Whose Multipolarity? How the Global South is Reframing the Discourse of Global Order

The emergence of a more multipolar international system has renewed debate about the future of global order and the role of the Global South. Much of this debate focuses on changes in material capabilities and the emergence of new centres of economic, political, and strategic power. This article argues that such an approach does not fully capture the agency of Global South states, because international order is also shaped through political language, norms, institutional practices, and competing interpretations of legitimacy. The study examines India, Indonesia, and South Africa as three distinct cases of Global South agency, using qualitative comparative document analysis of official foreign-policy statements, government reports, multilateral declarations, and relevant academic literature published primarily between 2020 and 2026. The cases were selected because they represent different but comparable approaches to autonomy: India's strategic autonomy, Indonesia's independent and active foreign policy and ASEAN centrality, and South Africa's non-alignment, African agency, and BRICS diplomacy. Drawing on Global International Relations and decolonial scholarship, the article introduces narrative autonomy as a concept that complements strategic autonomy, referring to the capacity of states to articulate their interests, identities, historical experiences, and preferred visions of international order while participating in the negotiation of international norms and institutions. Narrative autonomy is examined through three observable dimensions: conceptual articulation, norm reinterpretation, and agenda-setting within multilateral institutions. The comparison shows that the Global South is not a unified geopolitical bloc; instead, its states employ different strategies according to their historical experiences, regional positions, and national interests. The article concludes that multipolarity should be assessed not only by asking how power is distributed, but also by asking who can influence the concepts, norms, and institutional practices through which global order is understood.

Global South; Multipolarity; Strategic Autonomy; Narrative Autonomy; Global Governance

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