From unipolarity to multipolarity: toward global order, or disorder?

Abstract

Multipolarity is often viewed as the alternative to a hegemonic international political order managed since 1991 by the United States. With the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January 2025, the unipolar order has not been abandoned even if comments by his Secretary of State suggest that multipolarity is inevitable. Ongoing U.S. relations with the European Union, Russia, and China have differed and in some cases mutated. The relevance of a multipolar system is debated, polarising those in favour against those opposed. National sovereignty, the rules-based international order casting democratic practices over authoritarian ones, and the rise of multipolarity sparked by China, Russia and BRICS are assayed. Of significance is whether transformations in the state of international polarity have become a pathway to global order - or global disorder. Would multipolarity yield a more universal international system that respects difference but not sameness, and shared governance but not risky fragmentation? Or would a reshuffling of spheres of influence and vital interests in a persisting unipolar world nevertheless remain the outcome? In the mid-2020s and beyond when polarity questions face cross-examination, dismissing multipolarity as geopolitically irrelevant can be as pernicious as measuring its ever-expanding significance.