The moment GPC as a word flashes, IR enthusiasts are thrown to dwell into the sea of theories that have shaped our understanding of GPC. But what if these theories were to be understood in context of each other and then GPC in context of these theories. Realists, Liberalists and Constructivists are all pointing at the same picture from different angle. This paper tries to take a step back by changing the very picture that these theories have tried to understand. The paper tries to explore the complexities and outcomes of GPC in a world that would have been different. For majority of the time, the power chase has been considered given, and the analysis is always built upon it. This paper is a modest attempt to understand the formation of GPC itself from a changed perspective, with looking at states from a constructivist’s lens, and applying the model of realism and liberalism along with major notions of GPC to comprehend whether the Great Power Competition was always inevitable or is it just how a particular type of human understanding unfolded it in a certain way, and there is always a way to undo it.
Does China successfully wield leadership of UN agenccies to further its own national interests of an alternative global order? We test these expectations to assess whether a rising power uses the position for formal influence—to reward like-minded states—or informal influence—to accumulate prestige.
To probe for formal influence, we leverage a comparative case study approach of 11 different IOs, combining original data collection of 12,481 IO country-projects from 1988-2022 and an ethnographic case study of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). We also conduct an elite conjoint survey experiment with IO staff to test the mechanisms of formal executive influence via a ‘pleasing the principal’ mechanism in which IO staff anticipate a leader’s preferences based on nationality cues, or an ‘agenda-setting mechanism,’ in which leaders overtly indicate their preferences. To examine informal influence, we conduct a survey experiment on representative samples of the public in the US and Brazil to examine whether partnerships between Chinese leaders and IOs enhance China’s image, again leveraging the case of the ITU.
These results have substantial implications for the way that we interpret China’s motivations toward the international order, the independence of IOs, and the broader vitality of IOs in the midst of power transitions.
Note: I do not have travel funds, and would require travel support to be able to participate.
Historians of U.S. foreign relations have broadly identified nationalism as a significant driver of the U.S. expansionist turn in the Asia-Pacific towards the end of the 19th century. However, little attention has been paid to the impact of a particular form of nationalism – economic nationalism – to the dynamics of interstate competition that made this expansion possible. This article argues about the centrality of economic nationalism in this process, which increased great power rivalry in the region between the United States and Japan, Germany, and Russia. The events that followed laid the ground for the subsequent long-term U.S. engagement and expansion in the Asia-Pacific region.
Please note: I will be at IPSI 2023 (Bridging the Gap initiative) in Washington DC between 11 and 15 June included. I am also scheduled to present at SHAFR on 16 June but I would prioritise the CPGC workshop.
With improved transatlantic relations, US-China great power competition has spread to various areas and fields, ranging from critical technologies to supply chains to hypersonic missiles to nuclear missile silos and trade. Given the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, the European Union (EU) is concerned about the growing Russia-China no-limit partnership and China’s ambiguous stance on the conflict. With EU’s relationship with Russia and China are on a swing, growing Russia-China nexus has made the West-China great power competition tortuous. Given as the Ukraine conflict’s impact grows with China becoming the EU’s strategic rival, it pushed EU members to diversify their reliance and relationship with Russia and China in order to protect their national interests. As China and Russia emphasise ‘indivisible security’ and ‘legitimate concerns’ to protect and promote their national and strategic interests, it is interpreted as an attempt to change the global order. While NATO continues to provide umbrella protection in Europe, it has avoided direct involvement in the Indo-Pacific region to counter China. Thus, it will be a strenuous task for Europe to unite and achieve strategic autonomy, counter the Russian and Chinese threats, and secure its interests on the continent and in the Indo-Pacific region.
With the return of Great Power Competition, naturally, attention turns to critical areas where this competition will manifest. I argue that technology has already begun to form the foreground in this great power competition, and as such, competition in this area will set the tone for the future of this relationship. This competition can be split into two areas. First, there is competition in terms of hardware, such as micro-chips and spy-balloons. Second, there is competition over software, such as artificial intelligence, social media, and cyber-warfare. Technology has formed the foreground in this Great Power Competition because the rules and norms of behaviour in this area are typically newer, less solidified, and weaker than in areas such as economic policy, trade policy, and conventional warfare.
Due to emerging great power competition, international production networks have become regarded by states as sources of vulnerability which amplify the risks of asymmetric dependence on adversarial powers. Consequently, the US, China, the EU and East Asian states have made attempts to reduce their reliance on production outsourced to rivals.
These attempts to reshore production and ‘decouple’ from adversaries have yielded limited results so far for four reasons, which are often overlooked in the International Relations literature.
First, the differences in competitive advantages between developed economies and China mean that competing great powers possess heterogenous coercive capabilities in different economic sectors, limiting their ability to weaponize interdependence.
Second, the fragmented and networked nature of manufacturing constrains the degree to which states can influence profit-seeking non-state actors in order to shape the international economic architecture.
Third, decoupling would require a significant reorganization of the domestic economies of great powers, which faces significant political economy constraints.
Fourth, decoupling carries significant second order costs for great powers’ allies. East Asian and Eastern European states have based their economic development on participation in international production networks dependent on Chinese inputs and demand. Consequently, the disruption of these networks poses a challenge to their welfare and their value as allies.
This paper presents empirical evidence to support the first two hypotheses and discusses how the empirical data manifests in the political constraints described in the third and fourth hypothesis.
How has great power nuclear competition evolved in the post-Cold War period? Significant attention has been focused on the role of advanced qualitative improvements to major powers’ nuclear arsenals. Yet, in many ways these views erroneously draw on lessons from the Cold War, which was unique due to the presence of only two major nuclear actors and to the absence of cross-cutting dyads within alliance blocs. The emerging nuclear landscape is complicated by the addition of new nuclear actors, which has exacerbated rivalries by introducing cross-cutting strategic dyads. This paper illustrates these dynamics via a case study of the emerging competition between North and South Korea, and its effect on the Sino-American nuclear relationship. North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has intensified Seoul’s security concerns, leading it to pursue counterforce capabilities. Relatedly, the US has invested in homeland missile defense to allay South Korean concerns over the credibility of its extended deterrence guarantee. While these efforts are driven by developments in North Korea, advances in South Korean capabilities also create threats to China’s nuclear arsenal. This new era of nuclear competition is driven less by bilateral qualitative arms racing and rather by new actors’ acquisition of long-existing systems.
Weaponized interdependence (WI), or the exploitation of networked asymmetries for strategic advantage, has come to dominate the strategic thinking of the European Union (EU), China, and the United States (US). Declaring the importance of cyber capacity building (CCB) as a strategic tool, they have each invested heavily in the digital development of network ‘peripheries’—especially African states. Conventional wisdom holds that cyber capacity building projects build resilience against networked asymmetries and thus reduce the recipient’s vulnerability to WI risks. Given that the EU, US, and China have allegedly weaponized interdependence for their own advantage in cyberspace, it seems disadvantageous for them to fund programmes aimed at reducing opportunities for WI gains. How do these powerful donors perceive CCB investments as shaping their strategic advantage? Building a rational choice model, the paper argues that, under supply-side competitive pressures, CCB projects are strategically useful for reconfiguring networked asymmetries in the donor’s favour. This logic is reflected in the current rollout of American, Chinese, and EU CCB initiatives for African states. Therefore, extant scholarship has underestimated how ‘networked peripheries’ have emerged as central sites of global geopolitical competition, with CCB programmes serving as tools for shaping the normative and structural conditions for strategic advantage.