The Rise of Emerging Powers: A Challenge to Norms of Differential Treatment for Developing Countries?

• Applicant: Dr. Clara Weinhardt
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 393138162

• Final Report Year: 2023

Final Report Abstract

As global power is shiqing, many scholars argue that global order is changing. Our project set out to examine how the rise of Brazil, China, and India affects global norms that provide differential treatment to developing countries as a group. Since decolonisation, several global regimes grant 'disadvantaged' developing country members exemptions, flexibilities, or access to financial assistance. Yet, the rise of Brazil, lndia, China, and others has led to pressure to adjust these rights to new economic realities. Based an case studies in global trade, climate, and health governance, we find, first, that differential treatment for developing countries as a group is increasingly unmade. This is particularly evident in the climate and trade regimes. Second, special rights have been unmade in different ways in the various international (sub-)regimes we have studied. While the substantive scope of differential treatment provisions has been curtailed in some areas, states have individualised commitments or limited access to special rights to the so-called least-developed countries (LDCs) in others. Third, the unmaking of special rights is incomplete, and we also observe resilience - in particular with regard to financing for global health. Unpacking these tensions sheds new light an the evolving principles of global order as multilateral institutions adjust to global power shifts. Rather than asking what global power shifts mean for 'the West', we examine what they imply for a system of internationally recognised rules that explicitly sought to benefit developing countries - and hence various countries within the Global South. We thus show that changes in global order are not limited to 'Western' norms and principles but affect a wider set of global rules that Global South countries have been pushing for. Here, our findings indicate that effects of global power shifts an the unmaking or resilience of these special rights of developing countries differ across global regimes. At the same time, the comparative dimension of our study allows us to tease out common trends: an average, differential treatment is becoming more fragmented, more individualised and more informal. These changes affect who benefits or loses from the unmaking that we observe. Here, the implications of the normative changes we observe affect different (political) groups of developing countries within the Global South differently. The unmaking of differential treatment for developing countries as a group will hit countries that are neither LDCs nor rising powers hardest.

Publications

• Emerging Powers in the World Trading System: Contestation of the Developing Country Status and the Reproduction of Inequalities. Global Society, 34(3), 388-408.
  Weinhardt, Clara
  
• Differential treatment for developing countries in the WTO: the unmaking of the North–South distinction in a multipolar world. Third World Quarterly, 43(1), 74-93.
  Weinhardt, Clara & Schöfer, Till
  
• The Developed/Developing Country Division in the Global Economy: Losing Traction in the COVID-19 Era?. Global Perspectives, 2(1).
  Brandi, Clara & Weinhardt, Clara
  
• The unmaking of developing countries' special rights in global trade poliBcs”, ECPR blog “The Loop”, December 2021
  Schöfer, T. & Weinhardt, C.
  
• WHO-Finanzierung: Das doppelte Spiel der Schwellenländer
  Eckl, J.
  
• Developing-country status at the WTO: the divergent strategies of Brazil, India and China. International Affairs, 98(6), 1937-1957.
  Schöfer, Till & Weinhardt, Clara
  
• “Are Brazil, India and China advantaged at the World Trade OrganizaBon?” International Affairs blog. 13 December 2022
  Schöfer, T. & Weinhardt, C.
  
• “Faces of Trade Diplomacy”. Online gallery that centres on making global trade diplomacy more relatable; builds on DFG research project. Gallery developed in collaboration with photographer Chantelle Gomez, portraits taken at the WTO shortly before the 12th Ministerial Conference. Launch of the gallery in June 2022
  Weinhardt, C. & Gomez, C.
  
• From Developing Country Leader to Flexible Negotiator: New Directions in Brazilian Trade Strategy. World Trade Review, 22(5), 629-656.
  Schöfer, Till
  
• Multi-layered differentiation in the climate regime: the gradual path from Rio to Paris. Environmental Politics, 33(2), 240-258.
  Dingwerth, Klaus
  
• The Unmaking of Special Rights. Edward Elgar Publishing.
  Dingwerth, Klaus; Weinhardt, Clara; Eckl, Julian; Schöfer, Till & Herr, Simon