Spatial Fragmentation of, and US Support for, the Main Multilateral Institutions of the Western Order

Abstract

The growth of China-led minilateral initiatives mostly of a regional character has challenged the main multilateral institutions of the Western order and, ultimately, US authority. Faced with a progressive delegitimation of the institutional architecture that it promoted after World War II, the US, under the Obama administration, has acted to defend the existing main multilateral institutions of the order (UN, IMF, WB and WTO), attributing them with a strategic role. More than being radical, though, the reforms enacted have been incremental and pragmatic, but always imperfect. More importantly, they have not altered US influence, which is exercised mostly through informal means. This, however, has left room for dissatisfaction and more reform requests, but has added credibility to threats to use the alternative organizations created at the regional level, and this risks undermining not only the existing universal multilateral institutions, but also the existing American-led institutional order.