The challenge for the ‘rest’: insertion, agency spaces and recognition in world politics

One of the long-standing questions for scholars and policy-makers—in particular in western capitals—is how to treat the rise of new powers in world politics. Although past research has paved the way for studying power transitions, we still lack conceptual tools to understand the behaviour of peripheral states which move between different power positions. How can we explain, from the point of view of those in the margins, how such power transitions happen? To put it differently, how does a rise to power happen for states in the peripheries and semi-peripheries? I argue in this article that not all states have agentic capacities to act (e.g., to rise to a less peripheral position or to seek better status). There has been a silent and tacit consensus around the fact that peripheral states must first be recognized and accepted by systemic/hierarchy gatekeepers as actors who can fully exercise their agency in global hierarchies. I present the concept of international insertion, which contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how rising powers behave in world politics, and helps to explain why there are no discernible heightened tensions from a strategic–military perspective when peripherical countries move (or try to move) towards mid-system (or improved status) positions within regional and global hierarchies.