Although multilateralism has become a catchword to question unilateral policy actions of leading powers, this concept is rooted in the vision of a multipolar international system. As an activity, it denotes institutionalised cooperation involving three or more states with shared interests on agreed issue areas. More than numbers, according to scholars, such collective groupings should be structured around certain principles, viz. equality, indivisibility and reciprocity.
Only a handful of scholars like John Ruggie, Robert Keohane, and Edward Newman have attempted in-depth and sustained contributions to trace the theoretical nuances of multilateralism in recent decades. To this, one may also add Ramesh Thakur, who has been associated with Western academia and think tanks for a long time. Besides, mention may be made of M.S. Rajan and K.P. Saksena, among the first-generation scholars from India, who dedicated their careers to the teaching of and research on the working of varied institutional formats of twentieth-century multilateralism – particularly in the context of India’s foreign policy.