As part of the collaborative research project Undermining Hegemony funded by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Ann Towns and I have been analyzing the types and effects of international hierarchies constituted by international norms. In an article published in European Journal of International Relations (2017), we have argued that norms exert social pressure on states by ranking them in moral hierarchies of superior/inferior, but this pressure also varies depending on the type of norms and the position of states in the hierarchy. We have later extended this framework to the study of the effects of international rankings. In a chapter in the edited volume, Undermining American Hegemony, we have analyzed how the different ways in which states compete for status in international rankings undermines US hegemony.

Most recently, in an article published in Cooperation and Conflict with Ann Towns, we have analyzed the changing scores and rank positions of states in five global performance indices, and identified status immobility and ambiguity as structural features of international rankings. We argued that these structural characteristics dissuade states from seeking higher rank positions through improving their scores.