Before turning to the empirical analysis that makes up the main body of this book, the present chapter outlines the major conceptual and theoretical assumptions underlying the analysis and presents the state of research. It will become evident that the existing literature does not provide sufficient answers to the question of how China can use a particular regional organization – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – in its efforts to influence and shape the norms guiding international relations. In order to gain answers to this question, I argue that conceptualizing regional organizations (ROs) as a specific type of ‘international society’ can be helpful and that self-created ROs – as new international societies – are ideal platforms to promote a state's norms. When examining the use of an RO as a tool to promote norms internationally, the following three factors should be considered: institutionalization of the norms ‘on paper’, their institutionalization ‘in action’, and dissemination of the norms with the help of the RO.

International organizations as international societies

To examine how states seek to influence the international order by use of international or regional organizations, I rely on the English School of International Relations (IR) and its concept of ‘international society’. Therefore, I will briefly introduce some basic ideas of this approach and their application to this study.

As a theoretical concept, ‘international society’ is based on an ontology of states.