


16th June 2023
The Dimensions of Great Power Competition
This workshop brings together multi-disciplinary perspectives to evaluate the conduct of great power competition across multiple dimensions.
The return of great power competition poses some important questions about exactly what kind of competition is taking place. What are states competing over, or for? The answer, increasingly, seems to be that there are fewer and fewer areas of international political, economic and social life untouched by competitive dynamics. This workshop therefore seeks to integrate perspectives on great power competition from a wide range of disciplinary specialisations – including International Relations, Political Theory, Law, Business Studies and Management, Political Science, Economics and Finance, Sociology, Psychology, and History – to evaluate how competition is manifest across multiple dimensions of interaction, both in theory and practice. In doing so it seeks to understand how increasingly transactional national postures in the military, diplomatic, technology, legal, and economic spheres, affect actors and sectors beyond the national security state, in supply chains, energy, raw materials, and intellectual property.
ORGANISER
Dr Nicholas Kitchen, Centre for the Study of Global Power Competition (CGPC)
Dr Joshua Andresen, Centre for the Study of Global Power Competition (CGPC)
Information regarding how to register will be available shortly.
In the last decade, the concept of ‘great power competition’ has been resurrected by pundits and decisionmakers alike, to describe both the nature of contemporary international politics and the tasks of statecraft. Today, the acronym GPC dominates – substitutes for? – strategy debate in Washington and London, and is invoked in the capitals of self-identified great powers and middle powers alike.
But the return of great power competition – whether in fact or in discourse – poses some important theoretical questions about exactly what kind of competition is being referenced. It is rarely clear if GPC is to be understood as a consequence of ongoing power shifts, or the outcome of state strategies. At one level, great power competition is a mundane statement of the reality of international anarchy. At another, it is an edict to compete – but over, or for, what?
This workshop seeks to bring together perspectives on great power competition from multiple disciplines to evaluate how it is manifest across various dimensions of interaction, both in theory and practice. In doing so it seeks to understand how increasingly transactional postures in the military, diplomatic, technology, legal, and economic spheres affects actors and sectors beyond the national security state, in supply chains, energy, raw materials, and intellectual property.
We invite abstracts for papers from scholars working in International Relations, Political Theory, Law, Business Studies and Management, Political Science, Economics and Finance, Sociology, Psychology, and History, on all aspects of great power competition.
Final submission deadline: 31st March 2023
Notification of outcome: 14th April 2023
ACADEMIC CONTACT
If any questions, please get in touch with Dr Nicholas Kitchen
Please submit your abstract (200 words max) by completing the form below.