Status‐Seeking Through Disaster Relief: India and China’s Response to Turkey–Syria Earthquakes

Dhanasree Jayaram, Lina Gong and Manaswini Dahagam Srivatsav
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Dhanasree Jayaram: Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India
Lina Gong: Department of International Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University, China
Manaswini Dahagam Srivatsav: Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India

Politics and Governance, 2025, vol. 13

Abstract: Disaster relief cooperation has emerged as an active area of status-seeking by major powers. In recent decades, India and China have increasingly leveraged their disaster management capabilities to project their power globally. Disaster relief cooperation can be viewed through the lenses of the logics of both appropriateness and consequences. As “non-Western” powers, they have conventionally been known to contest disaster relief norms perceived by them as Western. Simultaneously, they have varied status-seeking approaches, guided by distinct geopolitical equations and involving different actors. Against this background, the article analyses the patterns and drivers of India and China’s status-seeking behaviour through disaster relief cooperation using the frameworks of the logics of appropriateness and consequences, in the case of the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes. It delineates the actors and capabilities involved in their overseas disaster relief activities as well as their implications. It also investigates the strategic and normative imperatives, and geopolitical considerations of their disaster relief cooperation. The article argues that the status-seeking behaviour of India and China through disaster relief cooperation with Turkey and Syria is guided by an interplay between the logic of appropriateness and the logic of consequences, based on their motivations, capacities, and distinct contexts of the recipient countries.

Keywords: China; disaster relief cooperation; India; logic of appropriateness; logic of consequences; status‐seeking; Turkey–Syria earthquakes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:poango:v13:y:2025:a:9072

DOI: 10.17645/pag.9072

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