Description
This paper examines the interplay between multi-alignment, trust, and the plausibility of effective international cooperation. Multi-alignment is a foreign-policy strategy that avoids reliance on one major power, instead diversifying strategic partnerships to maximize national interests. While often celebrated as an effective response to 21st-century transnational challenges, this paper argues that multi-alignment's reliance on fluidity, simultaneity, and informality might erode the foundational trust necessary for sustained international cooperation. The paper develops a theoretical framework linking emerging research on multi-alignment and informality to the growing literature on trust in international relations. The core argument suggests that commitment to multi-alignment could potentially impair states' ability to engage in reliable, long-term cooperation due to diminished perceptions of trustworthiness and predictability among partners. When states prioritize flexibility and avoid binding commitments, they may gain short-term strategic advantages but sacrifice the credibility essential for collective action on shared challenges. Empirically, we compare India and Brazil, two prominent proponents of multi-alignment variants. First, we trace whether partnership patterns have shifted since proclaiming multi-alignment, examining whether core features—simultaneity, fluidity, autonomy, and informality—have become more prominent. Second, we assess whether these changes affected perceptions of both states among old and new partners, and whether they influenced these states' capacity for effective international cooperation on global governance challenges. This paper aims to contribute to understanding how contemporary foreign policy strategies shape the conditions for multilateral cooperation in an increasingly multiplex international system.
