Ad Hoc Multilateralism

“Ad hoc multilateralism refers to multilateralism created for ‘a particular or specific purpose’. Sometimes also called single-issue multilateralism, the term was used by Robert Scalapino to describe collaborative mechanisms developed to deal with specific security problems in Eastern Asia before the creation of an effective regional security institution. […] Ad hoc multilateralism usually focuses specifically on a single problem or issue area, and membership tends to be restricted to parties with a close link to the matter at hand, although these do not necessarily need to be states. 

Capie, D.; Evans, P. (2002): The Asia-Pacific Security Lexicon. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, p. 11.

“Experience dictates that the United States must conceive of security structures suited to specific situations, whereby concentric arcs are constructed, arcs rather than circles so that contacts can flow among levels when necessary. In the case of the Korean peninsula, for example, the first arc is naturally composed of North and South Korea, the parties immediately concerned; beyond them, the four major states long involved with the Korean problem; as an outer arc, international bodies, both economic and political, that may provide services.”

Scalapino R. (1991): “The United States and Asia: Future Prospects”. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 70, No. 5, 1991-92, 19-40; here: pp. 38-39.

Ad hoc multilateralism is a form of minilateralism. A group of actors specifically designed for a particular problem forms an informal cluster for multilateral exchange with the aim of solving the problem. The structure and composition of this ‘group’ can vary – ideally in line with the problem. The term was prominently used by only recently by leading European politicians in a call to cope with the corona pandemic. Ad-hoc coalitions should therefore complement established multilateral institutions.

One of the first who coined the term ad hoc multilateralism was Margaret Karns (1987) who used it to describe the diplomacy of the ‘contact group’ that tried to negotiate an agreement for the independence of the territory of Namibia from 1977 until 1982. But mostly, it is associated with a security structure according to Robert Scalapino (1991). Scalapino himself did not use the term explicitly, but rather it is attributed to him in the context of his reading by other authors.  In this sense, in ad hoc multilateralism, concentric arcs of actors, starting from the actors directly involved, should be constructed around a central problem. The levels of the actors' arcs are permeable “so that contacts can flow among levels when necessary” (Scalapino 1991: 38). The actors are not limited to states.

Robert A. Scalapino (* 1919, † 2011) was professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He was one of the leading experts on the politics and history of East Asia, and co-founder as well as first chairman of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.