Jo H N GERARD Ru G GI E / Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution 331
Multilateralism: The Anatomy
of an Institution
JOHN GERARD RUGGIE
The author examines the role of normative constraints and institutions in inter-
national relations. In arguing that norms and institutions do, in fact, matter, he
clarifies the meanings of the term multilateralism and discusses its conceptual
utility.
Seen through the lenses of conventional theo-
ries of international relations, which attribute
outcomes to the underlying distribution of
political or economic power, the roles played by
normative constraints and institutions in the
current international transformation must seem
paradoxical. Norms and institutions do not
matter much in that literature to begin with;
they are viewed as byproducts of, if not epiphe-
nomena! adjuncts to, the relations of force or
the relations of production. What is more, inso-
far as the conventional literature has any expla-
nation at all of extensive institutionalization in
the international system, the so-called theory of
hegemonic stability is it. But in addition to all
the other historical and logical problems from
which that theory suffers, merely finding the
hegemony to which the current array of regional
and global institutional roles could be ascribed
is a daunting, if not insurmountable, challenge.
The fact that norms and institutions matter
comes as no surprise to the “new institutional-
ists” in international relations; after all, that has
long been their message. 1 But, curiously, little
explicit and detailed analytical attention has
been paid in this literature to a core feature of
current international institutional arrange-
ments: their multilateral form. A literature
search keyed on the concept of multilateralism
turns up relatively few entries, and only a tiny
number of these are of any interest to the inter-
national relations theorist. The focus of the new
institutionalists has been on “cooperation” and
“institutions” in a generic sense, with interna-
tional regimes and formal organizations some-
times conceived as specific institutional subsets. 2
For example, no scholar has contributed more
to the new institutionalism in international rela-
tions than Robert Keohane. Yet the concept of
multilateralism is used sparingly in his work,
even in a literature survey on that subject. And
the definition of multilateralism that he employs
is purely nominal: “the practice of coordinating
national policies in groups of three or more
states.” 3
The nominal definition of multilateralism
may be useful for some purposes. But it poses
the problem of subsuming institutional forms
that traditionally have been viewed as being
expressions of bilateralism, not multilateral-
ism-instances of the Bismarckian alliance sys-
tem, for example, such as the League of the
Three Emperors. In short, the nominal defini-
tion of multi1ateralism misses the qualitative
dimension of the phenomenon that makes it
distinct. 4
From Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Practice of an Evolutionary Form, ed. John Gerard Ruggie.
Copyright 1993, Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
332 J o H N GERARD RU G G IE I Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution
In a superb discussion of this issue, at-
tempting to sort out the enormous variety of
trade relations in the world today, William
Diebold insists for starters on the need to distin-
guish between “formal” and “substantive” mul-
tilateralism-by which he means roughly what I
mean by nominal vs. qualitative. “But that is far
from the end of the matter. The bilateral agree-
ments of Cordell Hull were basically different
from those ofHjalmar Schacht.”‘ That is to say,
the issue is not the number of parties so much,
Diebold suggests, as the kind of relations that are
instituted among them. It is this substantive or
qualitative characteristic of multilateralism that
concerns me in the present essay, not only for
trade, but also for the institutional dimension of
international relations in general.
Nor is the missing qualitative dimension
captured entirely by the concepts of interna-
tional regimes or intergovernmental organiza-
tions. Instances of international regimes exist
that were not multilateral in form, such as the
Nazi trade and monetary regimes, to which we
will return momentarily. As for multilateral for-
mal organizations, although they entail no ana-
lytical mystery, all practitioners of the new
institutionalism agree that these organizations
constitute only one small part of a broader uni-
verse of international institutional forms that
interest them.
The missing qualitative dimension of multi-
lateralism immediately comes into focus, how-
ever, if we return to an older institutionalist
discourse, one informed by the postwar aims of
the United States to restructure that inter-
national order. When we speak here of multi-
lateralism in international trade we know
immediately that it refers to trade organized on
the basis of certain principles of state conduct,
above all, nondiscrimination. Similarly, when
we speak here of multilateralism in security rela-
tions we know that it refers to some expression
or other of collective security or collective self-
defense. And when President George Bush
[enunciated] a <'new world order" for the Mid-
dle East and elsewhere-universal aspirations,
cooperative deterrence, joint action against
aggression-whether it constitutes vision or
rhetoric, the notion evokes and is entirely con-
sistent with the American postwar multilateral-
ist agenda, as we shall see below. In sum, what is
distinctive about multilateralism is not merely
that it coordinates national policies in groups of
three or more states, which is something that
other organizational forms also do, but addi-
tionally that it does so on the basis of certain
principles of ordering relations among those
states.
