Abstract In recent years, the international order has undergone profound transformations that have weakened its stability, particularly affecting global decision-making and participatory mechanisms. Increasingly contested is the global governance system established after the Second World War, which, according to emerging powers such as the BRICS , no longer reflects today’s multipolar reality and fails to grant meaningful participation to the Global South, historically sidelined in global decision-making. This article investigates whether the BRICS are offering an alternative and more inclusive model of global governance, focusing on climate change while acknowledging that their reform agenda also extends to economic and institutional domains. Using a comparative and critical method, the findings suggest that the BRICS are making progress in reshaping governance, particularly against the backdrop of crises in the European Union and the United States. However, internal divisions, continued reliance on outdated energy sources, and the uncertainties of the BRICS Plus expansion may hinder their capacity to present a coherent and effective alternative.
Abstract For much of the United Nations’ history, the United States has benefited from structural advantages—its permanent seat, financial weight, and host-country status—but its influence within the Security Council has always depended on sustained diplomatic investment rather than formal authority alone. In recent years, that investment has declined. We argue that the concept of diplomatic capacity —the human, institutional, and experiential resources a state can mobilize to effectively participate in and influence multilateral decision-making—helps explain how the distribution of influence in the Council is shifting even as the formal rules remain unchanged. Drawing on new data on mission staffing and ambassadorial experience across the permanent members, we show that U.S. diplomatic capacity has eroded over time, a process which is accelerating under the current administration. This shift has created opportunities for other actors to shape Council outcomes. We outline several plausible pathways for future leadership, including expanded roles for European permanent members, growing Chinese engagement, and more coordinated initiatives by elected members. These developments suggest that influence in the Security Council increasingly reflects patterns of institutional investment rather than assumptions about U.S. predominance, with implications for the Council’s agenda, coalitional dynamics, and prospects for effective collective action.
This essay examines the renewed political salience of the Global South in contemporary global governance and its implications for the liberal international order (LIO). It argues that recent Global South positions most visibly in responses to Russia's invasion of Ukraine reflect not indifference to liberal order but long-standing frustrations with its illiberal practices. First, the essay challenges Global North assumptions that the post-1945 order has been consistently liberal, showing instead how Western hegemony has often been coercive and exclusionary from the perspective of formerly colonized states. Second, it demonstrates that Global South actors have historically demanded a more genuinely liberal order one offering greater voice, equality, and institutional fairness rather than an alternative illiberal system. Finally, the essay identifies the emergence of "illiberal transnationalism," linking populist and nationalist forces across North and South, as a key driver of fragmentation within the LI O. The result is a more decentralized and contested order that presents both opportunities and risks for global cooperation.
This short essay thinks the ideas of the (Global) South and the West together. The two concepts have both been discussed extensively but mostly separately. By juxtaposing the two concepts, we consider whether they are commensurable. Although the Global South emerged much later than the idea of the West, it is similarly ambiguous in terms of scope and meaning. But as a normative project, the Global South seems to have largely disappeared during the last several decades as the sense of solidarity between the countries it once included has eroded and the term has increasingly been instrumentalized, especially by the four BRIC countries.
Abstract North Korea’s nuclear breakout is often cited as evidence of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT )’s failure. This article argues that such judgements overlook the NPT ’s critical institutional function of detection. Through screening, monitoring, and verification mechanisms, the NPT and International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA ) exposed Pyongyang’s violations and legitimized a global response, even though it could not by itself prevent North Korea’s withdrawal or weapons development. A case study analysis of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program (up to 2003) shows the treaty regime ‘worked’ by gathering and reporting credible evidence of noncompliance, which enabled United Nations actions and bilateral diplomacy (e.g., the 1994 Agreed Framework). Since the NPT and IAEA were never designed to enforce compliance, their value lies in making proliferation visible and thus facilitate enforcement by the broader international community. Recognizing detection as a measure of success can help strengthen the NPT regime despite isolated setbacks.
Abstract This essay contributes to the theme of ‘Global South Redux’ by critically examining some of the structural changes in the developing world, including its internal differentiation and the difficulty of constructing united fronts against the ‘developed North’. It facilitates a more sophisticated understanding of the strategic diversity in the Global South and the growing prospects for strategic collaboration with the great powers of the North amid the renewed contestation among them.
Abstract The idea of the Global South has been re-surging since the onset of the Ukraine War. Yet its renewed form is not a re-run of its twentieth century original. It draws from multiple bloodlines of anti-imperialist struggles, bureaucratic regimes of development, and the promise of capitalist markets. Once a name for the global ‘other’, the concept has been reconfigured as self-identification of an emerging geopolitical force by a coalition of postcolonial nations. It simultaneously captures the dreams of multipolarity as well as contradictions of great political and economic shifts rearranging the postcolony. What makes the Global South a durable sign that can be repurposed time and again, is its flexibility: the capacity to not only encompass multiple lineages sometimes at odds with each other but also continuously absorb contradictions and new meanings. This introductory essay to the special forum traces the historical conditions within which the Global South redux emerged, and its manifold futures that lay ahead.
