Rising Powers & Normative Contestation: Norm Begrudgers in International Affairs

• In Event: Hegemony and its Discontents

Abstract

How do we understand the different ways that rising powers respond to changes in an international order – the ‘rules and norms’ of global politics – especially when those changes in an international order deviate from their ideals or preferences? The literature literature overlooks a set of norm resistance tactics used by rising powers in their ‘normative adolescence’ – when they are in the opening stage of their rise and unsure of which order to prioritise in contestation. These tactics combined with strategic outlook highlight a missing norm role: the norm begrudger. I use a specific puzzle of the normative responses of India to the responsibility to protect. Tracing India’s response from the inception of the norm to its application in the recent Libya crisis, where India was a rotating member at the UN Security Council, I find that India only briefly engaged as a norm antipreneur, before assuming the role of the norm begrudger. I then use a shadow case of China at the UN Security Council in the 1970s to supplement the analysis. I develop my analysis based on publicly-available sources and elite interviews with foreign ministry and United Nations officials in New Delhi and New York.

Author

• Courtney J. Fung, University of Hong Kong