Thus, a compound anomaly exists in the
world of international relations theory today.
An institutional phenomenon of which conven-
tional theories barely take note is both wide-
spread and significant, but at the same time, the
particular features that make it so are glossed
over by most students of international institu-
tions themselves. This essay is intended to help
resolve both parts of the anomaly.
The premise of the present paper is that we
can better understand the role of multilateral
norms and institutions in the current interna-
tional transformation by recovering the princi-
pled meanings of multilateralism from actual
historical practice, by showing how and why
those principled meanings have come to be
institutionalized throughout the history of the
modern interstate system, and by exploring how
and why they may perpetuate themselves today
even as the conditions that initially gave rise to
them have changed.
My "grounded" analysis of the concept sug-
gests a series of working hypotheses, which
require more extensive testing before strong
validity claims can be made for them. Neverthe-
less, we believe that they are sufficiently interest-
ing, and that the case we make for them is
sufficiently plausible, to warrant such further
study, and we present them here in that spirit.
The argument, in brief, goes something like this.
Multilateralism is a generic institutional form of
modern international life, and as such it has
been preS<
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J o H N G E RA RD Ru G G I E / Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution 333
been present from the start. The generic institu-
tional form of multilateralism must not be con-
fused with formal multilateral organizations, a
relatively recent arrival and still of only relatively
modest importance. Historically, the generic
form of multilateralism can be found in institu-
tional arrangements to define and stabilize the
international property rights of states, to man-
age coordination problems, and to resolve col-
laboration problems. The last of these uses of
the multilateral form historically is the least fre-
quent. In the literature, that fact traditionally
has been explained by the rise and fall of hege-
monies and, more recently, by various func-
tional considerations. Our ana]ysis suggests that
a permissive domestic environment in the lead-
ing powers of the day is at least as important.
Looking more closely at the post-World War II
situation, for example, it was less the fact of
American hegemony that accounts for the explo-
sion of multilateral arrangements than of Amer-
ican hegemony. Finally, we suggest that
institutional arrangements of the multilateral
form have adaptive and even reproductive
capacities which other institutional forms may
lack and which may, therefore, help explain the
roles that multilateral arrangements play in sta-
bilizing the current international transforma-
tion.
The Meanings of Multilateralism
At its core, multilateralism refers to coordinat-
ing relations among three or more states in
accordance with certain principles. But what,
precisely, are those principles? And to what, pre-
cisely, do those principles pertain? To facilitate
the construction of a more formal definition, let
us begin by examining a historical instance of
something that everyone agrees multilateralism
is not: bilateralism.
Earlier in this century, Nazi Germany suc-
ceeded in finely honing a pure form ofbilateral-
ism into a systemic organizing principle. Now,
as Diebold notes, the everyday term bilateral is
entirely neutral with regard to the qualitative
relationship that is instituted among countries.'
So as to give expression to its qualitative nature,
the Nazi system therefore typically has been
referred to as bilateralist in character, or as
embodying bilateralism as its organizing princi-
ple. In any case, once the New Plan of the Nazi
government took effect in 1934, Hjalmar
Schacht devised a scheme of bilateralist trade
agreements and clearing arrangements. 7 The
essence of the German international trade
regime was that the state negotiated "reciprocal"
agreements with its foreign trading partners.
These negotiations determined which goods and
services were to be exchanged, their quantities,
and their price. Often, Germany deliberately
imported more from its partners than it
exported to them. But it required that its trading
partners liquidate their claims on Germany
through reinvestment there or by purchasing
deliberately over-priced German goods. Thus,
its trading partners were doubly dependent on
Germany.
This trade regime in turn was linked to
bilateralist monetary clearing arrangements.
Under these arrangements, a German importer
would, for example, pay marks to the German
Reichsbank for its imports rather than to the
foreign source of the goods or services, while the
foreign counterpart of the transaction would
receive payment in home country currency
from its central bank-and vice versa for Ger-
man exports. No foreign exchange changed
hands, the foreign exchange markets were
bypassed, and artificial exchange rates prevailed.
