The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (175 page)

 
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An approach to international trade, the monetary system, international disarmament and security, or the environment, based on the idea that if international co-operative regimes for the management of conflicts of interest are to be effective, they must represent a broad and sustainable consensus among the states of the international system. Multilateralism therefore lends itself to issues where clear common interests in the international community are identifiable.
Many recognized that during the interwar years the exclusionary nature of bilateral bargains and the frequent resort to unilateral action had contributed to the breakdown of the international economy and the onset of war. Multilateralism therefore became the norm in such postwar agreements as
Bretton Woods
,
GATT
, the
United Nations
, and, more recently, accords on the ozone layer or global warming. On questions of national security states have often proved reticent to accept the constraints of multilateral diplomacy, but there have been notable examples of multilateral action through the UN in the postwar period.
Global multilateralism has, however, been challenged, particularly with respect to trade, by emerging regional arrangements such as the EU or NAFTA, not in themselves incompatible with larger multilateral accords. More seriously, the original sponsor of postwar multilateralism in economic regimes, the United States, has turned towards unilateral action and bilateral confrontation in trade and other negotiations as a result of frustration with the intricacies of consensus-building in a multilateral forum. As the most powerful member of the international community by far, the United States has the least to lose from a defection away from multilateralism, and the weakest nations the most, but the cost for all would be high.
In disarmament and arms control, important changes have also taken place in the postwar period. Initially it was felt that effective cóntrol of arms would require an ongoing multilateral forum in the context of the United Nations. As the nuclear arms race between the United States and the USSR emerged, however, it became clear that the two superpowers were unwilling to cede the issue of arms control policy to multilateral discussions. Despite consistent multilateral efforts, including the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1967, and the chemical and biological weapons agreement of 1971, key arms control measures depended largely on bilateral superpower accords outside UN processes. Even the multilateral success stories rested on superpower cooperation.
The US—Soviet
SALT
I agreement of 1972, coupled with the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty), was followed by SALT II in 1979. These opened the door to further multilateral agreements, especially with the changes in Soviet foreign policy under Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the end of the Cold War. This quickly resulted in the Conventional Forces in Europe agreement of 1990 between NATO and Warsaw Pact members, as well as additional bilateral nuclear arms control agreements such as the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987 and
START
in July 1991. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, even nuclear arms control matters are now essentially multilateral because offshoots of the former USSR (e.g. Ukraine, Kazakhstan) possess nuclear weapons that were once Soviet property. These smaller states have recently agreed (Ukraine in 1994) to transfer their arms to the Russian Federation.
Multilateral agreements more often than not are underpinned by greatpower understandings. The conclusion of the GATT Uruguay Round in December 1993 depended on prior EU—US agreements.
GU 

 
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When clear managerial coordination and control together with some element of ownership link legally distinct businesses operating in several countries, the result is a multinational corporation (MNC). MNCs became common only from about 1890. Generally headquartered in developed industrial economies, they developed partly in response to market forces and partly in reaction to rising barriers to international trade and levels of state intervention. These forced firms, if they were to retain their share of a national market, to manufacture locally where they had formerly exported.
Multinationals have been held to be subversive of states, or even of the state system. This is partly because of a few infamous examples of corporate meddling in the politics of host states, but much more because of their ability to move capital around internationally, and to manipulate the transfer prices at which their component firms exchange goods and services internationally in order to minimize tax liability. Multinationals have also been criticized for undermining national cultures through intensive use of advertising to achieve substitutions of synthetic and standardized goods for natural and distinctively local alternatives.
CJ 

 
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Regime where more than two political parties are in serious contention for power, alone or in coalition. Multiparty systems usually coexist with
proportional representation
(PR) ( see
Duverger's law
), but the association is not unbreakable. For instance, Germany and Ireland have PR but relatively few parties; while Canada has had numerous parties contending for power, though usually only two or at most three in any one district, thanks to the effect of the electoral system. The pattern of political
cleavage
is more fundamental than PR in determining the number of parties in a regime.

 
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The idea that two nuclear rivals could make their relationship stable so long as each of them knew that it was capable of both destroying, and being destroyed by, the other. Usually rendered as MAD. The concept arose in
deterrence
theory at a time when the Soviet Union was beginning to acquire nuclear parity with the United States. The key to it was that each should possess a secure second strike nuclear force so that the certainty of devastating retaliation would prevent either from launching a first strike. MAD was an important element in the view that deterrence was easy, and that it could be made stable and effective with relatively small nuclear arsenals. The idea is still active as the core of minimum, or ‘existential’, deterrence thinking.
BB