For much of the Global South, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 did not mark the end of history but the beginning of a new, and in many ways equally challenging, era in which a single hegemon, the United States, and its Global North allies held sway. The rules of the international order were presented as universal but did not always translate into equitable treatment, whether in the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) “Washington Consensus” or the need for permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for Africa and Latin America.
In many ways, the international system’s legitimacy has always been contested by the Global South. The recent emergence of alternative groupings, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, represents an overdue assertion of agency by these states.
In the early 2000s, the contradictions of the post-Cold War order in the peace and security domain manifested in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which had no U.N. Security Council authorization; and in the NATO-led intervention in Libya in 2011, where the Responsibility to Protect doctrine was applied (but used as cover for regime change), and its conspicuous non-application in Syria, Yemen, and Palestine.
In the economic domain, the 2008 global financial crisis was caused by the deregulated financial markets in the United States and Europe, but it inflicted severe damage on Global South economies through collapsing commodity prices, reduced remittances, and capital flight. The IMF and World Bank, having spent decades insisting that Global South nations liberalize their financial sectors, had conspicuously failed to prevent a crisis in the very economies they had long held up as models.
In the last six years, the system’s inherent contradictions became even starker, illustrated through three events:
- The COVID-19 pandemic, with limited vaccine access for Global South countries and the refusal of several Global North governments to waive intellectual property rights temporarily;
- Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which triggered a swift and highly coordinated response from Global North powers, and was framed as a defense of international law and sovereignty, although similar violations of sovereignty and human rights in places like Yemen, Sudan, or Myanmar were not treated with the same urgency; and
- Israel’s retaliation on Gaza after the Hamas attack in October 2023, and the Global North’s hesitation to condemn Israeli violations of international humanitarian law.
The response from Global North nations to each of these demonstrated that while the principles of the international order are ostensibly universal, their application was selective. This, in turn, widened the system’s legitimacy gap.
New Groupings and Global South Agency
In this geopolitical climate, the prospect for reform is slim. To advance Global South demands, states and non-state actors must develop different diplomatic strategies. Building alternative Global South groupings, of which the BRICS bloc — founded in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2010 — is the most prominent, is one such strategy. The creation of alternative financial institutions, such as the BRICS’ New Development Bank, is another strategy that can pressure reform in existing institutions.
BRICS’s 2023 Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, marked a new phase in the group’s evolution. The decision to invite Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to join the bloc, with further expansion anticipated, reflected both the growing appeal of the grouping and a strategic ambition to construct a more representative alternative to G7-led global governance. Over the years, BRICS has emphasized reform of the international financial system, alternatives to dollar-denominated trade, and equitable access to technology and green finance. These issues have become increasingly pressing and resonate with Global South priorities.
Most Global South countries continue to engage with and advocate for reform of existing institutions. But the slow pace of reform, or even stasis, has galvanized them to explore outside options, even as they push for reforms from within.
Africa’s demand for permanent representation in the UNSC, with the veto, is perhaps the most symbolically charged of the Global South’s reform agendas. Africa accounts for a disproportionate share of the U.N.’s peace and security workload but has no permanent voice in the body that authorizes international military action and determines the architecture of global peace.
In addition, the African Union (AU), the continent’s apex regional body, has become more assertive in demanding equitable representation in global governance. The AU’s Agenda 2063 articulates a vision of African-led development that explicitly rejects the dependency relationships of the colonial and post-colonial periods. The roll-out of the African Continental Free Trade Area, premised on building regional value chains and increasing intra-African trade, forms part of that vision.
Other strategies include identifying areas of common interest between certain Global North and Global South countries. Such areas could include cooperating to combat climate change or fighting pandemics. Similar partnerships can be built between states and non-state actors, including think tanks and intellectual networks that help to build thought leadership in designing new multilateral rules.
Other strategies for reform include rules and policy innovations in existing multilateral institutions, such as a UN resolution drafted by Nigeria on behalf of the Africa Group to push for negotiation of a UN Framework Convention on Tax.
In the last six to seven years, the concept of active non-alignment — meaning not siding with either the United States or China, but rather seeking opportunities to create leverage — has spread among Global South countries. An example was Latin American countries’ response to pressure during the first Trump administration to cut or reduce their business ties with China, which they did not do.
In pushing for these reforms — notwithstanding that they are a fundamental matter of global equity — the Global South has to make the case that they are not a threat to the Global North but a strategic necessity for global stability that preserves the interests of those who have led the multilateral system. For African countries, such initiatives offer platforms for building the coalitions necessary to shift the balance of power within existing institutions while simultaneously constructing alternatives.
The Legitimacy Deficit
The multilateral order’s legitimacy crisis is not a recent development. It is the accumulated consequence of decades of structural exclusion, Western double standards, and institutional inertia. It demonstrates the dual failure of input and output legitimacy. While the Westphalian system promises equal sovereignty through the U.N. General Assembly (i.e., input legitimacy), real power is concentrated in the UNSC, IMF, and World Bank. These elite bodies fundamentally lack broad representation, and their output legitimacy (i.e., the extent to which they produce outcomes that advance the global public good), has similarly eroded due to an inability to effectively resolve modern global crises.
Because these institutions are dominated by Washington, perceptions of the United States matter. In a 2025 Koerber Stiftung report on “emerging middle powers,” 60% of South African respondents viewed U.S. global influence negatively, while 73% viewed China’s global influence positively. The same proportion was pessimistic about major reforms of international institutions. Eighty-three percent believed that the Global North had lost credibility as a defender of global norms.
South Africa’s foreign policy has been characterized by a consistent effort to articulate these structural critiques within multilateral forums while simultaneously pursuing reform from within and building alternative platforms from without. This dual strategy is the pragmatic recognition that the existing order, for all its flaws, cannot simply be abandoned.
Multipolarity, Fragmentation, and the Path Forward
A more genuinely multipolar order need not be a less cooperative one. The emergence of new institutions and groupings can, if managed thoughtfully, increase the diversity and resilience of global governance rather than simply fragmenting it. The New Development Bank, for instance, does not preclude engagement with the World Bank. BRICS does not seek to replace the United Nations and its members consistently call for reform to make the world body more representative and therefore more legitimate. (Nevertheless, it is also worth noting that there are differences within the BRICS over the contours of such reform.)
Regional cooperation also offers a pragmatic bridge to rebuilding cooperation from the bottom up and insulates states from the paralysis of global governance deadlock. This type of cooperation can act as a stabilizer, enabling collective governance even when grand multilateralism stalls.
The role of middle powers and swing states will be critical in determining whether the world moves toward reformed universalism, competitive multipolarity, or managed pluralism. South Africa, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, and other middle powers occupy positions at the intersection of multiple institutional frameworks and normative traditions. Their choices, whether to prioritize reform of existing institutions, invest in alternative groupings, or pursue variable-geometry arrangements across different issue areas, will be key determinants in the shaping of the international order.
The increasing dispersion of power is a reality. It is changing the leverage and power of countries in the Global South. The United States has to come to terms with this, even as it remains, in relative terms, the pre-eminent power. The challenges of climate change, pandemics, and artificial intelligence require cooperation, not unilateralism or isolation. Global South countries have supported greater international cooperation between the North and the South. Washington can embrace reform and the changing power dynamics or become increasingly isolated.
