Expressing Some Truths about the Global Order at APSA
Just returned from the American Political Science Association (APSA) meeting - but still a weekend, or at least the end of it with the ‘summer ending’ Labor Day holiday.
Hey, I was fortunate this weekend to join 2 esteemed colleagues at an American Political Science Association Roundtable session titled: ‘The Growing Disorder in the Emerging Multipolar Order’. This Roundtable, which I chaired, was just a tiny part of a large, large program presented by the APSA in its annual gathering just before Labor Day, ugh. The upside, though, or at least I thought it was, was this year it was held in Los Angeles. Really,I thought that was an advantage - UCLA, USC, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Century City …
Unfortunately, for the organizers, this year’s gathering was in downtown LA and the Conference ran smack into a labor action by hotel staff workers, including the Marriott, right next to the LA Convention Center, where many of the panels were scheduled to take place. Many members insisted that ‘crossing a picket line’ was not on. And, a complete mess followed in changing panel rooms and requests by participants to hold the sessions virtually. It was, as I just said: ‘a complete mess’.
The impact on the annual conference was felt everywhere. And, unfortunately for my Roundtable, two participants for health and other reasons withdrew. But on the bright side I was joined by two great colleagues. First, UCLA's Arthur Stein, a long time colleague - in fact we go back to undergraduate days at Cornell. At Political Science at UCLA Arthur covers a wide range of international issues from ethnic conflict, to human rights to global governance and global order. The stream of graduate students that Arthur has worked with is admirable. And Arthur and I were fortunate enough to be joined by Ali Wyne. Ali is a senior analyst with the Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice. There, Ali targets US-China relations and great power competition.
Ali Wyne started us off. His main target was US-China relations and first off Ali dismissed the notion of a quick transition between the two leading powers and thus a resolution of the growing competition between these two great power rivals US and China was not on. The US, according to Ali, will not reassert its hegemonic position in the global order; nor will the global order find a new leading power - China under Xi Jinping. But the ongoing competition will make it impossible to rebuild trust between these two contenders that we saw built over the decades of the ‘engagement years’. Both will need to be content to establish ‘guardrails’ that will contain the highly competitive relations between them. Both will need to contend with one another over a long period and both will need to reconcile their two ‘exceptionalisms’. In the face of this ‘long struggle’ with the US, Ali further suggests that China is likely to: (1) strengthen its relations with Russia; (2) focus on key Global South swing states such as Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia; and (3) generally focus on economic and infrastructure policy with the developing world.
Arthur was particularly ‘hard hitting’ on the current global order framing. In fact his big picture approach to global order was to declare that classic global order descriptions were - putting it bluntly - ‘all wrong’ - my phrase. The open global order has been undermined by repeated bouts of neomercantilism, none more impactful than the actions of the United States. So, too, in climate action. Remember the binding Kyoto Protocol. Indeed, the global order hasn’t been global for decades. The democratic wave after the end of the Cold War actually has been a series of ripples of democratic rise and then fall. Collective action efforts, especially around key global governance issues such as climate, have been less than ‘meets the eye’ - governments implement climate policies regardless of what other countries do. The collective action element is left in endless discussion and in disagreement.
Arthur paints a faint, fragmented international global order. Shall I say it: ‘Barely a global order’. The presumed lead, the United States, is in fact, possibly, the most disruptive element in the global order mix. More than most, the United States has impaired open trade, wider security, advances in global governance, debt reform, you name the area. American domestic politics, not some global order foreign policy design, drives the global order. It is an unhelpful track record. And we may find Chinese domestic policy may do exactly the same - that is weaken and fragment global action. Note, for instance, the very recent decision by President Xi Jinping to absent himself from the New Delhi G20 Summit. Pique with India, and or a collective action allergy to speak out against Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The session was highly revealing though stark at times. The two had even wider remarks than what is set out here. But I believe that I have identified the core of their views - barely a global order and hardly collective action. A world of highly competitive US-China actions driven largely by domestic imperatives and barely room for global order behavior.
Now I am not sure I accept some of the rather stark conclusions of both my colleagues; but there was so much to think about after our time together.