Multilateralism and the international institutions that have long sustained it—face a deep and multi-layered crisis. While this predicament is widely recognised in International Relations scholarship, existing debates have yet to fully engage with how fragmentation impacts different types of international institutions across geographical and functional domains, particularly through the lens of Global North–Global South dynamics.
Our TWQ Special Issue (Fragmented Multilateralism and International Institutions: Between Complexities and Challenges, Third World Quarterly, Andrew F. Cooper, Emel Parlar Dal, Samiratou Dipama) aims to unpack how different actors— notably ascendant powers like China and India, established actors like the EU and the U.S., or historically overlooked regions such as Latin America—navigate, contest, and reconfigure multilateralism in response to shifting global power constellations.
Rather than treating fragmentation as merely a symptom of institutional decline, the articles collectively suggest that fragmentation itself is a defining feature of the current global order—one that reflects competing visions, asymmetric capabilities, and regionally embedded institutional legacies.
By challenging the notion of a cohesive and universal multilateral order, our TWQ Special Issue calls for a more pluralistic and differentiated theorization of international cooperation—one that recognises both the agency of the Global South and the structural constraints embedded within the global institutional architecture.
Understanding the crisis of multilateralism requires moving beyond formal intergovernmental organisations (FIGOs) to examine the complex interplay of formal and informal institutions across geographical and functional domains.
This special issue points to the missing point in the existing literature about the complex interactions existing between multilateralism and international institutions from a wide range of perspectives in terms of geographical, institutional and issue area scopes.
Multilateralism is no longer solely the domain of formal institutions; informal intergovernmental organisations are increasingly shaping its future in both the Global North and South.
The fragmentation of multilateralism is not merely a recent phenomenon—it is a deep, gradual process that has intensified in the wake of successive global crises.
Andrew F. Cooper, Emel Parlar Dal and Samiratou Dipama
About the Special Issue Guest Editors
Andrew F. Cooper
Andrew F. Cooper is University Research Chair, Department of Political Science, and Professor, Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, Canada. From 2004 to 2010 he was Associate Director and Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). Holding a D.Phil. from Oxford University, he was a Fulbright Research Chair, Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California in 2009, the Léger Fellow, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada in 1993-1994, as well as Visiting Professor, International Relations and Governance Studies Department, Shiv Nadar University, India, in January-February 2O19. In 2019 he was the first recipient of the Distinguished Studies Award, Diplomatic Studies Section, International Studies Association. He has published widely in the area of global governance, comparative foreign policy, and diplomacy, with his recent books being Global Governance and the Political South: Continuity and Change In and Beyond the BRICS (edited with Marek Rewizorski), Routledge, 2025 and The Concertation Impulse in World Politics: Contestation over Fundamental Institutions and the Constrictions of Institutionalist International Relations, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.
Emel Parlar Dal
Emel Parlar Dal is full professor at Marmara University’s Department of International Relations. She received her BA from Galatasaray University in 2001, her MA degrees respectively from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University (2002) and Paris 3 Nouvelle Sorbonne Universities (2003). She received her PhD degree on International Relations from Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle University (2009). She conducted research at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva during the 2010-2011 academic year thanks to Swiss Government scholarship. In 2013 she was an academic visitor at St. Anthony’s College Middle East Centre, Oxford University. During 2015-2016 she worked as the coordinator of a TUBITAK-SOBAG research project on the contribution of Turkey and the BRICS to global governance.
Her recent publications have appeared in International Affairs (March 2025), Third World Quarterly (SSCI), Global Policy (SSCI), Contemporary Politics, International Politics (SSCI), Turkish Studies (SSCI), International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis (SSCI), Alternatives (SSCI).
Some of her most recent works are Assessing Legitimacy of Informal Intergovernmental Organizations in the Changing Multilateralism, International Affairs, March 2025, An informal mode for multilateral cooperation: Assessing the European Union’s engagements with informal intergovernmental organisations (IIGOs), Third World Quarterly, May 2025. She has been awarded by the EU Commission Jean Monnet Chair on the EU and Rising Powers in the Evolving Multilateralism for 2020-2023 and two Jean Monnet Centers of Excellence respectively on the EU’s sustainability in Global Governance for 2022-2025 and MULTIPLEX-EU: Global Europe in an age of Polycrisis ( 2025-2028) and She also received research grants respectively from the Academy of Korean Studies ( 2020-2022) and NATO Public Diplomacy Division ( 2020-2021).
Samiratou Dipama
Samiratou Dipama is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences at Thomas Sankara University (Burkina Faso). She holds a PhD in EU Politics and International Relations at Marmara University’s European Union Institute. She published several relevant articles in pee-reviewed SSCI journals including Contemporary Politics, International Politics, Global Policy, Alternatives, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, and Uluslararası Ilişkile (International Relations) as well as book chapters in Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge. She is the 2023 recipient of the Global South Caucus of International Studies (GSCIS) Zounon Victorine Award which is given annually by the GSCIS to support the research of a prominent junior scholar from Africa and has been presented during the 2023 annual convention in Montreal. Her research interests include development cooperation, global governance, informal governance, EU-Africa relations, Turkey-Africa relations, democratization and security issues in Africa.
Third World Quarterly (TWQ) regularly publish Special Issues(SIs), which are collections of papers centered around a theme of topical interest and are organised and led by subject experts who take on the role of Guest Editor/s. Visit our Special Issue page to find out more.