We are unmistakably entering a new epoch of world unmaking one in which the United States is losing its grip as the global center of gravity. This marks a sharp departure from the era of US-dominated unipolarity that has defined international order since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It is therefore worth asking what this moment means for the African continent, not least because the fate of more than a billion people turns on the answer. This essay argues that Africa is unlikely to emerge as a global power in this age of multipolarity, primarily because the prospects for continental economic unity remain slim. Yet multipolarity, as it has done before, opens space for African countries to have the elbow room to chart their own destiny. Capitalizing on that opening will depend on whether the continent can develop genuine strategic autonomy by carefully leveraging the competing geopolitical interests of the world's rising and established powers.
Abstract The Global South did not emerge because postcolonies naturally recognized their shared history or conditions. Rather, it was constituted by how colonizers collectively perceived and treated them, forged into a reluctant but increasingly articulate bloc, defined by an imposed inferiority intelligible only in contrast to colonial Europe. The more forcefully Europe asserted its superiority, the more readily the postcolonies perceived unity, transcending otherwise insurmountable differences. This unity was not rooted in common values or leadership but in a shared refusal, articulated differently in each context. As a result, the Global South, as a spirit, emotion, and relationship, is bound to appear sporadic and unpredictable. Colonial groups, due to their blind spots regarding both non-statist and non-individualist knowledge, cannot find the familiar values in the transient, mercurial solidarity.
International organizations (IO s) have increasingly deepened local public engagement, reflecting a broader shift toward inclusion and responsiveness in global governance. While scholars have examined this trend, its emergence as a distinct normative development warrants further investigation. This article analyzes two cases of this phenomenon the International Criminal Court's outreach and community engagement in UN peacekeeping conceptualizing both as participatory policy norms: social expectations that IO s engage directly with those most affected by their mandates. We argue that these norms represent an underexplored mode of IO legitimation. Tracing how they are codified in policy, operationalized in practice, and justified through normative and strategic logics, we show how participation has become central to cultivating, reaffirming, and defending IO legitimacy in an increasingly contested global environment. At the same time, we highlight the tensions, constraints, and risks of symbolic performance that complicate their role as a legitimation strategy.
The UN Security Council addressed the issue of due process protection for individuals designated for counter-terrorism sanctions when it created the Office of the Ombudsperson in 2009. However, fundamental rights to due process continued to be denied for those designated for individual UN sanctions for other (non-terrorism) activities, which account for the majority of the individuals and entities currently designated for sanctions by the Security Council. This has created ongoing challenges to the legitimacy of the Council due to its inattention to the rights of individuals designated for sanctions. A significant enhancement of the Focal Point Mechanism first created within the Secretariat in 2006 was made possible with the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2744 in July 2024. This article charts the course of incremental, procedural reform at the Security Council on this issue, identifies core elements of due process, describes recent litigation trends challenging UN designations worldwide, summarizes the core elements of UNSCR 2744, and suggests specific proposals for addressing the remaining legitimacy deficit related to UN sanctions on individuals.
States join many multilateral environmental agreements, but lack of enforcement hinders their effectiveness and implementation. Even when science shows the gravity of the environmental degradation and solutions are available, the political will is lacking. When trust is lacking, accountability mechanisms can help establish trust. This Global Forum brief offers insights into the conditions under which accountability mechanisms can strengthen the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements, depending on whether states are driven by power, interest, identity, practice, or lack of capacity. We explore accountability mechanisms that in their design enable learning on how to address complex problems, as well as building capacity for addressing them, including shared, broad, and dynamic accountability. Recommendations are offered for two categories of impactful accountability mechanisms: those aimed at creating incentives and those aimed at enabling learning. Both are relatively easy wins, yet they are likely to face substantial resistance from states concerned about the erosion of their power and sovereignty.
This study presents an empirically based analysis of legitimacy aspects of polylateral governance across three global health funds: Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; Global Fund to Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and the Global Financing Facility for Women, Children and Adolescents. Adopting a normative approach to legitimacy, we ask how these global health funds fare against key legitimacy principles in global governance, as expressed in the 2011 Busan Partnership Agreement and the earlier Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005). The findings show that, while global health funds exhibit high levels of alignment with the set standards of technocratic legitimacy, they fail to meet the principles of democratic legitimacy and fairness. This shortfall is largely due to the structure and operations of the funds’ boards that accord significant sway to financiers and partners from the Global North.
This article seeks to answer whether states comply with international human rights institutions by focusing on the impact of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process on human rights treaty ratification. We examine why and how states comply with UPR recommendations based on three compliance mechanisms in international relations theory: coercion, self-interest, and legitimacy. The unique architecture of the UPR enables all three compliance mechanisms to operate within the process. This research shows that as the volume of UPR recommendations increases, the likelihood of compliance with treaty ratification rises through the interplay of these mechanisms. Utilizing pooled event history analysis, this study shows the positive and significant effects of UPR recommendations on the ratification of thirteen international human rights treaties between 2008 and 2018. By providing a large-N analysis of the UPR’s effects, this study contributes to the literature on human rights compliance and highlights the importance of procedural compliance.
