Agency and hedging are not fixed attributes: conditions differ considerably between development and security.
Most current debates on middle powers rest on two assumptions. Either coalitions of middle powers can build real agency and constrain superpowers to some extent. Or hierarchy between states is fixed, and middle powers must hedge or accept subordination to survive.
At an academic workshop in Istanbul on „Middle Power Agency in an Era of Power Contestation“, organised by Prof. Stephan Klingebiel (IDOS), the Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University, and other partners, we tested these assumptions against the conditions of specific issue areas and policy fields.
→ Agency and hedging are not fixed attributes. Scope conditions differ considerably, for example between development and security topics, where the underlying degree of international contestation is not the same.
