Power shifts in international organisations: China at the United Nations
Event Type
Special Issue Launch
Location / Date
Online, 28.05.2024
China Centre at the University of Oxford, Fudan University and IDOS
Global Policy Special Issue edited by Sebastian Haug, Rosemary Foot and Max-Otto Baumann
Has China’s expanding engagement led to any power shifts at the United Nations? This launch event – co-hosted by the China Centre at the University of Oxford, Fudan University and IDOS – provided an overview of key findings from a Global Policy Special Issue on how the world’s most prominent “rising power” engages with the world’s foremost international organisation.
The People’s Republic of China is central to current debates about power shifts in international organisations, but a systematic and comprehensive assessment of China-related shifts has been missing. This Special Issue contributes to addressing this gap and examines whether, how and to what extent China-related power shifts have unfolded at the United Nations (UN) over the last two decades or so. Drawing on the conceptualisation of power adopted by Michael Barnett and Raymond Duvall, we define power shifts as changes in the ability of actors to shape others’ capacities to act, and outline a framework for analysing shifts in compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive power. Our analysis covers empirical insights from the UN’s three main pillars – peace and security, development, and human rights – and paints an uneven picture. Despite continuing Western dominance, China is mobilising more compulsory power means than two decades ago. Chinese attempts to enact institutional power have also increased but mostly unfold in multilateral niches and remain cautious. While China’s structural power position has expanded, China-related effects in productive power have so far remained limited and scattered. At the Special Issue launch, we provided a combined assessment of changes across power types and discussed research and policy implications.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Power shifts in international organisations: China at the United Nations
Sebastian Haug, Rosemary Foot, Max-Otto Baumann
CONTRIBUTIONS
- Reining in a liberal UN: China, power shifts, and the UN’s peace and security pillar
Rosemary Foot
- Accommodation available: China, the West, and structural power in the UN Security Council
Richard Gowan
- ‘Wolf Warriors’ in the UN Security Council? Investigating power shifts through blaming
Nicolas Verbeek
- From developing country to superpower? China, power shifts, and the United Nations development pillar
Sebastian Haug, Max-Otto Baumann, Silke Weinlich
- Comprehensive power shifts in the making: China’s policy transfer partnerships with the United Nations
Sebastian Haug, Laura Trajber Waisbich
- China, power, and the United Nations Special Procedures: Emerging threats to the “crown jewels” international human rights system
Rana Inboden
- Powers of persuasion? China’s struggle for human rights discourse power at the UN
Malin Oud
- Is power shifting? China’s evolving engagement with UNESCO
Meng Wenting
- Chinese power at the World Heritage Committee: from learning the game to shaping the rules
Steven Langendonk, Edith Drieskens
- A mixed funding pattern: China’s exercise of power within the United Nations
Zhang Xueying, Jing Yijia
- Personnel power shift? Unpacking China’s attempts to enter the UN Civil Service
Shing Hon Lam, Courtney Fung
- Between co-optation and emancipation: Chinese women’s NGOs and power shifts at the United Nations
Cai Yiping
Hinweis
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Event information
Date / Time28.05.2024 / 16:00 - 17:00
LocationOnline
Contact
Dr. Sebastian Haug
Senior Researcher, Research Programme “Inter- and Transnational Cooperation”
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