Crisis or Opportunity? Pockets of Effective Multilateralism in a Polycentric World

Global cooperation is under stress. It hardly requires detailed analysis: the international system is in a profound crisis, when seen from many Northern vantage points. What if we see the same turbulence but from a different vantage point? For many in the Global South the current period signals risk, but also opportunity. That the same events could spark a sense of crisis in one group but opportunity in another is nothing new. However, the sheer scale, speed, and scope of recent events is significant. The global order is shifting, power dynamics are fluid, a transition is underway. How should the current moment be viewed? As a crisis or opportunity? And for whom? What does cooperation look like in a fragmenting world?