On 24 October 2022, Dr. Eva Seiwert, Associate Research Fellow at the OSCE Academy, delivered an offline public lecture on "Expanding the 'Shanghai Cooperation Organization Family': China's Search for Partners with Shared Worldviews." Students of the MA Programme in Politics and Security Programme also took part in the lecture within the International Relations course led by Dr. Viktoria Akchurina.
In this lecture, Dr. Seiwert presented her research on Russia and China’s shared ambition of influencing the international normative order through the SCO. It is based on qualitative content analysis of SCO and Chinese government documents semi-structured expert interviews conducted in China in 2018. By exploring how the SCO engages in cooperation with partner states and organizations, the study reveals that the SCO’s activities and influence already reach far beyond its own region. The lecture was followed by Q&A session giving the participants and students a chance to ask their questions and discuss normative views of SCO and Member States of the organization.