Global power shifts driven by the rise of China, India, and Brazil, alongside the relative decline of the United States and its allies, are placing the international order and the international institutions supporting it under significant pressure to adapt. In some institutions, this has indeed led to institutional adaptation, whereas in others, very similar attempts at adaptation have failed. This project examines the conditions under which institutional adaptation succeeds or fails. First, the project shows that institutional adaptation occurs particularly through forms of “co-optation,” whereby declining powers seek to integrate rising powers into existing institutional orders. Second, it demonstrates that co-optation depends to a considerable extent on the distribution of power between rising and declining states within specific policy areas. Third, the findings suggest that co-optation stabilises institutions only when declining powers act “generously” toward rising powers.
Publications
- Knill, Christoph; Kruck, Andreas; Rittberger, Berthold; Seelkopf, Laura & Zangl, Bernhard. (2025). Failing through success? How stable liberal orders become self-destabilising, Journal of European Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2025.2580519
- Heinkelmann-Wild, T., Kruck, A., & Zangl, B. (2024). The cooptation dilemma: Explaining US contestation of the liberal trade order. Global Studies Quarterly, 4(2), ksae024.
- Frankenbach, P., Kruck, A., & Zangl, B. (2021). India’s recognition as a nuclear power: A case of strategic cooptation. Contemporary Security Policy, 42(4), 530-553.
- Kruck, A., & Zangl, B. (2020). The adjustment of international institutions to global power shifts: A framework for analysis. Global Policy, 11, 5-16.