Multilateralism, in the form of membership in international institutions, serves to bind powerful nations, discourage unilateralism, and gives small powers a voice and influence that they could not otherwise exercise.....
For a small power to influence a great power, the Lilliputian strategy of small countries banding together to collectively bind a larger one can be effective. Similarly, multilateralism may allow one great power to influence another great power. For a great power to seek control through bilateral ties could be costly; it may require bargaining and compromise with the other great power. There are many definitions of the term.
It was defined by Miles Kahler as "international governance" or global governance of the "many," and its central principle was "opposition [to] bilateral discriminatory arrangements that were believed to enhance the leverage of the powerful over the weak and to increase international conflict." In 1990, Robert Keohane defined multilateralism as "the practice of coordinating national policies in groups of three or more states." John Ruggie elaborated the concept based on the principles of "indivisibility" and "diffuse reciprocity" as "an institutional form which coordinates relations among three or more states based on 'generalized' principles of conduct ... which specify appropriate conduct for a class of actions, without regard to particularistic interests of the parties or the strategic exigencies that may exist in any occurrence."
Embedding the target state in a multilateral alliance reduces the costs borne by the power-seeking control, but it also offers the same binding benefits of the Lilliputian strategy. Furthermore, if a small power seeks control over another small power, multilateralism may be the only choice, because small powers rarely have the resources to exert control on their own. As such, power disparities are accommodated to the weaker states by having more predictable bigger states and means to achieve control through collective action. Powerful states also buy into multilateral agreements by writing the rules and having privileges such as veto power and special status.
International organizations, such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization, are multilateral in nature. The main proponents of multilateralism have traditionally been the middle powers, such as Canada, Australia, Switzerland, the Benelux countries and the Nordic countries. Larger states often act unilaterally, while smaller ones may have little direct power in international affairs aside from participation in the United Nations (by consolidating their UN vote in a voting bloc with other nations, for example.) Multilateralism may involve several nations acting together, as in the UN, or may involve regional or military alliances, pacts, or groupings, such as NATO.
These multilateral institutions are not imposed on states but are created and accepted by them to increase their ability to seek their own interests through the coordination of their policies. Moreover, they serve as frameworks that constrain opportunistic behaviour and encourage coordination by facilitating the exchange of information about the actual behaviour of states regarding the standards to which they have consented.
The term "regional multilateralism" has been proposed, suggesting that "contemporary problems can be better solved at the regional rather than the bilateral or global levels" and that bringing together the concept of regional integration with that of multilateralism is necessary in today’s world. Regionalism dates from the time of the earliest development of political communities, where economic and political relations naturally had a strong regionalist focus due to restrictions on technology, trade, and communications.
The converse of multilateralism is unilateralism, in terms of political philosophy. Other authors have used the term "minilateralism" to refer to the fewest states required to get the biggest results through this institutional form.
The foreign policy that India formulated after independence reflected its idiosyncratic culture and political traditions. Speaking in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India, in March 1950, Nehru affirmed: “It should not be supposed that we are starting on a clean slate. It is a policy that flowed from our recent history and our national movement and its development and various ideals, we have proclaimed. (Nehru, 1961, p.34). In fact, the foreign policy culture of India is an elite culture, meaning, in effect, that the writings and speeches of select leading figures of the Indian foreign policy elite provide an insight into the key ideas and norms constituting the foundation of India’s foreign policy.
Bilateralism.....
Bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states. It is in contrast to unilateralism or multilateralism, which is activity by a single state or jointly by multiple states, respectively. When states recognize one another as sovereign states and agree to diplomatic relations, they create a bilateral relationship. States with bilateral ties will exchange diplomatic agents such as ambassadors to facilitate dialogues and cooperations.
Economic agreements, such as free trade agreements (FTA) or foreign direct investment (FDI), signed by two states, are a common example of bilateralism.
Since most economic agreements are signed according to the specific characteristics of the contracting countries to give preferential treatment to each other, not a generalized principle but a situational differentiation is needed. Thus through bilateralism, states can obtain more tailored agreements and obligations that only apply to particular contracting states. However, the states will face a trade-off because it is more wasteful in transaction costs than the multilateral strategy. In a bilateral strategy, a new contract has to be negotiated for each participant.
So it tends to be preferred when transaction costs are low and the member surplus, which corresponds to “producer surplus” in economic terms, is high. Moreover, this will be effective if an influential state wants control over small states from a liberalism perspective, because building a series of bilateral arrangements with small states can increase a state's influence.
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