Conclusion: interpolarity - bridging international relations with a dilemma

ABSTRACT

This concluding piece to the Special Issue on Interpolarity: Revisiting Security and the Global Order focuses on the concept of interpolarity as both a conceptual tool to understanding multipolar interdependencies and as an approach aiming to change the nature of multipolarity from one of rivalry and contestation toward one of cooperation in the face of global challenges. It engages with the question: To what extent is overcoming the tension between these poles a dilemma between interpolarity being a desirable goal and being a normative compromise on the values these poles want to uphold in the international arena? After presenting both sides of the dilemma, this piece concludes that an “interpolar” approach to conceptualizing International Relations (IR) can facilitate a more inclusive and comprehensive approach toward a truly global study of IR.

KEYWORDS:

• Interpolarity
• Global IR
• normative contestation
• multipolar interdependence

Introduction

This Special Issue builds on the concept of Interpolarity (Baciu 2022), not only as a conceptual tool to better understand the significance of interdependence in the face of climate change, war, terrorism, and regional instabilities in a world of growing discontent, but also as an approach hoping to create an impact on the way we conceptualize International Relations in order to overcome competition and contestation between these “poles.” This concluding piece engages with the question: To what extent is overcoming the tension between these poles a dilemma between interpolarity being a desirable goal and being a normative compromise on the values these poles want to uphold in the international arena? It concludes with the contribution this concept makes to the global study of International Relations, and to the study of international relations in Europe in particular.

The history of the study of International Relations at Western universities begins after the end of the First World War with the establishment of departments with the main aim of preventing wars (Owens et al. 2020, 7). However, “(neo-)realist” academic studies in the post-World War II period is a search for “stability” in the system, as to whether the bipolar, the unipolar or the multipolar systems were the most stable. As mentioned in the Introduction of this Special Issue, these approaches maintained a constant focus on rivalry and balance between these poles. “Interpolarity” in this sense is a transformative concept to change our understanding about which other options there could have been. The concept entails a practical and a cognitive challenge: Do these poles – as we identify them – act in ways that allow an “inter-polar” dimension to how we can conceptualize their relationship? I.e. do these poles practice interpolarity in their relationship with each other, which we can then observe and theorize as political scientists? What further contribution does this conceptualization of interpolarity as “the interdependence within the multipolarity” bring to our global understanding of International Relations?

Is interpolarity a dilemma?

Many articles of the Special Issue focus on different aspects of interpolarity from a European perspective: Cladi (2022) focuses on how to cope with multipolarity, emphasizing the need for interpolarity to overcome rivalry and contestation between Europe and the US. Deni (2022), Olsen (2022) and Baciu and Kotzé (2022) apply the concept of interpolarity to the relationship of the West with Russia, China, the BRICS, emphasizing mutual threat perceptions and underlining interdependence. Olsen (2022) portrays a comprehensive picture by discussing various cases of interpolarity as the EU’s growth out of its dependence on the US. Both Olsen (2022) and Deni (2022) question whether interpolarity should mean Europe’s detachment from the transatlantic link or not. The articles by Baciu and Ewers-Peters (2022) and by Deschaux-Dutard (2022) discuss whether the European union and its members are “powerful” enough to bring about this change. These articles portray interpolarity from European perspectives as to the opportunities and challenges it presents, while questioning its utility.

The aims of an interpolar approach to enhance cooperation between the multiple poles and at “growing stronger together” due to the interdependence between them may be considered a naïve ideal, when each pole entails different values, sometimes contradictory to the ones (on democracy, human rights, women’s rights, for example) which the governments, elites, and/or citizens of a particular pole want to promote. The article by Chen and Gao (2022) on – norms regulating the cyber space and the clash of values between the West and Russia and China – demonstrates a solid case in which the EU would not, even should not, want to bridge the gap between the two clashing norms: sanctity of the individual freedom and privacy in Europe – or in the West with a question mark over the culture of primacy of corporate interest above individual privacy and rights in the US -, against the primacy of the community, state sovereignty and the “relationship” in Asia. This case illustrates that interpolarity may mean giving up on those principles, or at least opening them to negotiation. Under today’s conditions of Russian aggression in Ukraine, aiming or even hoping to grow together with Russia would mean bowing to its imperialism and disrespect for the own agency of Ukraine. As inclusive as interpolarity may sound on a horizontal setting of different normativities within these poles, aiming for a respect among them by the “normative expectations” dimension of interpolarity seems to be the Achilles heel of this concept.

