Brokering Peace: Emerging Middle Powers, Agency and Mediation

Abstract

This article examines the role of mediation in emerging middle power conduct in an increasingly fragmented world. It asks why and how emerging middle powers seek mediator roles in international conflicts, focusing on Turkey and Indonesia's responses to the Russia–Ukraine war. Through content analysis of public documents and interviews with diplomats, it argues that the war has enabled emerging middle powers to seek influence by emphasising their bridge-building capacity. While the conventional literature on middle powers explains such activism in terms of the traditional leadership–followership dynamic—where middle powers are seen as followers who act as ‘good international citizens’—our findings suggest that international systemic instability, the search for status and domestic factors provide better explanations for their actions. Specifically, we argue that the saliency of middle power followership diminishes as a source of status under conditions of structural uncertainty and manifests through stability-seeking conduct like mediation. Concurrently, we show that mediatory approaches are motivated not only by international considerations but also significantly by domestic elite concerns. These findings contribute to middle power scholarship by illustrating how these states use mediation to seek both domestic regime support and international recognition, offering a more nuanced understanding of emerging middle power agency.