Conclusion: Delusions of grandeur in the Goldilocks Zone
| Author | Bruce Gilley |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020702016684859 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
International Journal
2016, Vol. 71(4) 651–658
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702016684859
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Scholarly Essay
Conclusion: Delusions
of grandeur in the
Goldilocks Zone
Bruce Gilley
Centre for International and Defence Policy, Queen’s University,
Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Department of Political Science,
Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract
The challenges for middle powers relate directly to their unstable positional status in
the international system. Yet this unique position in the international Goldilocks Zone
of having not too much power but power enough also gives them unique opportunities.
Successful middle powers recognize their middle power status and then formulate a
strategic diplomacy suited to this status in which they accept the centrality of great
power interests and roles. Too many middle powers fail to do this because they enter-
tain delusions of grandeur, and when those delusions are revealed they fall into isolation
or disengagement from global governance.
Keywords
Niche diplomacy, BRICS, MIKTA, G20, middle powers
Somewhere between the world’s great powers and its small powers is a group of
countries that are weak enough to not threaten anyone or to carry much historical
baggage but strong enough to have the means and interests to engage in effective
global leadership. Grouping together the countries that inhabit this ‘‘Goldilocks
Zone’’ into a coherent conceptual category (in the sense of a category specified by a
set of traits that are all present for all members and only for those members) can be
justified because of its value for descriptive inference. It can serve as a useful indi-
cator of what the distribution of power looks like in the international system and as
a reliable indicator of who is up and who is down. Let’s call these middle powers.
The identification of the middle power stratum can be achieved using a variety
of positional measures—economic size, network influence, military capacity, pol-
itical memberships, etc. Whatever measures are used, cluster analysis suggests that
this stratum will consist roughly of the ‘‘10th to 30th’’ ranked countries across a
Corresponding author:
Bruce Gilley, Department of Political Science, Portland State University, 825 SW Broadway, Portland,
Oregon, OR 97232, USA.
Email: gilleyb@pdx.edu
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