The permissible total amounts to be cleared in
this manner were negotiated by the two states.
German bilateralism typically but not
exclusively focused on smaller and weaker
states in East-Central Europe, the Balkans, and
Latin America, exchanging primary commodity
imports for manufactured exports. But the
scheme had no inherent limit; it could have
been geographically universalized to cover the
entire globe, with an enormous spiderweb of
334 J O H N G ER ARD R U G G I E / Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution
bilateralist agreements radiating out from Ger-
many.'
The nominal definition of multilateralism
would not exclude the Schachtian bilateralist
device: it coordinated economic relations among
more than three states. Nor is the fact decisive
that negotiations took place bilaterally: after all,
many tariff reductions in the General Agree-
ment on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) are also
negotiated bilaterally. The difference is, of
course, that within GATT bilaterally negotiated
tariff reductions are extended to all other parties
on the basis of most-favored nation (MFN)
treatment, whereas the Schachtian scheme was
inherently and fundamentally discriminatory,
so that bilateral deals held only on a case-by-case
and product-by-product basis even if they cov-
ered the entire globe in doing so.
Let us examine next an institutional ar-
rangement that is generally acknowledged to
embody multilateralist principles: a collective
security system. None has ever existed in pure
form, but in principle the scheme is quite sim-
ple. It rests on the premise that peace is indivis-
ible, so that a war against one ipso facto is
considered a war against all. The community of
states is therefore obliged to respond to threat-
ened or actual aggression, first by diplomatic
means, then through economic sanctions, and
finally by the collective use of force if necessary.
Facing the prospect of such a community-wide
response, any rational potential aggressor would
be deterred and would desist. Thus, the inci-
dence of war would gradually decline.
A collective-security scheme certainly coor-
dinates security relations among three or more
states. But so too, as noted above, did the League
of the Three Emperors, which was nothing more
than a set of traditional alliances.' What is dis-
tinct about a collective-security scheme is that it
comprises, as Sir Arthur Salter put it a half-cen-
tury ago, a permanent potential alliance "against
the unknown enemy" 10 and, he should have
added, in behalf of the unknown victim. The in-
stitutional difference between a bilateral alliance
and a collective-security scheme can be simply
put: in both instances, state A is pledged to come
to the aid of B if B is attacked by C. In a collec-
tive-security scheme, however, A is also pledged
to come to the aid of C if C is attacked by B.
Thus,
A cannot regard itself as the ally of B more than
of C, because theoretically it is an open question
whether, if an act of war should occur, B or C
would be the aggressor. In the same way B has
indeterminate obligations towards A and C, and
C towards A and B, and so on with a vast num-
ber of variants as the system is extended to more
and more states. 11
It was precisely this difference between a collec-
tive-security system and alliances that ultimately
doomed the fate of the League of Nations in the
U.S. Senate. 12
The United States frequently invoked the
collective-security model in leading the anti-
Iraq coalition in the Persian Gulf crisis and then
war, though what if any permanent institutional
consequences will follow from that effort
remains to be seen. NATO reflects a truncated
version of the model, in which a subset of states
organized a collective self-defense scheme of
indefinite duration, de jure against any potential
aggressor though de facto against one. Never-
theless, internally the scheme was predicated on
the indivisibility of threats to the collectivity-
that is, it did not matter whether Germany or
Great Britain, or the Netherlands, or Norway
was attacked, nor in theory by whom-together
with the requirement of an unconditional col-
lective response.
We are now in a position to be more pre-
cise about the core meaning of multilateralism.
Keohane has defined institutions, generically, as
"persistent and connected sets of rules, formal
and informal, that prescribe behavioural roles,
constrain activity, and shape expectations." 13
Very simply, the term multilateral is an adjec-
J (
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J o H N G E RA RD Ru G G I E / Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution 335
tive that modifies the noun institution. Thus,
multilateralism depicts a generic institutional
form in international relations. How does mul-
tilateral modify institutionl [We] suggest that
multilateralism is an institutional form that
coordinates relations among three or more
states on the basis of generalized principles of
conduct: that is, principles which specify appro-
priate conduct for a class of actions, without
regard to the particularistic interests of the par-
ties or the strategic exigencies that may exist in
any specific occurrence. MFN treatment is a
classic example in the economic realm: it for-
bids discrimination among countries produc-
ing the same product-full stop. Its counterpart
in security relations is the requirement that
states respond to aggression whenever and
wherever it occurs-whether or not any specific
instance suits their individual likes and dislikes.
