Editor’s Note: This piece was uploaded under the editor’s name but was authored by a contributor identifying as David.
In Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, de Tocqueville argued that American institutions are not simply held up by law, but through a multifaceted and complex relationship between the separation of powers, popular engagement in direct democracy, the pursuit of equality, the balance between religion and state, and a healthy understanding between such participants engaged in the democratic process. These complex, societal traditions constituted the necessary groundwork associating a ‘democratic spirit’—one that naturally resists the human proclivity for despotic politics, and forms the foundation of our modern understanding of a healthy democracy. In an age of increased multipolarity, where world leaders ranging from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during his speech at Davos in January 2026, have stressed the importance of recognizing a ‘multipolar’ world, we need to be very careful in understanding and defining the meaning of ‘multipolarity’.
Accepting the reality of a multipolar world shouldn’t mean giving up our Western democratic principles and traditions as simply a consequence of our own history. Likewise, accepting the reality of a multipolar world should not mean accepting the ideologies and legitimacies of undemocratic nations with territorial ambitions.
The origin of our multipolar trajectory came from the declining ‘hyper-power’ position that the United States once enjoyed after the fall of the USSR in the early 1990s, and the rise of China both economically and militarily relative to the United States and its neighbours. In the realm of global trade, for instance, the United States and the EU dominated in the early 2000s. This contrasts with 2024, when much of Africa, the Middle East, India, Russia, Brazil, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia, South Korea, among many other countries, began counting China as their no.1 trading partner.
Considering also the recent ‘gung-ho’, erratic behaviour the Trump Administration demonstrates regarding foreign policy, it is natural for Western nations—such as my native Canada, and nations within the EU—to start looking for an alternative to their reliance on the United States for trade and partnership, highlighted by Mark Carney’s Davos speech.
It is easy for citizens and leaders of the Western world to see the United States and China as once again falling into the “Thucydides Trap”, whereby structural tensions between a rising power and an established ruling power might cause the two to collide—and, following this logic, it is easy for non-US Western nations such as Canada and the EU to retreat back to their ‘security islands’ to observe the struggle between the two in a form of ‘armed neutrality’ without necessarily getting involved.
This attitude, though convincing at first, fails to consider the historical context and theories within international relations.
In Edward H. Carr’s monumental work “The Twenty-Year Crisis”—conveniently published on the eve of the Second World War—Carr explained what he called the ‘Utopian (Liberal) vision of the harmony of interests’. This view—favoured by the then ‘Utopians’ that later evolved into the modern Liberal schools of IR—argued that a harmony of interest can be found among nations, whereby arrangements made between states could benefit all whilst making the cost of conflict undesirable, thus creating a system of international arrangements whereby peace invariably aligns with self-interest. Carr criticizes this view by stating that these arrangements are further disguised by hegemonic entities with moralizing arguments that favour some particular national interests. To quote the example by Carr, “He [who] argues that what is best for the world is best for his country, and then reverses the argument to read that what is best for his country is best for the world, two points being the same”. In other words, the values, institutions, borders, and systems of international relations that one hegemonic power prescribes to others will necessarily benefit some states more so than others.
Pushing beyond Carr’s cynicism of ‘harmony of interest’, and reflecting on our current world—formalized by the systems set up following the Second World War—can we really say that our values are simply a ‘disguise’ for particular interests? Perhaps yes, especially when considering theories that highlight the exploitation of non-Western states by the IR theorists in the field. But who can say that the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, or the outlawing of interstate war, or the active push for democratic institutions and practices, is a negative thing? The point being: though we’d like to think that our democratic institutions, values, separation of powers, and respect for national sovereignty are “universal” values, it is also backed by the relative hegemonic positions that Western nations enjoyed in hard and soft powers—Giving up this hegemony also meant inviting revisionist powers to shape our current arrangement in international relations.
Considering the history of China, whose ruling CCP was founded with the promise of defending Chinese national sovereignty, the existence of Taiwan is unacceptable and poses an existential threat to the Mainland regime by providing the world with an alternative, democratic development of the Chinese nation. Thus, in the rhetoric of the spokesperson for the CCP, China will always maintain the sacrosanctness of sovereignty whilst maintaining fervently that Taiwan is a part of that Chinese sovereignty. Likewise, in Russia—where the ruling regime has embraced the path of expanding and attempted to hijack history itself to justify a brutal invasion of another sovereign country—we must recognize that some powers harbour revisionist tendencies, and are fundamentally incompatible with the prevailing principles of respect for national sovereignty.
Perhaps a dialogue and negotiations would work on these nations for a constructive, peaceful solution that benefits all. After all, states are rational entities, and increasing connectivity increases the cost of war. But this only works when both parties do not suffer from structural tensions within the existing system, and when both sides possess responsible government.
Considering the two Minsk agreements, and their failure… From a realist perspective, the status quo, which favoured a ceasefire, does not favour the grandiose, expansionist vision of Russia’s leadership, who did feel that the collapse of the USSR was a ‘tragedy’ of national security. This structural tension meant that when negotiating, both sides fell into a void ab initio. Western nations hoped for a permanent solution to a conflict; only the revisionist Russia saw it more as a temporary pause to a much grander game of power politics. Negotiations such as these are bound to break down later.
When negotiation does work, it occurs between two responsible governments where the governments are formed ‘by the people and for the people’. Think of the Good Friday Agreement, which has largely maintained peace and constructive relationships between the UK and Ireland. But can we say that revisionist powers such as China, Russia, and Iran are “responsible governments”? Looking at history, these nations have a poor track record of maintaining their claim to responsible government when given cynical opportunities to consolidate power. The lessons of Tiananmen Square, the suppression of religious and ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, the Covid crackdown on protestors, and the crackdown on Hong Kong protestors, not to mention the countless Maoist atrocities, showed that the Chinese regime is not one to value ‘the people’ over its ideological agenda. Similar cases in Russia with the imprisonment of the opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, and in Iran, with the most recent violent suppression of protestors (Dec 2025-present)—which by some accounts killed up to thirty thousand civilians in the span of two months—showed that these regimes do not care about the welfare of the people more than their instinct to stay in power.
When negotiations between two responsible governments occur, both sides are constrained by the international decorum of staying honest. The government responsible for the agreements are, further—in theory—examined by their domestic opposition. When agreements are broken, there is also a chance that, following a general election, the issue is revisited. These constraints are absent in irresponsible governments, whereby political actions are carried out solely by those few with the power to substantiate their ideological convictions
We’ve all heard that ‘we do not negotiate with terrorists’, and though this article does not wish to reduce revisionist regimes to “terrorist states”, one must analyze the phrase and understand its principles.
We do not negotiate with terrorists because there is no expectation that the terrorists will not break their promises under more favourable circumstances. Furthermore, negotiating with terrorists rewards aggressive means—a sort of appeasement, if you will.
In an age where in the Chinese Museum of War, Xi’s slogans read “We must prepare to fight a long victorious war”— the battle plan for encircling Taiwan proudly displayed—Western audiences must be very careful when using the term ‘multipolar world’. When both revisionist regimes and members of Western nations use said term, are they referring to a world where diplomacy is conducted based on mutual respect for human rights, democracy, and national sovereignty? Or is this a moralizing slogan aimed at justifying revisionist states’ territorial ambition and an excuse for continuing their authoritarian government?