ABSTRACT
This book offers an important chronological perspective on the evolution of multilateralism within Europe and beyond.
It provides a critical reconstruction of the history of the idea and praxis of peaceful global governance, a comparative analysis of regional multilateral organisations and a discussion about concrete trends and perspectives of a new multilateralism against the challenging context of the current multipolar power politics. Focusing on the changing European interplay with multilateralism – from Eurocentric cradle of civilian cooperation among sovereign imperial states, to political dwarf after the two world wars and decolonisation, and to potential co-leader of a multilayered and multi-actor cooperation within the current multipolar order, it addresses a theoretical “gap” by fuelling the long-recognised idealism v. realism debate over international cooperation and institutionalisation with both historical and new empirical insights.
This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of European studies, global governance, multilateralism, international organisations and more broadly international relations.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|2 pages
The historical origins and transformation of multilateralism
part 2|6 pages
Regionalism and interregionalism as forms of multilateralism
chapter 4|14 pages
Contribution to a historical interpretation
chapter 5|5 pages
Introduction to a synchronic analysis of regional cooperation
part 3|7 pages
Multilateralism at stake from the 20th to the 21st century and the EU perspective