This article proposes a new framework for understanding Indonesia's foreign policy. I argue that, rather than the widely accepted conception of Indonesia as a middle power, defined in terms of size, capability, identity, or status, Indonesia's foreign policy is better characterized by postcolonial liminality: a position in which Indonesia sits between multiple powers. Postcolonial liminality emerges from the tension between a postcolonial state's normative aspiration to transform international order and the pressures of great-power politics, leading the state to embrace a position of “non-belonging.” By historicizing Indonesia's foreign policy since its independence, I argue that Indonesia's foreign policy has been shaped by liminality resulting from a desire to advance global decolonization on the one hand and the pressures of great-power politics during the Cold War on the other. This tension has created a liminal position for Indonesia in its engagement with great powers, though it has maintained its autonomy and an independent foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. The story of Indonesia's postcolonial liminality offers a new perspective on the Global South's foreign policy in the changing global order.
This article examines whether the emergence of the Carney government represents a genuine renewal of Canadian middlepowerism or merely its latest reformulation amid continued structural decline. Tracing the erosion of Canada's post-war middle-power role across two decades of retrenchment, we develop a five-part framework, ordering intent, institution-building, domestic capacity, coalition breadth, and issue-area consistency, to assess the substance of the Carney doctrine articulated at Davos in 2026. We find real, if partial, evidence of renewal: a more coherent theory of world-ordering, concrete coalition-building initiatives with partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and a pivot away from Canada's historical overreliance on the United States. Yet the doctrine's ambitions remain constrained by a hollowed-out foreign policy apparatus, an unresolved legitimacy deficit in the Global South, and fragile domestic political consensus. We conclude that the Carney doctrine represents the most substantive attempt to reconstitute Canadian middlepowerism in a generation, though its ultimate success remains uncertain.
This article uses Social Network Analysis to explain the relationships between middle power MIKTA states and International Organizations. It investigates how social network dynamics shape these countries’ patterns of interaction with seven IOs and questions how they may utilize their networked connections to generate influence within global governance. To do so, the study maps the positional configurations of MIKTA members across organizational networks via a four-criteria framework: institutional and legal depth; political-diplomatic intensity; bureaucratic and operational integration; and project and funding depth. The findings demonstrate that member states are situated in differentiated positions within the multilayered networks of IOs, converging within institutions located at the core of the global system while developing more selective and diversified engagement strategies across regional and alternative platforms.
Argentina's rejection of BRICS + under Javier Milei represents an important case for understanding the opportunities and limits of middle power foreign policy in a fragmented international order. This article argues that the decision reflected both the structural constraints stemming from Argentina's financial dependence on Western institutions and the pro-Western ideological preferences of the libertarian administration. Drawing on the literature on middle powers, foreign policy analysis, and presidential leadership, the article examines the evolution of Argentina's relationship with the BRICS across successive governments, from the Kirchner and Alberto Fernandez administrations’ pursuit of membership, through Macri's pragmatic engagement, to Milei's outright rejection of accession. It argues that the decision formed part of a broader strategy of alignment with the United States and Israel, support for Western security priorities, and the pursuit of OECD membership.
