Contested World Orders

Abstract Contested World Orders systematically compares the demands of rising powers and non-governmental organizations towards international institutions. As international institutions have taken on ever more ambitious tasks, they have been challenged by rising powers dissatisfied with existing institutional inequalities, by non-governmental organizations worried about the direction of global governance, and even by some established powers no longer content to lead the institutions they themselves created. While the debates about the changing international system often focus on the overall structure, this book aims at providing a comprehensive and comparative analysis of the constellation of preferences on the level of individual institutions. Three contributions should be highlighted. First, while demands for change are numerous and often severe, they are largely driven by specific institutional features and interest constellations. There is little evidence of a cleavage between established and rising powers or a hegemonic struggle between the US and China. On many conflicts there are established and rising powers on both sides. Second, in some cases the rising powers have in fact defended the status quo. They have opposed both Western countries’ attempts to increase the intrusiveness of market-making international institutions and NGOs’ attempts to have stronger market-braking regulation of global markets. Third, conflicts appear to be most intractable where established powers aim to defend their institutional privileges against rising powers who demand institutional roles commensurate with their new-found influence.