In contrast, the bilateral form, such as the
Schachtian device and traditional alliances, dif-
ferentiates relations case-by-case based pre-
cisely on a priori particularistic grounds or
situational exigencies.
Bilateralism and multilateralism do not
exhaust the institutional repertoire of states.
Imperialism can be considered a third generic
institutional form. Imperialism is also an insti-
tution that coordinates relations among three or
more states, though, unlike bilateralism and
multilateralism, it does so by denying the sover-
eignty of the subject states.14
Two corollaries follow from our definition
of multilateralism. First, generalized organizing
principles logically entail an indivisibility among
the members of a collectivity with respect to the
range of behavior in question. Depending on
circumstances, that indivisibility can take very
different forms, ranging from the physical ties of
railway lines that the collectivity chooses to stan-
dardize across frontiers, all the way to the adop-
tion by states of the premise that peace is
indivisible. But note that indivisibility here is a
social construction, not a technical condition: in
a collective-security scheme, states behave as
though peace were indivisible, and thereby make
it so. Similarly, in the case of trade, adherence to
the MFN norm makes the system of trade an
indivisible whole among the member collectiv-
ity, not some inherent attribute of trade itself. 15
Bilateralism, in contrast, segments relations into
multiples of dyads and compartmentalizes
them. Second, as we shall see below, successful
cases of multilateralism in practice appear to
generate among their members what Keohane
has called expectations of"diffuse reciprocity." 16
That is to say, the arrangement is expected by its
members to yield a rough equivalence of bene-
fits in the aggregate and over time. Bilateralism,
in contrast, is premised on specific reciprocity,
the simultaneous balancing of specific quids pro
quos by each party with every other at all
times.17
What follows from this definition and its
corollaries is that multilateralism is a highly
demanding institutional form. Its historical
incidence is, therefore, likely to be less frequent
than that of its alternatives, and if its relative
incidence at any time were to be high, that fact
would pose an interesting puzzle to be ex-
plained.
The obvious next issue to address is the fact
that, as Keohane points out, the generic concept
of international institution applies in practice to
many different types of institutionalized rela-
tions among states. 18 So too, therefore, does the
adjective multilateral: the generic attribute of
multilateralism, that it coordinates relations
among three or more states in accordance with
generalized principles of conduct, will have dif-
ferent specific expressions depending on the type
of institutionalized relations to which it pertains.
Let us examine some instances. Common usage
in the literature distinguishes among three in-
stitutional domains of interstate relations: inter-
national orders, international regimes, and
international organizations. Each type can be,
but need not be, multilateral in form.
p
336 J o H N GERARD RU G G I E / Multilateral.ism: The Anatomy of an Institution
The literature frequently refers to interna-
tional economic orders, international security
orders, international maritime orders, and so
on. An "open" or "liberal,, international eco-
nomic order is multilateral in form, as is a mar-
itime order based on the principle of mare
liberum. The New Economic Order of the Nazis
was not multilateral in form, for reasons I have
already suggested, and neither was the European
security order crafted by Bismarck. The concept
of multilateralism here refers to the constitutive
rules that order relations in given domains of
international life--their architectural dimen-
sion, so to speak. Thus, the quality of "open-
ness" in an international economic order refers
to such characteristics as the prohibition of
exclusive blocs, spheres, or similar barriers to
the conduct of international economic relations.
The corresponding quality in an international
security order-which would cause it to be
described as "collective" -is the condition of
equal access to a common security umbrella. To
the extent that these conditions are met, the
order in question may be said to be multilateral
in form. In short, multilateralism here depicts
the character of an overall order of relations
among states; definitionally it says nothing
about how that order is achieved.
