Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory



April 17, 2018

"The rise of China and other great powers raises important questions about the persistence and stability of the ‘liberal international order’. Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers provides a new perspective on these questions by offering a novel theory of revisionist challenges to international order. It argues that rising powers sometimes seem to face the condition of ‘status immobility’, which activates social psychological and domestic political forces that push them toward lashing out in protest against status quo rules, norms, and institutions. The theory illuminates important but often-overlooked dynamics that contributed to the most significant revisionist challenges in modern history. The book highlights the importance of status in world politics, and further advances a new understanding of this concept’s role in foreign policy."

Steven Ward is an assistant professor in the Government Department at Cornell University, and a Carnegie Junior Faculty Fellow and Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He holds a PhD in Government and an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University. His current research project explores the relationship between status concerns and domestic politics in the context of relative decline. His work has appeared in Security Studies and International Studies Quarterly, and he is the author of Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers (Cambridge University Press, 2017).


Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) sponsored this talk entitled “Status and the Challenge of Rising Powers” by Steven Ward on Apr. 17, 2018.

LLNL-VIDEO-752587