Rising powers and security: a false dawn of the pro-south world order?

ABSTRACT

Interactions of rising powers and established powers and their implications in peacebuilding and security remain underexplored in existing literature. This paper aims to explore inferences of the behaviour of Brazil, China and India in peacebuilding and security, their contention and cooperation with the US and European powers, and implications for the global south. It analyses their interactions in the light of democratic peace propositions, adhered to by established powers, and the regional security complex theory pertinent to the ascendancy of new powers. Though liberal countries are co-opting emerging actors, the responses of rising powers to international security issues appear inconsistent and unpredictable. With increasing material capabilities, rising powers have been creating a patron–client relationship with conflict-affected states, because of which this article disconfirms possibilities of a sometimes anticipated pro-south world order.

KEYWORDS:

• Rising powers
• security
• peacebuilding
• regional security complex theory
• democratic peace

Acknowledgement

The author is grateful to Dr Bertram Jenkins and Dr Tony Lynch of the University of New England-Australia for their continuous support and constructive feedback while developing this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Safal Ghimire has obtained a PhD from the University of New England, Australia. His research focuses the roles of external actors in peacebuilding and security, with reference to the ideas of security–development nexus and rising powers–great powers interactions.

Notes

1 See Andrew F. Hart and Bruce D. Jones, ‘How Do Rising Powers Rise?’, Survival 52, no. 6 (2010): 63–88; Miles Kahler, ‘Rising Powers and Global Governance: Negotiating Change in a Resilient Status Quo’, International Affairs 89, no. 3 (2013): 711–29; Stewart Patrick, ‘Irresponsible Stakeholders? The Difficulty of Integrating Rising Powers’, Foreign Affairs 89, no. 6 (2010): 44–53; Schweller, ‘Emerging Powers in an Age of Disorder’; Matthew D. Stephen, ‘Rising Regional Powers and International Institutions: The Foreign Policy Orientations of India, Brazil and South Africa’, Global Society 26, no. 3 (2012): 289–309.

2 A.F.K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958).

3 See Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

4 Detlef Nolte, ‘How to Compare Regional Powers: Analytical Concepts and Research Topics’, Review of International Studies 36, no. 4 (2010): 881–901; Andrew Hurrell, ‘Hegemony, Liberalism and Global Order: What Space for Would-Be Great Powers?’, International Affairs 82, no. 1 (2006): 1–19.

5 Some other dichotomies include: established–emerging (established–rising), traditional–non-traditional and incumbent–new powers.

6 Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays on Politics, History, and Morals (translation with Introduction by Ted Humphrey), trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983 [1795]).

7 Sebastian Rosato, ‘The Flawed Logic of Democratic Peace Theory’, The American Political Science Review 97, no. 4 (2003): 585–602.

8 Christopher Layne, ‘Kant or Cant: The Myth of the Democratic Peace’, International Security 19, no. 2 (1994): 5–49; J. Owen, ‘How Liberalism Produces Democratic Peace’, International Security 19, no. 2 (1994): 87–125; Dan Reiter, Democratic Peace Theory, Oxford Bibliography Online, 2012.

9 Steve Chan, ‘In Search of Democratic Peace: Problems and Promise’, Mershon International Studies Review 41, no. 1 (1997): 59–91.

10 Ibid.; Michael C. Williams, ‘The Discipline of the Democratic Peace: Kant, Liberalism and the Social Construction of Security Communities’, European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 4 (2001): 525–53.

11 Rosato, ‘The Flawed Logic’.

12 Chan, ‘In Search of Democratic Peace’, 66.

13 See Layne, ‘Kant or Cant’, 14.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid., 12.

16 Rosato, ‘The Flawed Logic’.

17 Chan, ‘In Search of Democratic Peace’.

18 Rosato, ‘The Flawed Logic’, 599.

19 Deborah Avant, ‘The Implications of Marketized Security for IR Theory: The Democratic Peace, Late State Building, and the Nature and Frequency of Conflict’, Perspectives on Politics 4, no. 3 (2006): 507–28.

