ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author focuses on international organisations as mechanisms for managing pluralism. He turns to a case study of COVID-19 to illustrate both how the pluralism plays out in international organisations and how deliberation in international organisations offers a way of managing the tensions these different forms of pluralism create. The most obvious form of pluralism in the international system is multipolarity. Most international organisations are thought of as venues for reducing the tensions inherent in pluralism, not for embracing it. Pluralism both complicates the work of international organisations and makes it more important. Joining an IO and participating in its activities, even if only by paying lip service to its constitutive act, can generate a shared frame of reference to help manage the tensions and conflicts that are inherent in any society, including international society.
