Project Description

The project “Race and Multilateralism” (RAM) studies the ways that multilateralism, an institutional form of cooperation central to the liberal international order, has been implicated in creating, recreating, or overcoming the racialised nature of that order. It investigates three main areas: the role of multilateralism in creating or reinforcing racial hierarchies compared to imperialism; how multilateral institutions have shaped and evolved the concept of race through their policies; and the impact of diversity practices within these organizations on decision-making and legitimacy. The project adopts an interdisciplinary approach and contributes to a broader research agenda focused on the historical development of multilateralism.

Embedded within the Research Unit (RU) Orders, this research directly engages with a central issue that has been the focus of both internal and external critiques of the liberal script. It also closely aligns with RU Temporality by critically examining the liberal narrative of progress and universalism in international and imperial politics since the late 19th century. Additionally, the study intersects with key themes in RU Borders, exploring how racial and civilizational hierarchies shape dynamics of inclusion and exclusion within the international order.

The research group provides a theoretical framework and empirical basis for understanding how racial hierarchies are both constructed and contested within multilateral institutions in areas as diverse as UN peacekeeping, laws of war and regulation of armaments, trusteeship systems, the International Criminal Court, international trade and financial policies, the recognition of sovereignty, authorization of military interventions, and conventions on minority rights and antidiscrimination laws. The project has three aims: to build a network of scholars researching the issue of racial hierarchies in international relations; to raise awareness and visibility of the historical and contemporary relevance of race and racial hierarchies to the international order; to publish a cohesive and high-quality peer-reviewed special issue on the topic of race and multilateral international institutions.

Research Questions

The RAM project examines the role of racial hierarchies in the origins, development and contestation of multilateral institutions within the liberal international order. It is structured around three core questions:

1. In what ways does multilateralism as an institutional form reproduce, repudiate or transform the racialised hierarchies central to 19th Century imperialism?

2. How have multilateral international institutions discursively constituted social-political understandings of “race” and racial hierarchies through policies, agreements, and conventions? What factors have influenced changes in that understanding over time?

3. How do the politics of representation affect the legitimacy and output of contemporary and historical multilateral institutions?

Research Approach

The RAM project builds on an interdisciplinary body of research that demonstrates how racial hierarchies structure law, politics, and international society. It integrates these insights with International Relations research on multilateral institutions and global governance, setting a research agenda to historicise multilateralism as an institutional form. Participants in the research project represent perspectives from sociology, international law, philosophy, and political science and work with both contemporary and historical empirical material using qualitative case studies, archival research, content analysis, and interviews.

Relation to the Liberal Script

The RAM project seeks to understand how constructions of racial hierarchies are pivotal to understanding the liberal script at the international level. It makes a key contribution to the study of the liberal script by addressing how racial hierarchies have been used both to structure and contest the liberal international order. On the one hand, multilateralism has institutionalized liberal principles of equality and individual rights and created formal structures and procedures for demanding and upholding these principles. At the same time, these institutionalised rules can serve as a double bind, restraining radical contestation and deflecting demands for change. The resulting contradictions create some of the core tensions within the liberal international order.