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There is today a strong sense, among scholars and practitioners of international relations, that the 21 st century witnesses profound shifts in the global configuration of power. The International Relations (IR) discourse after the end of the cold war was shaped by the wide-spread conviction that the ideological and geopolitical struggles between great powers were over and the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy and market economy 1 would gradually lead to peace, prosperity and cooperation in a complex global governance system. Only two decades later, the IR discourse talks of a deep crisis or even the end of the Western-liberal world order (see Jacques 2009, Sørensen 2011, Friedman/Oskanian/Pardo 2013, Morgan 2013, Acharya 2014a, Stuenkel 2016). The shifts in the economic, political and military distribution of power from the ‘West’to the ‘East’2 are represented by the discourse as the main embodiment of this crisis: While so-called emerging powers such as China, India and Russia could expand their power and act with a greater self-confidence on the world stage, the global leadership role of the US and its Western allies has declined after the military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and the recent economic and financial crisis. The global power shifts are, therefore, seen as a challenge or even threat to the Western-dominated order and its values such as the rule of law, free trade, liberal democracy and human rights (see Cox 2007, Ikenberry 2008, Mearsheimer 2010, Kupchan 2012, Layne 2012). At the same time, there is today a greater awareness in the IR discourse for the potential repercussions of this shift in material …