Regimes are more concrete than orders:
typically, the term refers to functional or sec-
toral components of orders. Moreover, the con-
cept ofregime encompasses more of the "how"
question than does the concept of order in that,
broadly speaking, the term "regime" is used to
refer to common, deliberative, though often
highly asymmetrical means of conducting inter-
state relations. That much is clear from com-
mon usage. But while there is a widespread
assumption in the literature that all regimes are,
ipso facto, multilateral in character, this as-
sumption is egregiously erroneous. For exam-
ple, there is no reason not to call the Schachtian
schemes for organizing monetary and trade rela-
tions international regimes; they fully meet the
standard criteria specified by Stephen Krasner
and his colleagues.19 Moreover, it is entirely pos-
sible to imagine the emergence of regimes
between two states-superpower security re-
gimes, for example, were a topic of some discus-
sion in the l 980s20-but such regimes by
definition would not be multilateral either. In
sum, what makes a regime a regime is that it sat-
isfies the definitional criterion of encompassing
principles, norms, rules, and decision-making
procedures around which actor expectations
converge. But in and of themselves, those terms
are empty of substance. What makes a regime
multilateral in form, beyond involving three or
more states, is that the substantive meanings of
those terms roughly reflect the appropriate gen-
eralized principles of conduct. By way of illus-
tration, in the case ofa multilateral trade regime,
these would include the norm of MFN treat-
ment, corresponding rules about reciprocal tar-
iff reductions and the application of safeguards,
and collectively sanctioned procedures for
implementing the rules. In the case of a collec-
tive-security regime, they would include the
norm of nonaggression, uniform rules for use of
sanctions to deter or punish aggression, and,
again, collectively sanctioned procedures for
implementing them.
Finally, formal international organizations
are palpable entities with headquarters and let-
terheads, voting procedures, and generous pen-
sion plans. They require no conceptual
elaboration. But, again, their relationship to the
concept of multilateralism is less self-evident
than is sometimes assumed. Two issues deserve
brief mention. The first, though it may be moot
at the moment, is that there have been interna-
tional organizations that were not multilateral
in form. The Comintern and later Cominform
come to mind; they were based explicitly on
Leninist principles of organization, which were
quite different from their multilateral counter-
parts. Along the same lines, the ... collapsed
Soviet-East European system of organizations
differed from multilateral forms in ways that
students of international organization never
JO
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Jo H N GERARD RUGG IE / Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution 337
fully came to grips with. The second issue is
more problematic even today. A common ten-
dency exists in the world of actual international
organizations, and sometimes in the academic
community, to equate the very phenomenon of
multilateralism with the universe of multilateral
organizations or diplomacy. The preceding dis-
cussion makes clear why that view is in error. It
may be the case empirically that decisions con-
cerning aspects of international orders or, more
likely, international regimes are in fact made in
multilateral forums. The European [Union]
exhibits this empirical pattern most extensively;
the failed quest by developing countries for a
New International Economic Order in the 1970s
exhibits the desire to achieve it; and decisions
on most international trade and monetary mat-
ters fall somewhere in between. But definition-
ally, multilateral organization is a separate and
distinct type of institutionalized behavior, de-
fined by such generalized decision-making rules
as voting or consensus procedures.
In sum, the term multilateral is an adjective
that modifies the noun institution. What distin-
guishes the multilateral form from others is that
it coordinates behavior among three or more
states on the basis of generalized principles of
conduct. Accordingly, any theory of interna-
tional institutions that does not include this
qualitative dimension of multilateralism is
bound to be a fairly abstract theory and one that
is silent about one of the most crucial distinc-
tions within the repertoire of international insti-
tutional forms. Moreover, for analytic purposes
it is important not to (con)fuse the very mean-
ing of multilateralism with any one particular
institutional expression of it, be it an interna-
tional order, regime, or organization. Each can
be, but need not be, multilateral in form. In
addition, the multilateral form should not be
equated with universal geographical scope; the
attributes of multilateralism characterize rela-
tions within specific collectivities that may and
often do fall short of the whole universe of
nations. Finally, it should be kept in mind that
these are formal definitions, not empirical
descriptions of actual cases, and we would not
expect actual cases to conform fully to the for-
mal definitions ....
Conclusion
This essay was written with two sets of protago-
nists in mind. The first are those theorists of
international relations for whom institutions
matter little. It may be true, as these theorists
insist, that they do not purport to explain every-
thing but that what they do explain is impor-
tant.21 It does not follow, however, that what
they leave unexplained is unimportant. And
institutions, clearly, are not unimportant.
The second set of protagonists are those of
my fellow institutionalists for whom the form
that institutions take is left unexplored. Their
focus is on institutions in a generic sense or on
cooperation even more generally. Much can be
learned about international relations from that
perspective. But at the same time, too much is
left unsaid. And what is left unsaid~the form
that institutions assume-affects vitally the role
which institutions play on the world stage today.
Above all else, policymakers groping for …
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