Rohan Mukherjee. 2022. Ascending Order: Rising Powers and the Politics of Status in International Institutions. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Excerpt

Ascending Order is an outstanding book. Rohan Mukherjee’s first, it explains rising powers’ behavior with respect to the rules and institutions of the international order. To do so, Mukherjee articulates a novel theory that centers on rising powers’ pursuit of elevated status in the international society of states. Using a clever research design, Mukherjee presents three carefully researched historical cases that illustrate and arguably test the theory. The result is an excellent study that illuminates the changing institutional frameworks of distinctive international orders, explains how rising powers become dissatisfied with those orders, and traces over time the strategies they employ to move up the ranks of those orders, change them, or challenge them. …