The world has drifted from a post-1945 partial liberal internationalism, led by the USA, towards an emerging bifurcated, fuzzy, multiplex, or - as recently noted in The Financial Times - à la carte order.
The rise of China, increasing Sino-US rivalry, and the emergence of other non-western powers and their revisionist visions of order confronting liberal internationalism and facilitating international fragmentation, are undermining the partial cooperative ethos of 20th-century multilateral institutionalism.
This event will examine the challenges and responses to a geopolitical order in flux. While the context of this workshop is great power competition, the focus is not on the USA and China per se, but rather on those states sitting at the crossroads where the strategic and economic interests of Beijing and Washington collide. In this setting, these states will be addressed as ‘middle powers’.
During this event, experts will examine the extent to which the concept ‘middle power’ is still relevant in a changing world order. The following questions will be addressed:
- How has the concept evolved since initial formulations of ‘good international citizen’ emerged at the time of a tight bipolar Cold War setting?
- How does ‘middlepowerism’ in its modern guise differ from its 20th-century connotation?
- What does its emerging ‘second wind’ formulation portend?
The workshop will discuss these challenges and seek to develop a better conceptual understanding of present manifestations of ‘middlepowermanship’. It will identify how and where middle powers seek to exert influence. It will discuss how they define the national interest and how they might seek to sharpen a compelling diplomatic edge, setting out strategic objectives, priorities, and modalities in a time of bifurcated great power politics.
Additionally, this event will contribute to middle power scholarship as both an analytical and applied policy concept through which to understand and explain the theory and practice of modern-day international relations and foreign policy.
Case studies will include South Korea, Australia, Canada, Brazil, South Africa, and a ranger of other states.
The conference is by invitation only.