Content area
Full Text
Alongside analyses on the role of the Great Powers, there has been great interest shown in recent years on what has been called "the rise of the Middle Powers" in the international system.1 At various levels Australia and Australians have adopted the term Middle Power, where it becomes a question of role and indeed of identity for Australia.2 This position and role is captured with comments like "Australians see themselves, and are seen by others, as a middle power."3
In such a vein, this article looks at Australia's strategic discourse in and around government on Australia as a Middle Power. It asks how significant a player Australia is on the world stage, how far it has carved out distinctive normative middle power diplomacy? This article asks what recognition there is at the global level of Australia's economic importance and political clout, and analyzes its role in international and regional organizations? At the regional level, as power balances shift in the Asia- Pacific, the article asks what role is Australia to play as a Middle Power; and how from this Middle Power position point does it conduct its affairs with its two larger Great Power neighbors in the Asia-Pacific, namely the United States and China? The New York Times talked about the rise of the Middle Powers but the article considers whether Australia is faced with a fall from Middle Power status?
Its argument is two-fold. Firstly that in the debate between defining Middle Power in quantitative-power or qualitative-normative terms, Australia should be meaningfully analysed as a Middle Power in quantitative-power terms, despite the qualitative-normative language actually used by its government. Second, the article finds that Australia is faced with Middle Power decline, thereby illustrating in international trends and processes.
Middle Power is by definition something of a comparative term. The title literally means a power (state) that in terms of its power, defined as covering quantitative assets and qualitative influence, lies between big powers and small powers in state rankings. If "power" is an asset, then it can be quantified and ranked in terms of tangible "hard power" aspects of military and economic power. This position that power involves quantity ranking, championed by traditional voices like Carsten Holbraad and Martin Wight, retains its validity.4 It...