Book review : Ascending order : rising powers and the politics of status in international relations

Abstract

Some of the most interesting and influential interventions on status, hierarchy, and stratification in the discipline of International Relations have come from the Cambridge Studies on International Relations series. Rohan Mukherjee’s Ascending Order is a brand-new title that also meets that description. It is a theoretically ambitious and empirically jam-packed contribution that explains why rising powers in global politics “sometimes challenge an international order that enables their growth, and at other times support an order that constrains them” (Abstract). There is indeed a clear, growing category of literature dedicated to social-psychological explanations of status and status-seeking behaviour. Ascending Order is a welcome addition to that category. As a scholar with a different entry point into the status literature, this book effectively challenged how I think about institutional structures, cooperation, competition, and change in IR. [excerpt]