Positional power: middle power strategies in an era of institutional rivalry.
Middle powers today navigate great power rivalry not by hedging risk but by strategically leveraging this rivalry during positioning windows across competing institutional frameworks to extract concessions from the great powers, shape norms and secure their autonomy. This article introduces position...
| Published in: | International Affairs Vol. 102; no. 4; pp. 1287 - 1316 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Jul2026
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=195222510&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 195222510 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00205850 INA jtl: International Affairs issn: 00205850 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2026 vid: 102 iid: 4 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 195222510 10.1093/ia/iiag056 ppf: 1287 ppct: 29 formats: tig: atl: Positional power: middle power strategies in an era of institutional rivalry. aug: au: Mishra, Amlan affil: International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Kathmandu, Nepal su: Power (Social sciences) Hegemony International organization Institutional economics sug: subj: Power (Social sciences) Hegemony International organization Institutional economics keyword: copyrightHolder:The Royal Institute of International Affairs copyrightYear:2026 digital governance great power competition inLanguage:en institutional rivalry middle powers Positional power publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiag056 security copyrightHolder:The Royal Institute of International Affairs copyrightYear:2026 digital governance great power competition inLanguage:en institutional rivalry middle powers Positional power publisher:Oxford University Press sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiag056 security ab: Middle powers today navigate great power rivalry not by hedging risk but by strategically leveraging this rivalry during positioning windows across competing institutional frameworks to extract concessions from the great powers, shape norms and secure their autonomy. This article introduces positional power as a dynamic and temporal concept that reframes middle power agency beyond the hedging and strategic autonomy scholarship by specifying temporal cycles and their phases through which this agency fluctuates. Opening phases enable competitive signalling and framework experimentation, peak phases generate maximal concession extraction through sustained bidding wars and closure phases impose exclusivity requirements that narrow positioning flexibility. Success depends on three scope conditions: sustained competitive balance between rival great power sponsors of frameworks, genuinely comparable institutional alternatives across policy domains and robust domestic coordination capacity to manage complex multi-directional relationships. Through a comparison of the digital governance and security architecture domains, the analysis reveals how middle powers exploit institutional rivalry dynamics differently across exclusionary and overlapping governance structures. This dynamic lens reframes international order as competitively institutionalized and temporally cyclical, offering actionable principles for middle powers seeking to harness rivalry between great powers, and reveals middle powers as co-authors within the normative international system. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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