Table of ContentsIntroductionAmerican UnilateralismContext: Hegemony, Not MultilateralismArgumentConclusionIntroductionMany observers have lamented the shift from multilateralism to unilateralism in American foreign policy (Maynes, 2000; Spiro, 2000 Boniface, 2001; Nye, 2002; Hoffman, 2003).1In recent years, the United States has rejected a series of major international treaties and agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Protocol on Anti-Personnel Mines. the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the Program of Action on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and a new protocol designed to verify compliance with the Arms Convention biological. The US decision to launch a war against Iraq despite the absence of an explicit mandate from the UN Security Council and without the support of many key allies is the most dramatic manifestation of US unilateralism. These events raise a number of important questions for analysts of American foreign policy: to what extent does the “new unilateralism” constitute a break with past practices? What factors explain the growing isolation of the United States from international institutions and multilateral cooperation? To what extent did the behavior of other states play a role in changing the direction of American foreign policy? Are recent unilateralist policies a passing anomaly or do they portend a long-term retreat from multilateralism? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay American Unilateralism American unilateralism has been a distinct feature of United States foreign policy throughout its existence. It has been used under different presidencies with the aim of promoting national interests such as the pursuit of global primacy and ownership of natural resources. Instead of being a leader in establishing and strengthening rules and institutions that promote international peace, social justice, and environmental sustainability, the Bush Doctrine pits the United States against these rules and hypocritically claims to adhere to them . This presidential term can be considered a most provocative, muscular and proactive period in American foreign policy. Context: hegemony, not multilateralism John Gerard Ruggie (1993: 11) defines multilateralism as “an institutional form that coordinates relations between three or more countries”. States on the basis of generalized principles of conduct. » A multilateralist foreign policy involves two crucial commitments on the part of cooperating states: Investing in the creation and maintenance of international institutions that serve to facilitate coordination. This dimension of multilateralism concerns the contributions necessary to maintain international institutions. Institutional investment can take three main forms: participation (continued involvement in deliberations on the substantive and procedural terms of multilateral cooperation), resource provision (contributions of money, soldiers, information, expertise and other assets essential to the functioning of particular institutions) and rhetorical support (public expressions of support for the norms, principles and goals of particular institutions) Comply with the rules, norms, principles and decision-making processes of those institutionson an equal footing with other States. This dimension of multilateralism is linked to institutional outcomes and how institutions affect state behavior. As Ikenberry (2003b: 534) notes, multilateralism “results in some reduction in political autonomy” as participating states conform to institutional constraints on their behavior. Compliance involves not only the narrow question of whether a state violates specific commitments, but also whether a state requests waivers, exemptions, veto or weighted voting privileges, or other prerogatives that make it easier for it to escape. institutional constraints that would otherwise apply. A state that submits more fully to constraints is more truly multilateralist than a state that systematically takes advantage of loopholes. Critics of unilateralism often point to the generally positive record of the post-World War II period as evidence that multilateralism has precedent in American foreign policy. and that such an approach leads to positive results. Yet this overstates the extent to which American foreign policy at this time was truly multilateralist, whether in theory or in practice (McCormick, 2002). In the aftermath of World War II, the United States took the first of the two multilateralist commitments cited above seriously, but not the second. While the United States invested in the creation of international institutions, postwar administrations only loosely submitted to the constraints of institutional rules and procedures. In other words, the U.S.-sponsored institutional order was designed to bind the behavior of other states, but not that of the United States itself. This strategic approach to building the international order is hegemonic rather than multilateralist. Appreciating this distinction leads to a somewhat more pessimistic assessment of the likelihood that the United States can "return" to a recent set of multilateralist traditions.ArgumentThe United States has never pursued a truly multilateralist foreign policy. American strategy after World War II was rather hegemonic. While the United States embraced the creation of international institutions as an effective means of exercising its power and maintaining international order, the rules and procedures of these institutions were far more binding on other states than on the United States itself. same. The growing conflicts between the United States and its major allies around the world in recent years are the result of two changes: the decreasing willingness of the United States to invest in strong international institutions and the increasing insistence of other states that the United States abides by the same international rules as the rest of the international community. These dual challenges to the two main pillars of American hegemony have resulted in an increasingly unilateral American foreign policy, which relies more on the brutal application of power and less on the willingness of other states to follow the United States. as a legitimate international leader. The shift from hegemony to unilateralism in American foreign policy dates back to the end of the Cold War. The demise of the Soviet Union removed a significant constraint on American power while reducing the dependence of Allied states on American protection. Domestically, the removal of the Soviet threat weakened the president's authority in pursuing broad national interests while strengthening parochial interests that typically oppose multilateral commitments. The differencesforeign policy differences between Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are not as marked as many think. . The preferences, ideologies and rhetoric of the two presidents are very different. But domestic and foreign structural forces played a more significant role in pushing both presidents (Clinton reluctantly and Bush enthusiastically) toward a pattern of unilateralist behavior in U.S. relations with the world. The appropriate contrast is not between a multilateralist Clinton and a unilateralist Bush, but between two unilateralisms that differ not in their nature but rather in their tone, emphasis and degree. Although the end of George W. Bush's presidency could lead to many changes in U.S. foreign policy, a decisive or lasting shift toward a truly multilateralist approach by the United States could occur. diplomacy seems unlikely. The end of the Cold War changed the institutional orientations of the United States and its main allies. American strategy has gradually moved away from hegemony and towards unilateralism. The main adjustment this entailed was not an assertion of independence from the institutional constraints that the United States generally avoided throughout the postwar period anyway, but rather the withdrawal or the gradual abandonment of political and financial investments in new and existing international institutions. Europe and many other states, in contrast, have moved from a position of acquiescence to U.S. institutional investments while generally acquiescing to the rules and procedures of those institutions to multilateralism. This implies a dual commitment both to invest and to respect the rules of an institutionalized international order. This helps explain why the transnational debate over unilateralism versus multilateralism has taken on greater prominence in recent years, in a way that it rarely did when the United States pursued a hegemonic strategy in association with a constellation of allies generally inactive. Conclusion Given America's vast resources and power advantages over other states (Brooks and Wohlforth, 2002), the answer is probably yes, but at considerable cost. Even if domestic and external structural forces weigh heavily against a multilateralist turn in American foreign policy, it does not follow that unilateralism serves the interests of the United States or the world well. Although a full account of the consequences of US unilateralism is beyond the scope of this article, three types of costs are worth mentioning. Despite the increased willingness of other states to invest in maintaining a strong institutional order that provides important international collective goods, there is considerable risk that such efforts will fail without the active support of the more powerful state of the world. The meager progress in developing international solutions to the problem of global warming is just one example. The United States is simply too large and too central to the current international order to freely benefit from the contributions of others. As a weakened international institutional order fails to provide important public goods, the United States will suffer like everyone else. A second cost lies in the growing isolation of the United States from the main currents of world opinion. Since the 1950s, for example, the proportion of roll-call votes in the UN General Assembly in which the United States voted with the majority has steadily declined (Karnsand Mingst, 2002: 270). The United States is running.