20 Owen, ‘How Liberalism Produces’.

21 Nicole Ball, ‘Reforming Security Sector Governance’, Conflict, Security & Development 4, no. 3 (2004): 509–27.

22 Roland Paris, ‘Alternatives to Liberal Peace?’, in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, ed. Sussana Campbell, David Chandler, and Meera Sabaratnam (London: Zed Books, 2011), 159–73.

23 Meera Sabaratnam, Re-thinking the Liberal Peace : Anti-colonial Thought and Post-war Intervention in Mozambique (The London School of Economics and Political Science, 2011), 26.

24 David Chandler, ‘The Uncritical Critique of Liberal Peace’, in A Liberal Peace? The Problems and Practices of Peacebuilding, ed. Susanna Campbell, David Chandler, and Meera Sabaratnam (London: Zed Books, 2011), 174–90.

25 Though Paris, ‘Alternatives to Liberal Peace?’, argues about such a deficiency, studies on hybrid peace and post-liberalism offer some alternatives.

26 Buzan and Wæver, Regions and Powers.

27 In particular, David A. Lake and Patrick M. Morgan, Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (Penn State Press, 1997).

28 Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, ‘Macrosecuritisation and Security Constellations: Reconsidering Scale in Securitisation Theory’, Review of International Studies 35, no. 2 (2009): 253–76.

29 Tuva Kahrs, ‘Regional Security Complex Theory and Chinese Policy Towards North Korea’, East Asia 21, no. 4 (2004): 64–82.

30 Buzan and Wæver, Regions and Powers.

31 Kahrs, ‘Regional Security Complex Theory’; Barry Buzan, ‘Security Architecture in Asia: The Interplay of Regional and Global Levels’, The Pacific Review 16, no. 2 (2003): 143–73.

32 D. Frazier and R. Stewart-Ingersoll, ‘Regional Powers and Security: A Framework for Understanding Order Within Regional Security Complexes’, European Journal of International Relations 16, no. 4 (2010): 731–53.

33 See Frazier and Stewart-Ingersoll, ‘Regional Powers and Security’ for a discussion about 11 conventionally designated RSCs.

34 Buzan and Wæver, Regions and Powers.

35 Buzan, ‘Security Architecture in Asia’.

36 Barry Buzan, ‘The South Asian Security Complex in a Decentring World Order: Reconsidering Regions and Powers Ten Years on’, International Studies 48, no. 1 (2011): 1–19.

37 Buzan and Wæver, Regions and Powers.

38 Evgeny F. Troitskiy, ‘Central Asian Regional Security Complex: The Impact of Russian and US Policies’, Global Society 29, no. 1 (2015): 2–22.

39 Frazier and Stewart-Ingersoll, ‘Regional Powers and Security’.

40 See André Barrinha, 'The Ambitious Insulator: Revisiting Turkey’s Position in Regional Security Complex Theory', Mediterranean Politics, 19, no. 2 (2013): 65–182, for a detailed discussion on Turkey’s position.

41 Buzan, ‘Security Architecture in Asia’.

42 Organski, World Politics.

43 Schweller, ‘Emerging Powers’.

44 Stephen, ‘Rising Regional Powers’.

45 Benjamin de Carvalho and Cedric de Coning, Rising Powers and the Future of Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding (Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, 2013).

46 Miles Kahler, The Rise of Emerging Asia: Regional Peace and Global Security (Washington, DC: PIIE and ADB, 2013), 17.

47 Elling N. Tjønneland, ‘The Rising Powers and African Peace and Security’, in Rising Powers and the African Security Landscape, ed. Elling N. Tjønneland (Bergen: Michelsen Institute, 2014), 4.

48 Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Danilo Marcondes de Souza Neto, ‘Brazil and African Security’, in Rising Powers and the African Security Landscape, ed. Elling N. Tjønneland (Bergen: Michelsen Institute, 2014), 49–77.

49 Andrew Garwood-Gowers, ‘China and the “Responsibility to Protect”: The Implications of the Libyan Intervention’, Asian Journal of International Law 2, no. 2 (2012): 375–93.

50 Justin Morris, ‘Libya and Syria: R2P and the Spectre of the Swinging Pendulum’, International Affairs 89, no. 5 (2013): 1265–83.

