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The Nation Is Not Alone. We Need Reflexive Multilateralism
National governments struggle to govern sustainably; subnational authorities can help fill the gap.
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Posted 11 September 2026
Editor's Note: Emmanuel Ohiri is a young expert in the Global Governance Innovation Network and a rising leader in foreign policy. This commentary is part of the GGIN's Next Generation Experts series, which aims to elevate emerging research and writing. Ohiri's interests and research center on global governance, security, statecraft, and migration.
By Richard Ponzio, Director, Global Governance, Justice & Security Program
While global governance has achieved many gains, the nation-state centrism of existing institutions remains a limitation. From conflict prevention to migration, the traditional state-based paradigm has struggled to meet today's challenges, producing failures that only a broader range of empowered governing actors can address. A shift to reflexive multilateralism — an adaptive, consultative model of participatory governance that treats decision-making authority as adjustable and grants it to the actor best positioned to manage a given challenge — offers a better approach.
The Nation's Migration Mismatch
Nation-states hold the authority to regulate cross-border movement, but they are not best positioned to govern it sustainably. Rather than expand legal pathways or coordinate with other states to reduce structural drivers, both essential for sustainable migration management, nation-states frequently impose restrictive, often racialized, policies designed to prevent migration. Rather than halting mobility, these policies drive people toward irregular and dangerous routes and lead to greater risk of human trafficking, labor exploitation, and structural violence. Movement-restricting policies that claim to protect societies instead perpetuate insecurity, harming migrants and hindering state governance.
A 2016 study of 29 European states found that asylum and visa rejections increased irregular border crossings, becoming "a major force" behind the continent's 2015 refugee crisis. In the decade since, more than 22,000 people have died or disappeared crossing the Central Mediterranean. The U.S.'s immigration crackdown further exemplifies systemic failure. Over $175 billion has been allocated for immigration enforcement, with 99% going toward securitization, detention, and deportation. Yet migration continues while the crackdown inflicts severe harm: 2025 became the deadliest year for detention since 2004; analysts project the policies will increase federal deficits by $270–$350 billion over four years; and police chiefs report that enforcement has driven immigrant communities to stop reporting crime, weakening safety, institutional trust, and social cohesion.
These failures stem from a structural mismatch common to transboundary challenges, including climate change and pandemic response, where drivers are global, authority is national, and impact is local. Nation-states are both too distant from local realities and too emboldened by sovereignty to coordinate effectively. The UN's Global Compact for Migration (GCM) and the broader 2030 Agenda remain unfulfilled due to inconsistent national implementation, contested legitimacy, and poor funding. Meanwhile, subnational actors — particularly local and regional governments (LRGs), like cities — face front-line effects, bearing responsibility for service delivery and community safety, yet lack formal authority in global policymaking.
The Case for Subnational Authority
Addressing governance mismatch requires a reflexive model that integrates LRGs into multilateral institutions and grants them real authority. LRGs are closer to migration's human-level impact, allowing them to respond in ways nation-states cannot. Authority should track comparative advantage. Where LRGs already carry de facto responsibility for migration's effects, formal authority (and funding support) should follow, beginning with reception, integration, and service delivery. Cities worldwide have demonstrated this capacity. Through the Local Coalition for Migrants and Refugees, 345 LRGs engage in coordinated action, peer-learning, and advocacy in multilateral processes like the Global Forum for Migration and Development, Global Refugee Forum, and International Migration Review Forum. The Coalition has mobilized 88 cities to produce 124 local initiatives implementing the GCM and the Global Compact for Refugees, spanning civic leadership, legal services, mental health support, and refugee integration in more than 40 countries. In Minneapolis, following federal enforcement operations, city officials established resource centers, know-your-rights guides, and community recovery systems to manage the fallout. These actions show LRGs can address global challenges where national governments fail.
Empowering LRGs aligns with the UN's “whole-of-government” and “whole-of-society” strategies. In the Pact for the Future, Action 55 pledges stronger UN coherence with LRGs and other subnational actors. The UN itself holds that subnational authorities are “best placed” to enhance the development effects of human mobility through local service delivery and stakeholder consultation.
Reflexive Examples and the Path Forward
The Grand Bargain framework recognizes the proximity and capacity advantages of actors closest to crises and aims to localize humanitarian action by directing at least 25% of global funding to local and national responders. However, it has faced persistent funding shortfalls and slow political uptake. The Local Coalition for Migrants and Refugees, despite its measurable impact, still operates through self-organized advocacy rather than formal integration into UN decision-making.
The UN Forum of Mayors represents a significant step toward reflexive multilateralism. As a formally recognized body within the UN system, the Forum allows mayors to participate in UN processes, deliberate on urban development, and adopt official recommendations to Member States. Mayors participate as independent actors with authority to convey recommendations to national governments on issues of shared concern. The Forum proves that nation-states can create mechanisms for direct subnational participation, and that formally integrating LRGs within the UN architecture is institutionally feasible. However, as a subsidiary of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, the pathway from mayoral recommendations to global policy decisions remains indirect. The structural framework exists, but the power, resources, and participatory diversity that reflexive multilateralism requires do not.
The Forum's sixth meeting is scheduled for October 2026. Toward realizing a more reflexive future, Member States should continue supporting the Forum through attendance, investment, burden-sharing, and implementing mayoral recommendations. Moreover, the Forum itself should expand its scope beyond strict urban development to include issues like migration.
The Nation Is Not Alone
Reflexive multilateralism has limitations. Consulting more stakeholders risks governance indecision. Power imbalances between LRGs and nation-states must be actively addressed to ensure equitable participation rather than tokenism. Reflexivity requires continuous openness to adaptation, which power holders in any governance arrangement may resist, whether nation-states today or empowered LRGs tomorrow.
Subnational empowerment is not a panacea. Nation-states remain vital for their institutional experience, resource capacity, and legitimacy. Yet the mismatch between where authority resides, where capacity exists, and where impact occurs produces failures the nation alone cannot solve. Aligning decision-making authority with comparative positioning promotes stability and sustainability. Beyond service delivery, including LRGs in formal decision-making would increase system resilience by enhancing credibility, trust, and constituent ownership.
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