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View all search resultsLearning to govern a fragmented world
Today’s world is too multipolar, too digitally interconnected and too politically heterogeneous for broad consensus alone to serve as the primary mechanism for managing global affairs.
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Passers-by walks past a building boarded up with graffiti-covered wooden panels on June 12, 2026 ahead of demonstrations against the nearby G7 summit in Evian, France. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)
A
s G7 leaders gather in Évian, France, today, they confront a postwar order that has run its course. The United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions and other pillars of international cooperation, all founded on the belief that universal rules could underpin global governance, delivered decades of relative stability and economic integration. But today’s world is too multipolar, too digitally interconnected and too politically heterogeneous for broad consensus alone to serve as the primary mechanism for managing global affairs.
As national interests diverge, economic interdependence is increasingly wielded as an instrument of coercion, giving rise to rival strategic blocs at a moment when global challenges such as climate change, migration, and AI are intensifying faster than existing institutions can respond.
While it may be tempting to cling to a fading order or resign ourselves to permanent geopolitical rivalry, what is needed is a transition to a new model of international cooperation grounded in coalition-based governance.
In many respects, this shift is already underway, though it remains largely unrecognized. From semiconductor supply chains to climate and security, countries are increasingly cooperating through issue-specific coalitions, flexible partnerships reflecting the realities of a fragmented yet deeply interconnected world.
The question facing the G7, then, is not whether coalition-based governance will emerge, but whether democracies will shape this transition or allow it to be driven by power politics alone. Few bodies are better positioned to guide the process than the G7, which combines economic scale, technological capability, institutional capacity and broadly aligned political values. But that requires rethinking governance accordingly.
For starters, policymakers must move beyond the pursuit of universal agreement. Consensus increasingly leads to paralysis, and even when broad agreements are reached, implementation is often inconsistent. The 2015 Paris climate agreement illustrates the problem: while it established shared goals, national commitments vary widely and enforcement remains weak. Similar problems are now evident in digital governance, taxation, trade and migration policy.
Coalition-based governance offers a more practical alternative. Rather than requiring universal agreement, it allows countries to work together on specific challenges while committing to common standards, monitoring mechanisms and enforcement tools. Participation remains voluntary, but membership comes with responsibilities.
