Vicious Competition In The International System And International Standard Degradation During The Spring And Autumn Period

During the Spring and Autumn Period, great powers made attempts toestablish an international institution by carrying forward some of thecooperation norms inherited from the Western Zhou Dynasty’s grand unitysystem. The institution was designed to promote cooperation and securityof its members and to achieve order and stability within in theinternational system. However, the resulted international institutionwas troubled by the occurrence of insufficient public goods, high costsof maintenance, emergent of conflicts between member states,deterioration of the survival conditions of the member states anddegeneration of cooperation norms. Within the international institutionof the Spring and Autumn Period, great powers were engaged in fiercecompetitions for leadership. Due to factors such as institutionalarrangement, competition structure of great powers, the zero-sum natureof leadership competitions, etc., competitors chose to violatecooperation norms in the manner of cut-throat competition, which led tothe collapse of the cooperation institution and the degeneration of norms.The international system consequently evolved from relatively orderly,norm-based state of the Spring and Autumn Period to the Hobbesian stateof the Warring States Period. The establishment of internationalinstitutions does not necessarily imply the increase of overall benefitsof participants. Institutions also carries other important socialinterests, which make them not free from internal competitions. Undercertain circumstances, these competitions might even damage cooperationnorms and destroy the cooperation institutions. That phenomenon is easilybe overlooked by some view of neoliberalism and constructivism inclinedto liberalism. The internal competitions in international institutionduring the Spring and Autumn Period shows that great powers which have collective identity、high social status and internalized cooperationnorms could also compete fiercely for the leadership of the institution.