Rhetorical adaptation, normative resistance and international order-making: China’s advancement of the responsibility to protect
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Author | Courtney J Fung |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836719858118 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836719858118
Cooperation and Conflict
2020, Vol. 55(2) 193 –215
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836719858118
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Rhetorical adaptation,
normative resistance and
international order-making:
China’s advancement of the
responsibility to protect
Courtney J Fung
Abstract
How do rising powers execute normative resistance to shape international order? Contrary
to the existing literature, I argue that rising powers are productive agents of normative change
and international order-making, through the use of rhetorical adaptation to contest pre-existing
orders. Rhetorical adaptation is a strategy and set of tactics that simultaneously modifies norm
content, while reducing critiques of obstructionism. To make this argument, this article traces
China’s efforts as a ‘norm shaper’ regarding the responsibility to protect through the inception,
institutionalization and implementation of the norm in the landmark 2011 Libya intervention.
China layers traditional sovereignty norms under the responsibility to protect, focusing and
narrowing the emerging norm by fortifying the primacy of the state. While I show how China
resists co-option into an evolving ontological order that challenges traditional sovereignty, the
article also addresses the unforeseen consequences of China’s normative efforts that ‘backfired’
to permit the use of the responsibility to protect to justify Libyan regime change. More broadly,
this article speaks to rising powers as agents crafting international order, and the process of
normative resistance that occurs throughout the norm life cycle. I draw from publicly available
documents and semi-structured interviews with Chinese foreign policy and United Nations elites.
Keywords
China, international order, normative resistance, responsibility to protect, rhetorical adaptation,
rising powers
Introduction
How do rising powers execute normative resistance to shape international order – the
norms and institutions that reflect the interests of the dominant state in the system (Barma
Corresponding author:
Courtney J Fung, Department of Politics and Public Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam,
Hong Kong.
Email: cjfung@hku.hk
858118CAC0010.1177/0010836719858118Cooperation and ConflictFung
research-article2019
Article
194 Cooperation and Conflict 55(2)
et al., 2009: 527)? Norms are the ‘collective expectations for the proper behavior of
actors with a given identity’ (Katzenstein, 1996: 5), and matter for international relations
as norms shape outcomes through regulative effects (specifying standards of appropriate
behavior), constitutive effects (specifying actions and behavior commensurate with iden-
tity) and permissive effects (focusing or diverting attention from practices). Implicitly
then, norms ‘help differentiate and hierarchically order actors,’ (Towns, 2012: 189) as it
is great powers that set the normative agenda, so an international order is designed to
benefit the dominant state and status quo powers (Diez, 2005; Jackson, 1975). By exten-
sion, to modify norms is to challenge the dimensions of an existing international order.
While rising powers have a degree of influence, they are yet to be dominant. Although
rising powers may accept they cannot dictate norms, they do not have to passively accept
them either. Indeed, rising powers seek to achieve some degree of legitimacy as leading
states by molding an international order. A growing literature recognizes that rising pow-
ers can at times use norm contestation as a cost-effective means to project power.1 Rising
powers, such as China and Brazil, ‘[vigorously] participate in the formulation of interna-
tional norms...to safeguard our country’s sovereignty, security and development inter-
ests.’ (China Copyright and Media, 2014; on China, see Alden and Large, 2015; Foot,
2014; Foot and Inboden, 2014; Lindsay, 2014–2015; on Brazil, see Abdenur, 2014;
Abdenur and Gama, 2015; Benner, 2013). In so doing, these states actively engage in
resetting norms in line with their own preferences and interests, therefore asserting some
type of control over international order.
Yet, much of the literature assumes that rising powers are problematic normative
actors. Rising powers defy delegation of power from international institutions and coun-
terbalance the existing Western liberal order (Patrick, 2010; Schweller, 2011; Terhalle,
2011). When engaging in international security management, these states are assumed to
be ‘perennial spoilers’ (Thakur, 2016: 162), offering cheap talk with few policy commit-
ments in practice (Focarelli, 2008; Job and Shesterinina, 2014; Stahn, 2007), producing
alternate norms to resist responsibilities (Pu, 2012; Thakur, 2013). Rising powers with
contending visions for an international humanitarian order will reject its core progres-
siveness (Murray and Hehir, 2012). These negative assessments reflect research on inter-
national order and normative change, which simply classifies states as exhibiting
commitment, compliance or non-compliance (Checkel, 2005; Kelley, 2004; Risse
et al., 1999; Simmons, 2009), at the cost of articulating norm resistance strategies (see
Cardenas, 2006; Subotić, 2009; Wiener, 2004; exeptions include Bloomfield, 2016;
Búzás, 2016; Sanders, 2016). With increasing capabilities and status aspirations, not only
are rising powers difficult to socialize (Thies, 2013, 2015), but also are inappropriately
dismissed as ‘autistic’ states in their ostensibly poor understanding of international social
life and responsibilities.2 In so doing, much of the existing scholarship at best unneces-
sarily overlooks and simplifies rising powers’ contributions to normative discourse and
international order-making. Excavation of rising powers’ use of normative resistance
will show that such a derogatory dismissal is shortsighted.
This article views rising powers as agents of productive normative change, and seeks
to remedy academic oversight by using an in-depth case study of a rising China’s nor-
mative resistance regarding the emerging norm of the responsibility to protect.
Sovereignty is not a static norm in international relations, with reinterpretations
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