A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE USE OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS BY MIDDLE POWERS IN FOREIGN POLICY

Abstract

Middle powers are neither system-making great powers nor rule-bound small states, yet they can shape outcomes by leveraging international organizations (IOs). Despite extensive scholarship on middle powers and international organizations as separate fields, the theoretical intersection—specifically, how and under what conditions middle powers strategically employ IOs as foreign policy instruments—remains insufficiently theorized. This article develops a theoretical framework that explains how and why middle powers use IOs as foreign policy instruments under conditions of institutionalized, multilayered global governance. Adopting a qualitative theoretical methodology grounded in analytical synthesis and conceptual abstraction, the study integrates insights from middle-power scholarship, the literature on international organizations, and legitimacy theory. Building on middle-power scholarship and the literature on international organizations and legitimacy, the framework rests on three claims. First, IOs function as power multipliers that help middle powers compensate for limited material capabilities. Second, middle powers act with strategic selectivity, investing in organizations whose rules, procedures, and normative profiles align with their goals. Third, influence is generated through three interlocking mechanisms: (i) legitimacy production that lowers political costs and increases acceptance; (ii) agenda-setting and framing that shapes processes and issue definitions; and (iii) coalition-building that creates collective leverage against asymmetries. By integrating rationalist and constructivist insights, the article reframes middle powers as strategic users of institutional authority rather than passive participants. This hybrid approach transcends the rationalist-constructivist dichotomy by demonstrating that middle powers operate simultaneously through the logic of consequences and the logic of appropriateness, with context-dependent weighting between interest-based and norm-based dynamics. The framework offers an analytically portable "reading scheme" for comparative research and specifies scope conditions under which institutional strategies are more or less likely to yield influence. Specifically, the framework exhibits higher explanatory power in highly institutionalized organizations with procedural density and strong normative legitimacy production, while acknowledging its limitations in contexts characterized by great power veto structures, weighted voting systems, or dominant informal mechanisms. It also outlines avenues for future empirical tests across different organizations, issue areas, and contexts. Positioned as a middle-range theory rather than a universal model, this framework aims to provide a conceptually transferable analytical schema that can guide comparative case studies, process tracing, and qualitative comparative analysis of middle power behaviors in diverse institutional settings.