51 Yitzhak Shichor, ‘China's Voting Behavior in the UN Security Council’, China Brief, 2007.

52 Richard Gowan and Franziska Brantner, A Global Force for Human Rights? An Audit of European Power at the UN, European Council on Foreign Relations Policy Paper, vol. September (London: European Council on Foreign Relations, 2008).

53 Tjønneland, ‘The Rising Powers’.

54 Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Danilo Marcondes de Souza Neto, Brazil in the South Atlantic: Growing Protagonism and Unintended Consequences. NOREF Policy Brief (Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, 2013).

55 Jagannath P. Panda, ‘Competing Realities in China-India Multilateral Discourse: Asia’s Enduring Power Rivalry’, Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 82 (2013): 669–90.

56 The AU/UN Hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID) was established in 2007 with the adoption of Security Council resolution 1769 (http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unamid/).

57 Kahler, ‘Rising Powers and Global Governance’.

58 Peter Dauvergne and D.B.L. Farias, ‘The Rise of Brazil as a Global Development Power’, Third World Quarterly 33, no. 5 (2012): 903–17.

59 Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Danilo Marcondes de Souza Neto, ‘Rising Powers and the Security–Development Nexus: Brazil's Engagement with Guinea-Bissau’, Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 9, no. 2 (2014): 8.

60 Peter Beaumont and Rachel Williams, ‘IMF Loan to Sri Lanka Can Go Ahead’, The Guardian, May 1, 2009, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/may/01/sri-lanka-imf-loan.

61 Ivan Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States: Between Principle and Pragmatism (London: Saferworld, 2012).

62 Saferworld, Linking Peace, Stability and Development: Engaging New Global Actors in the Debate (London: Saferworld, 2015).

63 Shahar Hameiri, ‘China’s “Charm Offensive” in the Pacific and Australia's Regional Order’, The Pacific Review (2015): 37–41.

64 Sanjay Upadhya, Nepal and the Geo-strategic Rivalry Between China and India (New Delhi: Routledge, 2012).

65 Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’.

66 Hameiri, ‘China’s “Charm Offensive”’.

67 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

68 Nilanthi Samaranayake, ‘Are Sri Lanka's Relations with China Deepening? An Analysis of Economic, Military, and Diplomatic Data’, Asian Security 7, no. 2 (2011): 133.

69 Jürgen Haacke, Myanmar: Now a Site for Sino–US Geopolitical Competition? LSE IDEAS, ed. Nicholas Kitchen (London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2012), 55.

70 Ibid.

71 Committee on Foreign Relations, Sri Lanka: Recharting U.S. Strategy after the War (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2009), 3.

72 Such as C. Raja Mohan, ‘India and the Balance of Power’, Foreign Affairs 85, no. 4 (2006): 17–32.

73 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

74 Abdenur and de Souza Neto, ‘Brazil and African Security’.

75 Daniel Flemes and Alcides Costa Vaz, Security Policies of India, Brazil and South Africa: Regional Security Contexts as Constraints for a Common Agenda (Hamburg: German Institute of Global and Area Studies, 2011).

76 Matias Spektor, Why Brazil Is a Broker with Iran, Council on Foreign Relations, 2010, http://www.cfr.org/brazil/why-brazil-broker-iran/p22139.

77 Soner Cagaptay, ‘Defining Turkish Power: Turkey as a Rising Power Embedded in the Western International System’, Turkish Studies 14, no. 4 (2013): 797–811.

78 Abdenur and de Souza Neto, ‘Rising Powers’.

79 Such as Patrick, ‘Irresponsible Stakeholders?’

80 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

81 Ibid., 16.

82 Abdenur and de Souza Neto, ‘Rising Powers’.

83 Felix Heiduk, ‘What Is in a Name? Germany's Strategic Partnerships with Asia's Rising Powers’, Asia Europe Journal, 13, no. 2 (2015): 131–146.

84 Hameiri, ‘China’s “Charm Offensive”’.

85 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

86 Sandra Destradi, ‘India as a Democracy Promoter? New Delhi's Involvement in Nepal’s Return to Democracy’, Democratization 19, no. 2 (2012): 286–311.

87 Ibid.

88 See Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’, 568.

89 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States, 17.

90 Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’.

91 Bates Gill and Chin-hao Huang, China's Expanding Peacekeeping Role: Its Significance and the Policy Implications, SIPRI Policy Brief (Stockholm: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2009).

