Abstract
In Post-Western World, Stuenkel focuses on the growing power of China and the other BRICS countries (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa), particularly their efforts to build parallel institutions to those that the United States and other Western powers built after World War II. He therefore asks three main questions: how does multipolarity affect the distribution of power, influence, and ideas in setting the global agenda; how do shifts in power affect international institutions; and will the future world—the end of Western domination—be marked by frequent strife or more peace? Four arguments then contribute to the answers. First, Western-centrism in the study of international relations (IR) leads scholars to underestimate the role that the non-West played in building the current world order. Second, the economic rise of “the rest” will allow other states, particularly China, to increase both military capabilities and soft power. Third, the rising powers, particularly China, are building a parallel world order that will complement and eventually challenge current international institutions. Finally, these new structures are not necessarily “new ideas” but rather vehicles for the rising states to project and use their growing economic and military power.