Complex multilateralism and the question of global governance: The defeat of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment

This dissertation examines both the applicability and validity of the theory of Complex Multilateralism through a detailed examination of the negotiation and failure of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). By examining the case of the MAI both in terms of Complex Multilateralism and Multilateral Negotiation Theory this dissertation challenges simple state-centric assumptions about the creation or failure of state-level multilateral processes. What the negotiations toward the MAI show fairly clearly is that states face not only intense bargaining processes within a multilateral negotiation but that they face tremendous external pressures as well. In the case of the MAI these external pressures were provided primarily by a robust global social movement that formed in opposition to the MAI. The argument presented here is that while not precisely explaining the defeat of the MAI, the development of the theory of complex multilateralism represents a step in the right direction. Complex multilateralism accounts well for the existence of global social movements as important actors in the system and allows for a more general inclusion of nonstate actors within the theoretical confines of the discipline.