Kathryn Sikkink (2016) defines human rights as one of the key constitutive norms of global governance and of the identities of its actors. Not only Wiener (2014), but also Acharya (2004) identifiy normative contestation as rivalry about whose norms or whose interpretation of them should dominate an issue area. Acharya (2011) questions the issue areas where we have global norms as to whether we need locally adapted versions of these norms. When applied to the concept of “interpolarity,” these long-existing discussions bring forward the question whether we need an “interpolar approach” to rights’ promotion (or norm protagonism as Sikkink 2016 names it). At the same time, it is worth acknowledging that human rights as a norm do not necessarily cascade from the Global North to the Global South and that certain human rights may be promoted by the actors of the Global South (indigenous peoples rights’ for example), (Sikkink 2016; Acharya 2011). Therefore, interpolarity would help bring a more equal representation of interests and different perspectives in global governance. The shift in defenders of different norms, as demonstrated by Kahler’s (2016) work on “Who is liberal now?,” promotion of human rights is actually based on the defense of shared values and not necessarily based on cultural affinity (Borg 2021). Human rights promotion across the Global South and the Global North illustrate not only states’ collaboration against governments that breach these norms but also cooperation across their citizens/elite, which includes those in the Global South (Thakur 2012, 2016).

In a study of informal institutions as to why they have become more appealing for emerging powers, Cooper et al. (2022) explain that these institutions allow for cooperation and contestation to co-exist within their relational dynamics. Interpolarity as conceptualized within the Introduction of this Special Issue can help explain these dynamics of simultaneous cooperation and contestation in (informal) institutions such as the G20¹ or the Arctic Council² where normatively distinct groups not only exist but also function together. The perspectives from the Global South and especially from those rising powers as to their justifications for preferring certain international institutions over others would shed light on the capacity of the concept of interpolarity to explain cooperation and contestation not only at the level of national power rivalries but also from the elite and citizens perspectives and ideational factors from beyond the West (Parlar Dal and Dipama 2022; Parlar Dal 2019). Interpolarity in action, – i.e. pursuit of cooperation with awareness of mutual interdepedence – can help toward inclusiveness in global governance institutions, as explained in the article by Baciu and Kotzé (2022) about the performative practices of BRICS and their “seed(ing) of new ideas in the global order.” Through examples like this, interpolarity bears the potential to overcome counter- institutionalization tendencies that occur when states choose to form alternative institutions when they see that their interests or values are not represented or respected in the existing institutions (Zürn, 2018). The “interpolarity” perspective helps understand different demands from global governance and its institutions on different issue areas (Acharya 2016).

Interpolarity as a bridging concept between different worlds of international relations

The conceptual framework explained in the Introduction demonstrates how an analysis of “interpolar” relations needs to not only look at the global level but also at national states and elite/citizen levels to display the comprehensive picture. Citizen’s choices have global impact as exemplified by the election of President Donald Trump in the US or the UK’s decision for Brexit. In order to make sense of the politics of the world we live in, we need to engage with multiple levels of analysis and to emphasize the linkages between these levels. The conceptualization of the “interpolarity” in this Special Issue is a call for the study of IR in particular to get rid of the level-segregation (Singer 1961), for the benefit of a closer and deeper understanding of the interaction between these levels to explain the relationships between the “poles,” contributing further to the relational perspective that cross-cuts these levels (Owen 2015; Trownsell, et al. 2019).

