This article examines contradictions in contemporary world politics associated with the transition from a unipolar to a polycentric world. The author holds that the “unipolar moment” is fading into the past, though the norms generated by it and maintained within the framework of its relative stability - the principles of “limited sovereignty”, “electoral legitimacy”, the practice of interventionism, etc. - remain in force and continue to be actively advanced by a group of Western countries. Yet in the formation process of a polycentric world, all these norms may, paradoxically, serve as a destabilizing factor in international relations.