The middle power's last hurrah

MIKTA’s failures and increasing insignificance have quashed hopes for a middle power revival

The middle power moment is over. From 1945 to 2000, they were the most influential type of secondary state. MIKTA’s increasing irrelevance suggests we should start the process of re-examining and re-theorizing the role of secondary states outside the constraints placed upon the understanding that was inherited by the scholarly study of middle powers. MIKTA was the middle power’s last hurrah.

In September 2013, the foreign ministers of Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and Australia (MIKTA) met at the sides of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to “find common ground for cooperation” and act as a “facilitator in launching initiatives and implementing global governance reform.” Amidst the G7/8 and BRICS, MIKTA soon took on the guise of a middle power grouping. A wave of scholarship appeared heralding the promise of minilateralism and an imminent middle power revival.

Just under ten years later, MIKTA’s failures and increasing insignificance have quashed hopes for a middle po…