Moreover, “interpolarity,” is a useful concept with respect to its emphasis on “knowledge creation” alongside power relations in the international level. This is not only creation of knowledge about the other “poles,” but can also serve as an expanding tool for the discipline of International Relations to include knowledge created within these poles for a more thorough understanding of International Relations (Trownsell, et al. 2019). Through the conceptualizations by these “others,” be they the competing poles or marginalized communities – like the indigenous peoples -, the significance of their knowledge has already been acknowledged as providing a better insight to their perceptions of the world (Kavalski 2018) and best practices for mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss (McGregor 2016; Heinämäki 2022), which are our shared global problems. Subsequently, this approach can only enhance our understanding of global politics.

As evidenced in the article by Cladi (2022), one of the most significant contributions of this Special Issue is the usage of vocabulary that is usually used in analyzing Asian “relation” based approaches of IR, like “bandwagoning” (Acharya and Buzan 2007) to be used in explaining the EU-US relationship. Approaching the US-EU relationship in this manner normalizes the relationship of some Asian states to China and opens ways for future comparative studies as to when “bandwagoning” happens, built on what types of relationships, and what the determining factors of such relationships are: Cultural proximity? Identity based on shared values? What determines shared threat perceptions to allow bandwagoning? Among what types of actors does it occur? Such comparisons enable us to conceptualize International Relations beyond the Western perspectives, and this is when IR will have become a Global IR.

Such inclusive readings and applications of non-Western concepts contribute both to the de-centralizing agenda (Fisher-Onar and Nicolaïdis 2013; Keukeleire and Lecocq 2018; Keukeleire et al. 2021; Wolff, Gazsi, Huber and Fisher-Onar 2022), and to the debate on the post- Normative Power Europe (Manners 2002), in which the EU does not determine what is normal in the international arena any more, and which norms should be upheld. This inclusive approach does not mean that norms and values have become or should become irrelevant while looking at International Relations from an interpolar approach, but it only means that those of the West are not necessarily the definitive ones anymore. The interpolarity approach that includes perspectives from the US, Asia, Middle East and postcolonial countries could help build the Global IR with inclusion of theories, concepts, and predictions from these “poles” (Acharya and Buzan 2007; Bilgin 2008, 2010), help IR grow out of its Western bias (Buzan 2016) and bring in the non-Western experiences and conceptualization as “constitutive” (Bilgin 2021) of the “interpolar” reading of not only International Relations but also of International Security.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Özlem Terzi

Dr. Özlem Terzi is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam. Özlem was an associate professor in International Relations at Istanbul University until 2018 and a visiting researcher at the College of Europe, Bruges, Department of EU International Relations and Diplomacy in 2016-17. Özlem studied at the London School of Economics for her MSc in European and did her PhD in International Relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Among others, Özlem is the author of the Influence of the European Union on Turkish Foreign Policy (2010) published by Routledge, and co-editor of the Global Affairs Special Issue on Emotions in EUropean Foreign Policy (2021) together with Seda Gürkan and Trineke Palm. Together with Seda Gürkan, Özlem has co-organised the 2022 ECPR Workshop on Emotions and Norms in EU Crisis Diplomacy, and co-authored the LSE Europp blog piece on ‘Why Emotions are Key to Understanding EU Foreign Policy’. Özlem’s current research interests focus on the norms-emotions nexus in EU Foreign Policy, the externalities of the European Green Deal with a geographic focus on the Arctic region, the geopolitics and political economy of the Arctic, Global IR and indigenous perspectives.

Notes

1. The G20 meeting of foreign ministers in Indonesia on 8 July 2022 showed further collaboration between the Western countries and Russia was not possible. Some member states like BRICS were in solidarity with Russia, but Russia had to leave the meeting after speaking (France 24, 2022). This incident shows that the future of collaboration between the “poles” in international institutions is getting difficult in time, so long as the war in Ukraine continues. The impact of this war on the convenience of “interpolarity” to explain cooperation and interdependence within multipolarity remains vague at the moment of writing.

2. The Seven Arctic Council members (The US, Canada, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland) have announced to discontinue Arctic cooperation with Russia within the Arctic Council as, following the aggression of Russia in Ukraine (High North News 2022).