This is a timely and significant volume. At the time of accelerated power change currently underway, the question of how rising powers and established powers manage relations comes to the fore of world politics today. Intellectually, the opening of international relations to sociological insights and constructivism in the last few decades has also prepared IR for the introduction of status as a novel approach in the discipline. At the outset, the editors “define status as collective beliefs about a given state’s ranking on valued attributes (wealth, coercive capacities, culture, demographic position, sociopolitical organization, and diplomatic clout)” (p. 7). For them, status is both a club good (being in a high status group) and a positional good (striving for higher standing). What separates status from other concepts, such as power and prestige, is that it is “a collective, subjective, and relative social relationship involving hierarchy and deference” (p. 13). Status matters because it satisfies a nation’s collective self-esteem and “also brings with it deference to a state’s interests and concerns” (p. 18). With Status in World Politics, the editors seek to break new ground, but they also recognize that this is ultimately an exploratory project on a highly elusive concept. They bring together multiple perspectives, including those of two leading scholars of traditional theories, power transition (William R. Thompson) and hegemony (David A. Lake).

The fundamental question the volume wrestles with concerns the sources of status dissatisfaction. The contributors offer their different takes, often in disagreement with the editors and with one another. Iver Neumann pins status inferiority on failure to meet the civilizational standards, the normative framework of the time. Drawing on social identity theory, Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko underscore the outgoup–ingroup dynamics that characterize rising powers’ relationship with the established powers. T. V. Paul, Mahesh Shankar, and Vincent Pouliot focus on international institutions as the central platform for status struggle. William Wohlforth introduces the notion of status dilemma rooted in mis/self-perception rather than the state’s real security or interest. Xiaoyu Pu and Randall Schweller also recognize the danger of the status dilemma, but they go further by tracing state self-conception to rising powers’ need for status signaling to their domestic audiences. Thomas Volgy and his colleagues see status as a club good by which states strive to join in the ranks of the exclusive major power grouping. This is the position also held by Thompson and Lake. Like Volgy and his colleagues, they too posit uncertainties in status attributions and emphasize diplomatic recognition as the key to status. In her concluding chapter, Anne Clunan offers a trenchant rebuttal of Thompson’s and Lake’s dismissal of status as inconsequential in comparison with power and authority.

As their views on the sources of status discontent differ, the contributors disagree as to why states care about status and how status affects conflict. For Clunan, the stakes cannot be higher. Seeing status as being about state sovereignty and power (broadly defined), she contends that “[i]nternational status politics are about who get to constitute and participate in making international order” (p. 296). For Pu and Schweller, elites in rising powers, such as China, are preoccupied with domestic legitimacy. Thus, their status signaling is primarily targeted at the domestic audience, leading to conspicuous consumption-style military spending like building aircraft carrier fleets that may be counterproductive to their national security. For Wohlforth, the status dilemma poses no less of a danger for competitive power politics and crisis escalation than does the security dilemma. Even the three authors that focus on diplomatic recognition disagree on the significance of status. Volgy and his colleagues consider status as a soft power reserved for the club members of major powers. Uncertainties in status attributions (as measured by diplomatic activities and foreign visits) create categories of states, namely, status-consistent powers, status underachievers, and status overachievers that directly correlate with levels of aggressiveness. Thompson and Lake consider diplomatic symbolism and recognition as a second-order concern. They both introduce another, more consequential driver for competitive great power rivalry. For Thompson it is what he calls “the big S,” which is really about power transition. For Lake it is the struggle for authority, which is defined as “the legitimate right to command” (p. 234), that is, the monopoly of hegemonic control. For these scholars, conferring major power recognition through diplomatic rituals and symbolism bears attention but no comparison with the zero-sum competition for power and hegemony.

The volume features a fine balance between theoretical inquiries and empirical studies. Focusing on rising powers’ strategies, it offers hope of a new kind of revisionism in the age of nuclear weapons and globalization. Neumann’s documentation of the evolution of civilizational standards suggests that a lot is at stake for great powers to renegotiate a proper framework of responsibility and a new set of international norms. Larson and Shevchenko identify three status strategies for rising powers, namely, social competition, mobility, and creativity. They show how India, Brazil, and Turkey have succeeded in improving their global standing by creatively shifting standards of comparison in their favor. Their work highlights a revisionism that eschews unmitigated competition or violence but is orderly and even potentially constructive to global governance. Paul and Shankar’s study on India’s status success through international institutions complements Pouliot’s careful inquiry into the changing basis of status claims from efficiency to fairness surrounding United Nations Security Council reform. Taken together, their work suggests that status politics may play out through international institutions rather than on the battlefield.

The ultimate test concerning status is whether it offers a better approach to world politics than traditionalist theories on power, interest, and security. In fact, there is an ongoing tension within individual chapters and a debate among them over this question throughout the edited volume. Looking at the same historical cases of the Crimean War and the Cold War during the 1970s and 1980s as does Wohlforth, Thompson questions whether the status dilemma adds any significant explanatory value to traditional theories of geopolitical rivalry, hegemonic war, and the security dilemma. One can certainly say the same thing about China’s latest naval expansion, including its development of an ambitious aircraft carrier fleet. Can a major power afford to hold on to a peculiar notion of status in the rough and tumble of world politics? If we believe, as the editors do, that status involves “voluntary conferral” (p. 14) and deference to interests, then the concept may not stand up to the hard edge of real-life great power politics, then and now. No wonder that for Lake, status is what billionaires and Hollywood stars have, but the real power and authority lies with the U.S. president (p. 254). The volume does not settle the debate between power and status. Further research is needed to disentangle how status relates to power and hegemony, as well as also how it differs from the traditional mode of great power politics.

Even for those who do not agree with the centrality of status, the edited volume opens up intellectual horizons in a significant way and casts new light on great power politics and international relations. In particular, it underscores the social, intersubjective component of a state’s standing in world politics, which is often overlooked in the discipline. The editors believe that status matters, but they are not dogmatic. They are inclusive of various theoretical, ontological, and methodological perspectives on this complex subject. Unlike many edited volumes, the thought-provoking chapters are invariably of high quality. Although the collective effort does not provide a new and coherent research program, it shows great promise of one on the question of status. At the policy level, this is a timely addition as we contemplate the possibilities of alternative paths to great power status.