The end of global pluralism?
| Author | Christian Reus-Smit |
| DOI | 10.1177/13540661211017273 |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211017273
European Journal of
International Relations
2021, Vol. 27(4) 1249 –1273
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661211017273
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The end of global pluralism?
Christian Reus-Smit
University of Queensland, Australia
Abstract
The liberal international order is a fragmented institutional complex, comprising often
disparate elements. One of these is a distinctive institutional approach to the global
organization of cultural difference. This approach combines universal Westphalian
sovereignty (and the pluralist interstate order it facilitates) with international human
rights norms that seek to protect the cultural freedoms of individuals. I term this
institutional amalgam “global pluralism”. Like many elements of the liberal order, such
pluralism is now under challenge, confronted by resurgent ethno-nationalism, politicized
religion, and civilizational chauvinism. The key question is whether global pluralism has
the adaptive capacities to withstand such challenges. This article develops a theoretical
framework for comprehending these institutional capacities. Conceiving global pluralism
as a “diversity regime,” I argue that such regimes always rest on social “recognition
contracts,” and that these give them certain structural characteristics: configurations of
political authority and modes of cultural recognition. Focusing on these characteristics,
I compare global pluralism with past Western and non-Western diversity regimes,
and clarify the adaptive strengths and weaknesses of different institutional forms. This
contractual-structural analysis exposes the historical uniqueness of global pluralism but
also its structural vulnerabilities. While global pluralism has distinct advantages over
past diversity regimes—principally, that it does not itself generate unstable cultural
cleavages and hierarchies—it requires complex forms of social contracting to sustain,
and its individualist mode of recognition struggles to accommodate collectivist cultural
claims. Such contracting is essential, however, if global pluralism is to withstand current
challenges, all of which involve collectivist claims.
Keywords
global pluralism, liberal international order, culture, recognition, social contract,
diversity
Corresponding author:
Christian Reus-Smit, University of Queensland, Building 39a, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
Email: c.reussmit@uq.edu.au
1017273EJT0010.1177/13540661211017273European Journal of International RelationsReus-Smit
research-article2021
Article
1250 European Journal of International Relations 27(4)
A distinguishing feature of today’s international order is its formal pluralism. In contrast
to formally hierarchical orders, it is formally equalitarian. It is a system of legally equal,
territorial sovereign states, all free, at least theoretically, to formulate and pursue their
own conceptions of the good, especially within their borders. A great virtue of this
arrangement, many argue, is that it safeguards cultural diversity, as territorial sovereignty
allows peoples to develop their own cultural identities, hold dear their distinct cultural
values, and engage in their preferred cultural practices, all free from external interfer-
ence. The pluralism of today’s order goes deeper than this, though. A complex system of
international norms has evolved that seeks to protect cultural diversity within states.
Some of these norms explicitly prescribe multicultural policies and practices (Kymlicka,
2007), but most are international human rights norms that uphold the cultural rights of
individuals to live free of discrimination, persecution, and in the most extreme cases,
ethnic cleansing and genocide (Chow, 2018; Stamatopoulou, 2007). Despite the obvi-
ous tensions between these two forms of pluralism, their coexistence is no coinci-
dence. Rather, together they should be seen as constituting a distinct, if multifaceted,
institutional regime for the management of culture difference, a regime I term “global
pluralism.”
Like many aspects of the “liberal” international order, global pluralism is now under
challenge. In 2007 Will Kymlicka held that international norms protecting cultural diver-
sity were “making a difference, and perhaps even a profound and epochal difference”
(2007: 41). But little more than a decade later, such views have an otherworldly quality.
Xenophobic ethno-nationalism has reemerged as a powerful political force in countries
across the globe. Myanmar’s ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya people and China’s cul-
tural genocide of the Uyghurs fly in the face of international protections. Meanwhile,
antipluralism has leapt the boundaries of states, with politicized religion and white
supremacy animating new forms of media networked transnational terrorism. Even the
Westphalian core of global pluralism—the “live-and-let-live” ethos said to attend sover-
eign equality—is challenged by the return of unashamed civilizational chauvinism,
apparent in prominent calls to arms to defend a morally superior yet embattled West and
in the rebranding of China as a neo-Confucian civilizational state.
A key question for the future of the liberal international order is whether global plural-
ism, as a distinctive institutional approach to the governance of diversity, can survive
such challenges. One way to approach this question is to assess the nature and serious-
ness of the challenges themselves (e.g., United Nations, 2017). This will always be insuf-
ficient, however, without a clear understanding of the adaptive capacities of the regime
itself: its institutional strengths and weaknesses, flexibilities and rigidities.
This article develops a theoretical framework for understanding these adaptive
capacities. It makes the case, in Part One, for seeing global pluralism, with its combina-
tion of Westphalian sovereignty and norms of domestic cultural governance, as a unique,
historically contingent regime for the management of global cultural diversity. While
distinctly liberal in form, it should be seen as the most recent attempt to address a long-
standing historical problem, which I term “the Augsburg imperative:” the need to qual-
ify pluralism among states with norms constraining their internal cultural practices. In
Part Two, I turn to the limitations of existing accounts of institutional adaptation, argu-
ing that the factors they emphasize—such as flexibility mechanisms, institutional
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