Southern middle powers and the liberal international order: The options for Brazil and South Africa
| Author | Charalampos Efstathopoulos |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020211042915 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essay |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2021, Vol. 76(3) 384–403
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020211042915
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Southern middle powers and
the liberal international
order: The options for Brazil
and South Africa
Charalampos Efstathopoulos
Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK
Abstract
The current challenges facing the liberal international order suggest there is greater
need for reassessing the roles that different categories of states may perform in support
of this order. Middle powers appear as leading candidates for a supportive role to the
liberal order due to their historical commitment to internationalism, coalition building
with like-minded democracies and activism within multilateral institutions. Such ori-
entation, however, is questionable for Southern middle powers that often appear
ambivalent in their foreign policies, restricted in their collaboration with other de-
mocracies and selective in their multilateral initiatives. This article discusses the cases of
Brazil and South Africa to examine the current options for Southern middle powers
and concludes that despite certain limitations, South Africa is, overall, closer to as-
suming a supportive stance towards the liberal international order and its institutions.
Keywords
middle powers, internationalism, liberal international order, Brazil, South Africa
Reassessing the systemic role of Southern middle powers is imperative in light o f recent
developments. As certain Western democracies face the challenge of populism, and as
Corresponding author:
Charalampos Efstathopoulos, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Penglais,
Ceredigion, Wales, Aberystwyth SY23 3FL, UK.
Email: che15@aber.ac.uk
certain Southern powers project their authoritarian credentials, the middle powers of
the Global South face the critical question of whether, and to what extent, they can
engage with the liberal international order. Despite the structural and material
constraints they face, middle powers can, in theory, forge autonomous paths to
international order, and exert meaningful agency in alleviating the challenges this
order faces. They have some capacity to pursue internationalisms that promote
collective responses to global challenges, to coordinate coalitions of like-minded
actors, and to sustain the operation of existing multilateral institutions. Such ori-
entation, however, is currently more of an open question as states that have his-
torically displayed the capabilities and behaviours of middle powers are now reluctant
to assume a clearer position in response to global challenges like climate change and
COVID-19.
In the academic literature, the middle power role has been extensively examined
in recent years, with emphasis placed on middle power leadership and interna-
tionalism, and how such attributes allow for some meaningful degree of influence
in international politics. Middle power agency is understood as being conditioned
by the constraints imposed by great powers, but also working beyond balance of
power politics to pursue some vision of international order through diplomatic
initiatives that can contribute to the collective management of that order.
1
While
certain works discuss the “systemic impact”of middle powers,
2
this article seeks to
reconsider the current systemic trajectories of Southern middle powers as these
states now face the option of either undertaking a more definitive stance as de-
mocracies that can help resolve global challenges, or moving towards policymaking
choices that effectively dissolve any adherence towards liberal internationalism and the
liberal order itself.
Seeking to provide an answer, this article accordingly enquires: to what extent is
the current role of Southern middle powers supportive of the liberal international
order? The analysis addresses this question by focussing on Brazil and South
Africa, two middle powers of the post–Cold War period that have now entered a
prolonged phase of ambivalence and face the critical choice of whether to regain a
firm course of internationalism or shift to other forms of foreign policy. Brazil is
often understood as striving to emerge as a major actor on the global stage, but today
remains confined to a middle power position due to the domestic and international
1. YoungmiChoi, “A middle power’s trade policy under U.S.-China FTA competition: South Korea’s double
hedging FTA diplomacy,”ContemporaryPolitics 24, no. 2 (2018): 233–249; H ˚
akan Edstr¨
om and Jacob
Westberg, “The Defense Strategies of Middle Powers: Competingfor security, influence and status in an
era of unipolar demise,”Comparative Strategy 39, no. 2 (2020): 171–190; Monica S. Jeong, “What kind of
“real world”makes South Korea’s middle power categorization necessary?”Pacific Focus 35, no. 2
(2020): 250–277; Emel Parlar Dal, “Profiling middle powers in global governance and the Turkish case:
An introduction,”in Emel Parlar Dal, ed., Middle Powers in Global Governance: The Rise of Turkey
(Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 1–31.
2. Andrew Carr, “Is Australia a middle power? A systemic impact approach,”Australian Journal of Inter-
national Affairs 68, no. 1 (2014): 70–84.
Efstathopoulos 385
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