Dr Alexander M. Hynd1, Dr Daniel Connolly
1University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia
Biography:
Alexander M. Hynd is a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, and a CI on the Green Energy Statecraft Project. He has previously held fellowships at UNSW Sydney, CSIS Indonesia, and Pacific Forum. His academic research, which examines the foreign policy identities and behaviours of second tier Indo-Pacific states, has previously been published in leading outlets including International Studies Quarterly. He can be found @AlexanderMHynd
Abstract:
Structural change in the international system is reshaping the capabilities and behaviour of second tier states, while simultaneously breaking down barriers between security and economics. The existing ‘middle power’ literature increasingly struggles to answer first order questions: who are these states, and how do they behave? At the same time, academic use of the term ‘secondary state’ is on the rise as a vague and inclusive term without much of the associated theoretical baggage of the middle power literature. However, secondary states have not yet been satisfactorily defined. In this paper, we offer a new definition and model of secondary states, arguing that they can best be identified and understood as encompassing a dual position within international hierarchies as both (potential) superordinate and (potential) subordinate states. Here we seek to bring together insights from the international relations literature on middle powers and the international political economy’s interest in semi-peripheral states. However, while semi-peripheral states are typically located within critical understandings of hierarchy as fundamentally exploitative, we argue that secondary states can be better located within more recent understandings of hierarchy that emphasize pareto-efficient bilateral relationships.