Great-Power Competition and International Order

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

Great-Power Competition and International Order

Traditionally, the IR literatures on international order and great powers have been mostly separate. Scholarship on order has focused on questions such as whether and how institutions foster cooperation for mutual gain, why different forms of order emerge when and where they do, and on why states join and comply with international institutions. The subject matter typically falls within international political economy, broadly conceived. On the other hand, scholarship on great powers has focused on security, war, alliances, arms races, proxy wars, and like questions. The subject matter is mostly in international security.
It is well-known, however, that great-power competition and international order interact. For example, at the end of World War II, the United States constructed the liberal international order (LIO) in part to strengthen itself against the Soviet Union, which meanwhile constructed its own parallel international order. Decades later, the LIO’s relative superiority was partly responsible for the U.S. defeat of the U.S.S.R. in the Cold War.
Only in the past few years, however, has scholarship bridging the gap between great-power competition and international order really blossomed. An important impetus behind these bridging efforts is the ongoing power shift from the United States to China. Although Chinese growth has slowed of late, the global shift in wealth and influence has already been profound and consequential. China is a robust participant in the liberal international order (LIO) and, at the same time, a security rival to the United States. Beijing is discontented with important features of the LIO – in human rights, cyber, trade, and other areas – and is seeking to make those features more in line with its own interests. Washington has taken steps to counter China’s efforts. It is clear that, in a number of ways, this emergent great-power rivalry both affects and is affected by international order.
This roundtable brings together six scholars who have published seminal work on the interactions between great-power competition and international order. They have focused on such questions as:
- Struggles for power and interest within international orders
- Power transitions and international institutions
- The consequences of Sino-American competition for the LIO
- The role of great-power competition in past order-building, including the post-World War II LIO
- Great-power legitimacy and smaller powers’ stakes in international order
- Great-power competition and the future of democracy

Panelists (in alphabetical order):

Stacie Goddard, Johnson Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College, and author of When Right Makes Might: Rising Powers and the Challenge to World Order (Cornell University Press, 2018).

G. John Ikenberry, Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University, and author of A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order (Yale University Press, 2020).

Kyle M. Lascurettes, Associate Professor, Lewis & Clark College, and author of Orders of Exclusion: Great Powers and the Strategic Sources of Foundational Rules in International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Daniel Nexon, Professor of Government, Georgetown University, and author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020) (with Alexander Cooley).

John M. Owen IV, Taylor Professor of Politics, University of Virginia, and author of The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order (Yale University Press, 2023).

Jessica Chen Weiss, Professor of Government, Cornell University, and author of A World Safe for Autocracy? The Domestic Politics of China’s Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).


Chair:

Andrew Goodhart, Ph.D. candidate, Ohio State University

Sub Unit

• Division 19: International Security 

Cosponsor

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Chair

• Andrew Goodhart University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Presenters

• Stacie E. Goddard Wellesley College

• G. John Ikenberry Princeton University

• Kyle M. Lascurettes Lewis & Clark College

• Daniel H. Nexon Georgetown University

• John M. Owen University of Virginia

• Jessica Chen Weiss Cornell University