This seminar examines the implications that the rise of emerging powers (such as China, India, and Brazil) and the ensuing decline of established powers (such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France) entail for global economic order. Looking at past and, in particular, current power shifts in the international system, we will study the foreign (economic) policy strategies of emerging and established powers. Particular attention will be paid to the question when and how international economic and financial institutions adapt to shifting power distributions among their members. Moreover, we will investigate the consequences of the rise of emerging powers for inter-institutional relationships in various issue-areas of the global political economy. For these purposes, we will draw, among other approaches, on power transition theories, theories of institutional change as well as theories of regime complexes and contested multilateralism.

Students will be asked to prepare theoretically informed and methodologically sound case studies of how particular international institutions or sectoral (sub-)orders of the global political economy have changed in response to shifts in the international distribution of power.