Figure 1.1 The Spectrum of China’s institutional choices
STATUS-QUOSource: Remade by the author referring to Ikenberry, GJ & Lim, D (2017), ‘China’s emerging institutional statecraft: The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the
prospects for counter-hegemony’, Brookings Institution, Project on International Order and Strategy, April.)
The study concluded that under the current decline of multilateralism support from the Trump administration, any attempts from China falling in the spectrum that is against the current order’s interest ‘…. will have greater prospects of success in the absence of any attempt to counter by Washington. This could include obstructing the operation of existing institutions, ignoring them, or opposing them outright.’45 The power dynamic between the rising power and the hegemony in the institution arena also implies challenges faced by the multifaceted liberal international order. This thesis thus aims to assess the extent of plausibility of this conclusion in a narrower aspect focusing on examining the middle options on the spectrum, by examining China’s behaviors in the MDBs, determine which category on the spectrum they have fallen into, and what it would mean to the existing international order.
4. Case Selection, Research Approach, Method, and Limitation
A. Case Selection
45 Ibid.
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Current trends of studying the China effect on institutional environments either emphasize to look from a broader issue scope thus making the UN as a whole their case study, or stress on the impacts of newly created alternative institutions on existing institutional orders thus majorly taking the AIIB and the NDB as their cases. In this thesis the author plans to conduct a coherent and comprehensive research that leads to an objective evaluation of the Chinese dynamics within existing international institutions, which would include three main discussions: the motivation, the strategy, and operation.
Current research seldom gives a comprehensive discussion on all three topics in one study.
Thus, considering the urgent need of resources for infrastructure projects subsequent with China’s rising state capacity, MDBs will be a good aspect to cut in and lead to a conclusion on the alteration of current development finance institutions. Also, to best reflect principals’ influence in IOs, it is necessary to pick cases in which the target principals’
interest and power is reflected significantly (in which China and the United States both hold major voting powers). Consequently, the picks of cases in this thesis will include two major MDBs which both China and the United States highly participate in: The World Bank Group and the Asian Development Bank, representing global MDB and regional MDB respectively.
As for the loan projects selected for additional discussion, aside from the geopolitical and issue proximities, the author also selected the cases based on media attention, project scale (most of the loan amount are divided equally between the AIIB and WB or ADB, except for the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Corridors 2, 3, and 5 Road Project in Tajikistan), and significancy (most of them are the first AIIB co-financed projects in the country).
B. Research Approach
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By reviewing both rational-ideational approaches to study international cooperation, the author has come to a decision that constructivism and classical realism would best explain the theme of power and change in this thesis. The compatibility of classical realists and constructivists has made the change of power structure and ideational factors dependent on each other.46 The defining of China’s state identity and prestige that influence the order of international organizations/global governance would be the core concepts that the author tries to discuss by examining China’s strategy towards MDBs. On the one hand, Hans Morgenthau acknowledges prestige as an “indispensable element of a rational foreign policy” which contributes to the pursuit of state power with diplomatic social intercourses practiced by states.47 On the other hand, constructivists’ logic of appropriateness has the perspective of intersubjective understanding stressing that ideas, norms, and discourse shape the identity perceived between states. Combining the core concepts of classical realism and constructivism thus contributes to the discussion of China as a rising power utilizing diplomatic tools to shape its identity and acquiring state prestige through state interactions within MDBs.
Consequently, fractionated results and approaches should be integrated to look into the questions we try to address here. An introduction to the variables of this research would be elucidated as follow:
Independent Variable
China as a rising power and its influence on the institutional order will be the root and motivation of the whole research. Therefore, the independent variable in this research will
46 See a comprehensive discussion on the Realist-Constructivism approach in J. Samuel Barkin. “Realist Constructivism”. International Studies Review. Fall 2003, Vol. 5 Issue 3, p325-342.
47 Hans J. Morgenthau, Kenneth W. Thompson, W. David Clinton. Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
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be China’s power rise, indicated by economy and political strength, and especially in this thesis its position in international organizations. Identifying its power change thus motivation and capacity to put more resources into MDBs will be discussed in the next chapter. Milner’s study which pulls together perspectives of principal-agent model, hegemon self-binding, and constructivist norm appropriating addresses the reason for great powers to channel its foreign policy through multilateral institutions and would thus be adjusted in accordance with China being the case in this thesis.
Intervening Variables
Three intervention variables will be the main body of discussion in this thesis: voting
behavior, coalition, and norm and standard setting. Each will be examined in the third
and fourth chapter respectively under the discussion of the case study MDBs. Voting behavior will be discussed based on the concept of collective principals and preference aggregation by looking into the decision-making mechanisms, while coalition will be measured with principal proximity and thus its effect on China’s behavior on project support, both taking a principal-agent perspective. On norm and standard setting, the author will be measuring China’s involvement as the Clingendael Report did on measuring Chinese effects on UN norms (personnel change, rhetoric, etc.).