief, goes something like this. Muleilar- eralism is @ genetic institucional form of modern incernational life, and as such it has been present ftom the start. The generic insticutional form