Ping-Kuei Chen, in How Do Emerging Powers Advocate Multilateralism? Examining India’s Participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and G20 (Asian Politics & Policy, Volume18, Issue 2 April 2026), argues that India’s engagement with multilateral institutions is driven less by abstract commitment to multilateralism than by selective status-seeking through institutions that offer leadership opportunities and manageable rivalry. As Chen writes, emerging powers prioritise institutions where they can act as “key coordinators to elevate their international status.” Through India’s contrasting experiences in the SCO and G20, Chen argues that agenda-setting power, support from major powers, and internal rivalry explain why emerging powers privilege some institutions over others.
The article traces a shift in India’s posture from declining interest in the SCO to much greater diplomatic investment in the G20. While the SCO once appeared to offer avenues for influence in Central Asia, intensifying rivalry with China and Pakistan and weakening Russian backing narrowed those possibilities. By contrast, the G20 emerged as a more favourable institutional arena, what Chen ultimately calls “a stage for India to showcase its growing capabilities.”
The author identifies three structural drivers behind this shift. First is agenda-setting power, which allows emerging powers to sponsor initiatives and shape cooperation. Second is support from major states, captured in the line that emerging powers “cannot access leadership without fellowship.” Third is the degree of internal rivalry, which determines whether institutions facilitate activism or constrain it. Together these variables form the article’s central explanatory framework.
Empirically, the article contrasts constrained engagement in the SCO with more successful institutional entrepreneurship in the G20. In the SCO, China’s growing influence, Pakistan’s presence, and geopolitical shifts undercut India’s ambitions. In the G20, India used its presidency, Global South outreach, and support for African Union membership to project leadership and recognition.
From this, three analytical claims emerge. First, India’s multilateral engagement is driven by status-seeking through institutional opportunity. Second, India practices selective engagement, investing where rivalry can be managed and leadership roles are meaningful. Third, limits on India’s influence arise less from lack of ambition than from structural constraints within institutions.
The article concludes that India’s movement from the SCO to the G20 reflects a broader strategy of emerging powers seeking recognition through institutions that maximise leadership opportunities and minimise rivalry costs. Yet India remains an emerging coordinator rather than a dominant institutional shaper, with influence still contingent on institutional structure and external support.