Rhetorical adaptation, normative resistance and international order-making: China’s advancement of the responsibility to protect

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.

Harmonization to Exceptionalism

“…China has applied mutual non-interference in the internal affairs of each other as the core of its international order (Carlson 2005). Nevertheless, increasing evidence suggests that as China's power has risen, its so-called value-grounded diplomacy is no longer limited to non-interference (Mastro 2014;Fung 2020); instead, it calls for reforming the structure of the processes of the global governance system (Xi 2018). Also, China reiterates that the Chinese civilization engages in an altruistic use of power, which shapes benevolence in foreign policy frameworks.…”

The EU-China Security Paradox

“…Furthermore, it has invoked the R2P code in multiple countries since then: Congo and Burundi (2006), Darfur (2006), Libya, Côte d'Ivoire, South Sudan and Yemen (2011), Mali (2012), Somalia (2013), and Syria (2014, after a period of opposition) under the condition that all parties involved must approve of the external intervention. Yet China interprets the doctrine of responsibility to protect differently than most of the other UN member states (Fung, 2020) that adhere to this principle. It urges a constrained, multilateral approach to the application of R2P.…”

Women’s Inclusion in the Malian Peace Negotiations: Norms and Practices

“…Antje Wiener identified contestation as key to norm constitution and change, where the concept of norm contestation is understood as the discursive practice of objecting to or expressing disapproval of norms (through protest, rejection, negation, or accusation) (Wiener 2004: 201;2009: 177 Resistance to norms has however also been conceptualized as a process that may promote social buy-in when potential stakeholders have the opportunity to modify the norm, for example through localization, contestation or rhetorical adaptation (Acharya 2004;Gould and Onuf 2009;Wiener 2014;Fung 2020). Theories of localization and translation also emphasise processes of adaptation and negotiation rather than outright objection (Acharya 2004;Zwingel 2012).…”

“…Further, Stimmer and Wisken (2019: 516) recently identify behavioral practices of contestation such as inaction, ineffective implementation and acts of sabotage as influencing norm change. Resistance to norms may thus be explicit, through protest, rejection or accusation, or implicit, through inaction, ineffective implementation or sabotage (Wiener 2014; Panke and Petersohn 2016; Stimmer and Wisken 2019; Fung 2020).…”

“…Resistance to norms has however also been conceptualized as a process that may promote social buy‐in when potential stakeholders have the opportunity to modify the norm, for example through localization, contestation or rhetorical adaptation (Acharya 2004; Gould and Onuf 2009; Wiener 2014; 2018; Fung 2020). Theories of localization and translation also emphasise processes of adaptation and negotiation rather than outright objection (Acharya 2004; Zwingel 2012).…”