ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book investigates China's evolving notions of great power responsibility, both in general and in the particular context of international climate politics. It builds on and contributes to the English School of international relations, which maintains that states form an international society, the workings of which great powers have special responsibility to safeguard. The book demonstrates that secondary institutions function as bridges between primary institutions and real-world politics performed by state and non-state actors on a daily basis. It examines the institutionalisation of the international norm of climate responsibility, which cannot be located in a single secondary institution. By analysing China's contribution to the institutionalisation of the international norm of climate responsibility in the UNFCCC, the book also contributes to the Navari-Knudsen working group's research agenda on the role of secondary institutions in international society.
