Reinventing the Middle Kingdom : A case study of Chinese spread of authoritarianism through International Organizations

Abstract: The liberal theory of international relations primarily associates international cooperation with liberal democratic states, to the point that a theory of scholars Poast and Urpelainen claim that international cooperation with consolidated democracies through international organizations may boost the democratization of or at least prevent democratic backsliding in non-consolidated democracies. This paper investigates the possibility of decoupling these theories from democracies and democratizing by examining whether Chinese efforts within the framework of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road foreign policy project have a similar but reverse effect on its target states, prompting developments in authoritarian directions. Though the results of study are inconclusive on account of the relative youth of the studied IOs, they indicate a strong possibility that could do with further study.