The concept of “world majority” has become an essential theoretical tool for Russian foreign policy in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. In this article, Nikolay Silaev, Senior Research Fellow at MGIMO University, tries to link this new Russian concept to “middle power”, and highlights how this may serve the key task of Russia foreign policy in the context of conflict with the West.
The first part of the article introduces the concept of the “world majority” and its links to the concept of “middle power”. According to the author, the concept of “middle power” is gaining a new actualization and needs to be redefined based on the emerging changes in the world. The author urges us to abolish the liberal normative definition of the concept and argues that the only way to define a state as a middle power is by looking into the context of every single situation in international relations. However, the author admits that we still need the liberal metaphor of “middle states” as citizens of the international order.
The author points out that the concept of “world majority” that was created by the Russian scholar Sergey Karaganov has been widely integrated into Russian foreign policy discourse. Searching on the official site of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows 329 documents that use the concept, even though the concept only appeared in the fall of 2022. The concept’s success is due to its ability to respond to different political issues that emerged after the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine. The concept of the “World majority” emphasizes the number of countries that do not support the West’s anti-Russian policies, undermining the efforts to isolate Russia globally. Furthermore, the concept brings Russia closer to the Global South, making the war in Ukraine look like a struggle against Western dominance. However, the author admits that the concept, which has a performative rather than analytical function, has not achieved the same success outside Russia, even in countries considered to be close partners of Moscow.
In the second part, after introducing the concept of “World majority” and its status in international relations, the author moves to talk about the elusive concept of “middle power”. In international relations it is well established that Carsten Hoolbrad is the first scholar to profoundly study the concept. Even though it can be traced back to Chinese works of the 6th century B.C., scholars agree that the modern version of the concept appeared in the middle of the debates about the United Nations in the 40’s, as some states like Brazil, Canada and Australia pushed for a special status for countries that were not considered great powers but held significant resources. At the time, then-Prime Minister of Australia Mcennse King argued that “the simple division of the world into great powers and the others is unreal and extremely dangerous”. Despite the call of those countries being ignored, many scholars believe the creation of the United Nations was the starting moment for the “middle power” category as political behavior in international relations.
Since there is no clear theoretical definition for middle powers, it is very hard to define a state as such. The author thinks that there are two ways to define a middle power. The first way to define a “middle power” is self-proclamation. Some countries tend to self-proclaim themselves as a “middle power” not necessarily by announcing it, but rather by acting like “middle powers”. However, the author raises some concerns about definition by self-proclamation, as it can heavily be dependent on political context, and can shift very quickly. Countries like South Korea, Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia are usually considered as “middle powers”, but they do not declare themselves as such. The second problem is that definition by self-proclamation could narrow the number of “middle powers” down to two countries: Canada and Australia. Here, Nikolay Silaev suggests studying “middle power” as a foreign policy behavior and as a category of states; this means that any country can be defined as a “middle power” simply by endorsing “middle power” foreign policy.
The second possible way to define a country as a “middle power” is based on power indicators. In the hierarchy within the international order, we find super powers and great powers and following them “middle powers”. However, it is very difficult to measure the power of a country and it is even harder in some cases to draw the line between great powers and middle powers. For example, if we agree that the five permanent members of the Security Council are great powers, then how can we categorize India and Germany?
The author observes that the “middle power” concept was developed by the liberal school of international relations in the last quarter of the 20th century. The concept of middle powers helped liberal schools to go beyond power analyses in international relations, and provided a large amount of data to study the role of international organizations through middle powers’ behavior. Moreover, since the middle powers of that period were labeled as liberal democratic regimes, studying them helped also emphasize the role of the political regime’s nature on the country’s foreign policy. In other words, middle powers were identified as the “majority” of the liberal international order. Hence, the author argues that the dominant approach was established in the frame of the liberal tradition. This approach included, beside the self-proclamation and powers factors, some other factors with a strongly expressed normative nature, namely liberal political norms.
Then the author demonstrates the weak points of the behavioral definition which assumes that middle powers tend to promote multilateral solutions for global issues and to seek compromises by playing the role of “good citizens” within the liberal international system. The behavioral definition was too normative and in many cases ignored international actors with the potential to play a middle power role just because they were not liberal enough, as in the case of Iran. The author mentions that this is why some scholars worked to improve the definition of middle powers. According to Sarah Teo, an assistant professor of International Relations in Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, middle powers tend to weaken the stratification of the international system and balancing greater power by strengthening the role of international institutes and multilateral diplomacy and searching for global issues where they can have a unique or a significant role. The author argues that this idea is very close to the concept of “niche diplomacy” used by some middle powers to secure a leading role in a particular issue in international relations.
The author thinks that the diversity of the middle power category pushed some scholars to reject the concept. Beside this, the concept of “middle powers” is facing a great amount of pressure from regionalist theorists, as it may seem that it is useless to talk about middle powers when we have a well-established concept of “regional powers”.
However, the author thinks that we still have a reason to keep the concept of “middle power” alive in international relations. He fairly observes that middle powers are always hyperactive and tend to play a more important role in moments of transition in international relation history. This was the case in the 1940s when the bipolar system was emerging and in the late 1980s, when the two-block system was falling apart and the world was on the verge of a new order. In addition, since we are currently living through a transition moment, we will witness a growing activity of middle powers. Furthermore, it is very difficult to imagine an international order without middle powers due to the hierarchy of such an order.
In the third part of the article, the author examines the effect of the war in Ukraine on the liberal US-led international order and the new role of middle powers as members of the “world majority”. According to Silaev, some view that the Western response to the Russian threat can give a chance to save the international order, while others say that the war in Ukraine has buried the liberal order once and for all as a universal project and as result we will have a world of “multi-orders.” No longer will globalization be the same for the entire world, instead it will be at least two globalizations: liberal western globalization and non-liberal eastern globalization. In such a context, the author admits that the Global South, which consists of a large number of middle powers, has no reason to take sides in the conflict between Russia and the West. However, those countries simultaneously are not in a hurry to leave the international institutes connected to the liberal international order.
The author reckons that political, ideological and institutional diversity will shape the new order, which is why we observe a growing interest in non-Western histories of international relations and non-Western orders. The new international order will witness the participation of a larger number of middle powers with a growing influence in all aspects of global politics.
In this context, the author sees the concept of world majority as a very useful tool for Russia to complete a number of current tasks in Russian foreign policy. However, the author admits that many states would refuse this concept, because they do not want to be categorized by others, since this would mean a lack of power and sovereignty. To solve the issue, he offers to use the concept of middle powers as peacemaking actors, where he considers middle powers as citizens of the world majority. Nevertheless, for a state to be a citizen of the international order it has to be an independent and sovereign actor. No matter how strong the state is, if it is not sovereign, it cannot be a middle power nor a citizen of the international order. Therefore, according to the author the middle powers can be citizens of the international order only if they are willing to be and act as one.