Interpreting great power rights in international society: Debating China’s right to a sphere of influence
| Author | Benjamin Zala |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1755088220905607 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1755088220905607
Journal of International Political Theory
2020, Vol. 16(2) 210 –230
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1755088220905607
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Interpreting great power
rights in international
society: Debating China’s
right to a sphere of influence
Benjamin Zala
Australian National University, Australia
Abstract
The special rights and responsibilities of the great powers have traditionally been treated
as a key component – even a primary institution – of international society in the English
School literature. Recent interpretivist work has focused on the meanings of special
responsibilities in contemporary international society with far less scholarly attention
being given to the corollary of this – special rights. This article uses an interpretivist
approach to attempt to uncover what recent debates over China’s right or otherwise
to a sphere of influence in East Asia tells us about understandings of great power rights
in contemporary international society. The argument advanced is that if Beijing’s right
to a sphere of influence is successfully rejected by the rest of international society
without repudiating its status as a great power more broadly, China will indeed be a
great power without historical precedent.
Keywords
China, English School, great powers, interpretivism, rising powers, spheres of influence
Introduction
This article takes the English School understanding of great power status and combines
this with an interpretive approach to exploring change in one central aspect of this over
time – understandings of the special rights associated with great power status. In order to
do this, the article focuses on one aspect of great power rights identified in the work of a
number of scholars associated with the English School of International Relations (IR):
that of spheres of influence (Bull, 1977: 219–229, 1980; Buranelli, 2018; Buzan and Cui,
2016: 196; Clark, 1989: 194–201; Hast, 2014; Kaczmarska, 2015; Keal, 1983). In par-
ticular, the article seeks to examine continuity and change in understandings of great
Corresponding author:
Benjamin Zala, Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Hedley Bull
Building, 130 Garran Road, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
Email: benjamin.zala@anu.edu.au
905607IPT0010.1177/1755088220905607Journal of International Political TheoryZala
research-article2020
Article
Zala 211
power rights with regard to the establishment and maintenance of spheres of influence
(and their recognition by other great powers) in the context of debates over China’s rise
to great power status. In doing so, it pursues the argument that much of the contemporary
work on China’s rise is not well attuned to the important role-played by spheres of influ-
ence in the historical interpretation of great power status. The radical nature of attempts
to deny a rising China a sphere of influence in its immediate geographic region is there-
fore worthy of a greater degree of both strategic and ethical debate. In doing so, the
analysis below suggests that there is a question as to whether a state can be a great power
without having a sphere of influence – at least in their immediate geographic neighbour-
hood. While the discussion that follows is limited to the discourse of analysts and prac-
titioners discussing China’s rise in material power and social status, this question applies
to any and all rising or re-emerging powers in international society today.
In recent years, there has been a particular focus on the notion of ‘special responsibili-
ties’ and the relationship between the adoption of such responsibilities and international
legitimacy (Aslam, 2013; Bukovansky et al., 2012; Clark and Reus-Smit, 2013; Gaskarth,
2017; Loke, 2013, 2016; Morris, 2013). In addition, and specifically in the context of
China’s much discussed rise to great power status, there has been considerable attention
given to the issue of great power responsibilities in the contemporary context in the
policy-focused literature and in the rhetoric of practitioners, especially in the West
(Glaser and Funaiole, 2017; Huang, 2013; Johnson et al., 2016). Less focus has been
given to the other side of the coin of the traditional English School understanding of the
unique social status of the great powers – that of special rights (Heimann, 2015: 190).
Just as a great power’s responsibilities are conceived of and conferred by others, so
too are their special rights. As Christian Reus-Smit (2007) has put it, ‘Rights are socially
ordained, and an actor has a right to act, rule, or govern only if it is socially sanctioned’
(2007: 159). This gives the English School notion of great power status being constituted
by inter-subjective understandings of rights and responsibilities a social contingency
that, at least in principle, ought to be fertile ground for interpretive approaches. Moreover,
one of the central ‘calling cards’ of the English School as an approach to IR scholarship
is not only a commitment to social contingency but also an inductive emphasis on his-
torical contingency in analysing the meaning given to social norms and institutions over
time. This opens the analytical space for tracking change in the constitution of the pri-
mary institutions of international society over time.
While some have characterised English School scholarship as clustering around an
analytical wing on the one hand and a normative wing on the other hand (Buzan, 2004;
Dunne, 2005), it is possible to subdivide the former category further. Within the litera-
ture focused on analysing the development and evolution of the institutions of interna-
tional society, it is useful to distinguish between structural and interpretivist approaches
(see Navari, 2020 in this issue). As is discussed further below, from the very earliest
incarnations of what is now referred to as English School scholarship, both structural
and interpretive approaches to understanding international order through the lens of
social institutions (now generally referred to as primary institutions) were present.1
However, a general commitment to interpretivism underlies the majority of English
School work that attempts to explain social behaviour by ‘interpreting the meanings
that behaviour has for actors and those with whom they interact’ (Hall, 2015: 35).
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