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Is American Multilateralism in Decline?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2003

G. John Ikenberry
Affiliation:
Peter F. Krogh Professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice at Georgetown University (gji@georgetown.edu). Until 2004, he is a Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He thanks Andrew Bennett, Joshua Busby, Jennifer Hochschild, Charles Kupchan, Dan Nexon, Jack Snyder, James Steinberg, Leslie Vinjamuri, William Wohlforth, participants at a Brookings Institution seminar, and three external reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions. He also thanks Thomas Wright for valuable research assistance

Abstract

American foreign policy appears to have taken a sharp unilateral turn. A half century of U.S. leadership in constructing an international order organized around multilateral institutions, rule-based agreements, and alliance partnerships seems to be giving way to an assertive unilateralism. But how deeply rooted is this unilateral turn? Is it an inevitable feature of America's rising global power position? This article argues that the United States is not doomed to shed its multilateral orientation. Unipolar power provides new opportunities for the United States to act unilaterally, but the incentives are actually quite complex and cross-cutting; and these incentives arguably make multilateralism more rather than less desirable for Washington in many policy areas.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© 2003 by the American Political Science Association

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