92 UN Security Council, Res. S/RES/1970 (26 February 2011).

93 FMPRC, ‘Statement by the Chinese Delegation on the Illicit Brokering of Small Arms and Light Weapons, at the Third Biennial Meeting of States to Consider the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arm’, 2008, http://wcm.fmprc.gov.cn/pub/eng/wjb/zzjg/jks/kjfywj/t479258.htm.

94 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

95 Francine R. Frankel, ‘The Breakout of China-India Strategic Rivalry in Asia and the Indian Ocean’, Journal of International Affairs 64, no. 2 (2011): 1–18.

96 Oliver Stuenkel, ‘Emerging India: A Farewell to Multilateralism?’, Indian Foreign Affairs Journal 8, no. 4 (2013): 422.

97 Abdenur and de Souza Neto, ‘Rising Powers’.

98 PM-PRC, ‘Statement by Ambassador Liu Zhenmin at Security Council: Open Debate on Post-conflict Peacebuilding (22 July 2009)’, 2009, http://www.china-un.org/eng/hyyfy/t575181.htm.

99 Chris Alden, ‘Seeking Security in Africa: China's Evolving Approach to the African Peace and Security Architecture’, in Rising Powers and the African Security Landscape, ed. Elling N. Tjønneland (Bergen: Chr. Michelsen Institute, 2014), 21.

100 Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’.

101 MRE, ‘Artigo Do Senhor Ministro de Estado Apresentado No Ciclo de Debates Organizado Pelo Ministério Da Defesa’, 2007, http://www.itamaraty.gov.br/sala-de-imprensa/discursos-artigos-entrevistas-e-outras-comunicacoes/ministro-estado-relacoes-exteriores/artigo-do-senhor-ministro-de-estado-apresentado-no as cited in Abdenur and de Souza Neto, ‘Rising Powers’.

102 Thorsten Benner, Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur: The ‘Responsibility While Protecting’ Initiative (Berlin: Global Public Policy Institute, 2013).

103 Abdenur and de Souza Neto, ‘Rising Powers’.

104 Lydia Polgreen, ‘China, in New Role, Presses Sudan on Darfur’, The New York Times, February 23, 2008.

105 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

106 Saferworld, China’s Growing Role in African Peace and Security (London: Saferworld, 2011).

107 Ibid., 51.

108 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

109 AFP, ‘China Rolls Out Red Carpet for Sudan’s Al-Bashir’, Mail and Guardian, June 29, 2011, http://mg.co.za/article/2011-06-29-china-rolls-out-red-carpet-for-sudans-albashir.

110 Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’.

111 Destradi, ‘India as a Democracy Promoter?’

112 Kahler, The Rise of Emerging Asia.

113 Schweller, ‘Emerging Powers’.

114 Chan, ‘In Search of Democratic Peace’, 67.

115 Buzan, ‘Security Architecture in Asia’, 145.

116 Reiter, Democratic Peace Theory.

117 Safal Ghimire, ‘Making Security Sector Reform Organic: Infrastructure for Peace as an Entry Point?’, Peacebuilding (2016), doi:10.1080/21647259.2016.1156813.

118 Hart and Jones, ‘How Do Rising Powers Rise?’.

119 Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’.

120 Benner, Brazil as a Norm Entrepreneur.

121 See China, India and Russia cases in Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States; Kahler, ‘Rising Powers and Global Governance’; and Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’, respectively.

122 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States; Richmond and Tellidis, ‘Emerging Actors’.

123 Patrick, ‘Irresponsible Stakeholders?’; Simon Serfaty, ‘Moving into a Post-Western World’, The Washington Quarterly 34, no. 2 (2011): 7–23.

124 Campbell et al., China and Conflict-Affected States.

125 Schweller, ‘Emerging Powers’.

126 Patrick, ‘Irresponsible Stakeholders?’

127 See Schweller, ‘Emerging Powers’, 295.

128 Stephen, ‘Rising Regional Powers’.

129 Ibid.

130 AFP, ‘China Rolls Out’; Beaumont and Williams, ‘IMF Loan’.

131 Committee on Foreign Relations, ‘Sri Lanka’.

132 Abdenur and de Souza Neto, ‘Rising Powers’.