Introduction

This chapter sets out a framework to explore the differentiation mechanism that generates middle power behaviour in multilateralism. As highlighted in the preceding chapter, while it is commonly accepted that middle powers are inclined towards multilateral diplomacy, less attention has been given to the underlying processes that produce middle power behaviour in such forums. In addition to analysing the structural forces that make it possible for middle powers to adopt certain strategies in multilateralism, this line of research would also offer useful insights to help clarify the distinctions between middle powers and other types of states. Building on the earlier analysis that differentiation has been a core yet understudied dimension in the middle power concept, the framework offered here seeks to make more explicit the basis of differentiation in the study of middle power behaviour. This is achieved by using differentiation theory as a heuristic to explain middle power behaviour. Originating from sociology and anthropology, differentiation theory has typically not occupied a major space in mainstream IR. This is in part due to neorealism’s dominance in IR, which posits that states are functionally alike, with the only difference among them boiling down to the distribution of capabilities (Waltz, 1979, pp 93– 9). Such a reading leads to the assumption that a theory of international politics must be necessarily based on the major powers and that non-major powers, including middle powers, have little role to play in international politics due to the constraints of structure (Waltz, 1979, p 73).

Certainly, it is evident that much of the behaviour approach to middle powers focuses on how these countries could overcome their structural constraints as defined by neorealism. Beeson and Higgott underscore the basis of middle power theory as ‘the ability to use non-material assets’; Cooper, Higgott and Kim Richard Nossal juxtapose the ‘non-structural forms of power and influence’ that middle powers leverage against the ‘structural leadership’ of the US; and, Gilley and O’Neil distinguish middle power theory from ‘more structurally determinative theories of great powers and secondary states’ (Cooper et al, 1993, p 23; Beeson and Higgott, 2014, p 223; Gilley and O’Neil, 2014a, p 18).