Field Overlaps, Normativity, and the Contestation of Practices in China's Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

Abstract China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a cornerstone of Xi Jinping's foreign policy. Chinese ministries, companies, and universities set up diplomatic networks, build roads and harbors, and facilitate scientific projects and educational programs to implement the BRI. Whereas some see the BRI as an integration project, others contend that it challenges the existing international order. We introduce the concept of field overlaps to study the normativity of international practices and argue that state and non-state actors contest international practices by drawing on competing normative inventories anchored in overlapping fields. We illustrate this argument by zooming in on China's infrastructural and educational practices. Their normativity comes to the fore in their ongoing contestation as they travel diplomatic, economic, security, and educational fields. Focusing on field overlaps provides a promising avenue for studying how actors stabilize, modify, or disrupt the normativity of international practices.