Braz. political sci. rev.2024;19(2):e0001.
Multilateralism: Quo Vadis?
DOI: 10.1590/1981-3821202500020001
This review essay focuses on a recent publication edited in 2023 by Auriane Guilbaud, Franck Petiteville, and Frédéric Ramel: ‘Crisis of Multilateralism? Challenges and Resilience’. Their work was developed in collaboration with various authors from the research group on multilateralism — GRAM, an international Francophone network of researchers specializing in the study of multilateralism, headquartered at Sciences Po Paris. The book’s primary aim is to analyze the current challenges faced by multilateralism, as well as its transformations, within a conceptual framework that gives a privileged place to the notion of crisis. The collection consists of twelve chapters, evenly distributed across three major complementary thematic axes: ‘Multilateralism Under Pressure’, ‘Power Shifts in Multilateralism’, and ‘New Dynamics’. Ultimately, the book demonstrates that multilateralism, when confronted with crises, is capable of mobilizing various resources and reinventing itself to avoid perishing. Endowed with certain intrinsic qualities — adaptive capacities, openness to non-state actors, bureaucratic creativity, among others—multilateralism is able to adjust to new international balances and the constant transformations of diplomatic coalitions.
‘Hoc non pereo habebo fortior me’. The famous proverb “what does not kill me makes me stronger”, which celebrates Stoicism, has long been used in a variety of circumstances to describe situations in which almost certain setbacks become unexpected successes. The hiatus that precedes the crossroads that defines the path of death or the path of strengthening is usually called a crisis. It is at this point that reaction and resilience abilities will be put to the test and define the outcome: dire or fortunate.
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