Rising powers and global cooperation: boundary work in infant formula standards under the WTO regime

Abstract There is a pressing need for global cooperation across a wide range of issues, and norms and practices to promote cooperation have proliferated. Yet our understanding of the effects of these cooperative infrastructures remains limited. We ask two questions: how have norms promoting cooperation shaped global standard-setting practices, and what are their implications for existing global power inequities? Existing research suggests that standard-setters respond to norms of global cooperation with boundary work to construct their legitimacy vis-à-vis new norms. Yet this research has paid scant attention to how boundary work is shaped by global power dynamics. Exploring the case of regulation in the infant formula sector, we argue that the norms for food safety standards established through the World Trade Organization brought an expansion of the practices and institutional infrastructures of global cooperation. However, broader global power dynamics, specifically neo-liberal approaches to scientific funding and the rise of China, shaped the degree to which cooperation reinforced or transformed existing power inequities within standard-setting. These findings have practical implications for policy-makers and standard-setters as they aim to establish enforceable, harmonized standards for transnational trade amid growing contention in the world order. Growing multipolarity may create possibilities for deeper forms of collaboration and multilateralism, if political will allows; however, more must be done to grapple with the concerns of countries in the global South if meaningful cooperation is the goal.