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14 Seton Hall J. Dipl. & Int'l Rel. 23 (2013)
Somewhere between Great and Small: Disentangling the Conceptual Jumble of Middle, Regional, and Niche Powers

handle is hein.journals/whith14 and id is 159 raw text is: Somewhere Between Great and Small: Disentangling the Conceptual Jumble of Middle, Regional, and 'Niche' Powers by David A. Cooper 'There is a burgeoning strata of pivotal states, dynamic rsing middle powers ... like9 to play an increasingly important role in regional securip and global rule-shaping. 'While there are some hints as to how to differentate between great powers and regional powers, there is stll the problem of making a clear-cut dksnction between regionalpowers and middle powers. '2 Structural schools of International Relations (IR) theory have long indulged a benign disinterest in the intermediate spectrum of states within the power hierarchy that comprises their most elemental conception of the international system. These states are the score or more of supporting actors that do not rank among the few great powers that command the starring roles on the world stage, but that nevertheless boast sufficient national wherewithal to act as consequential regional players or to exert some meaningful degree of global influence. This moderate capacity to affect international affairs sets these supporting actors apart from the much larger cast of bit players, meaning the vast majority of sovereign actors that are too small (geographically or demographically) or too weak (militarily or economically) to exercise any significant independent agency in shaping their external relations. There is now every reason to suppose, however, that scholarly interest in these intermediary actors may be on the rise. Given the widely surmised transformation of today's quasi-hegemonic world order into a more multipolar incarnation, it seems likely that IR scholarship-even to include the stubbornly solipsistic American mainstream version of the discipline will need to look beyond the United States and its handful of closest peers to discern the shape of things to come. While welcoming such an expansive prospect, this article suggests that a pause is in order for some overdue categorical housecleaning. Until relatively recently most David A. Cooper is Professor and Chair of the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. (All views expressed or implied are those of the author and do not represent positions of the U.S. Naval War College or any other affiliation.) 23 The Journal of Diplomac and International Relations