How ‘good groupism’ helps multilateralism

Are groups making a comeback in this era of solo acts? The relevance of outfits like G20 would certainly seem to buck the trend of the perceived irrelevance of bigger, more unwieldy entities. Part of the problem with mega groups like G77, or even UN, is their tendency to give rise to groupism. Dominant countries seek to shape these groups in their vision. But emerging and developing countries have, with their architecture and leaderships, also been able to use the space to articulate and socialise their views. This is good news and points to the continued need to reform multilateral institutions, bringing their structures and decision-making powers in line with the world.

The fault line on which these groups sit are not ‘global north versus global south’ or ‘West versus the rest’, but about multilateral institutions being controlled by few, hailing from across aforementioned easy binaries. It is not possible to turn the clock back. However, it is possible, as the likes of India are showing within groups like G20, BRICS and Quad, to repurpose plurilateral and regional groups to serve the cause of multilateralism. They could be reconfigured as ‘safe spaces’ to find and build common ground without undermining national interests. In this, the international climate talks provide some lessons that have used plurilateral spaces to work through differences, maybe even finding common ground.

It is easy to imagine plurilateral and regional groups edging out multilateral institutions, especially when between the pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fuel and food crises, multilateralism is being tested. But for much of the emerging and developing world, it is multilateralism alone that can deliver in a fair and equitable manner.