Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 6, 2025

Differential Authority and the International Public Goods Provision of Emerging Powers

(Abstract)

Cao Dejun

Global governance is complex and multi-layered. Against the backdrop of a shifting international order, the agency of emerging powers in supplying international public goods has become increasingly evident. Existing research on this topic, however, has largely overlooked the underlying logic of moral identity competition embedded within institutional, power-based, and ideational rivalries. Since the end of the Cold War, the normative framework of international relations has undergone profound changes, and the provision of international public goods must now meet the international community’s expectations for norms and performance. From the perspective of global governance, moral identity competition encourages emerging powers to weigh differences in the functions and spatial positioning of the goods they provide, and to build differential authority based on their ecological niches. Differential authority refers to the differentiated recognition that great powers receive across various governance domains, expressed in horizontal functional “difference” and vertical positional “order.” To align with global normative expectations and demonstrate effective governance, emerging powers adopt distinct supply strategies shaped by mechanisms of social learning and role differentiation. Since the early 21st century, emerging powers such as China, India, and Brazil have pursued differentiated strategies—misplaced supply, alternative supply, collaborative supply, and embedded supply—offering new approaches to building an inclusive and shared model of global governance.