Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Announces New Middle Powers Project

October 16, 2024 – Cambridge, MA - Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has launched a new research project, investigating how “middle powers” are both navigating and shaping an international landscape marked by U.S.-China competition. The project, in collaboration with Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, includes 15 scholars from around the world examining 13 countries in Africa, Eurasia, the Middle East, and Latin America. 

The Middle Powers Project will be co-directed by Meghan L. O'Sullivan, Director of the Belter Center for Science and International Affairs and Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), and Rana Mitter, S.T. Lee Chair in U.S.-Asia Relations at HKS. Anthony Saich, Director of the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs at HKS, and Edward Cunningham, Director of Ash Center China Programs, Director of the Asia Energy and Sustainability Initiative, and Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS, are also key pillars of the effort as project leaders from the Ash Center. Also on the project’s leadership team is Moeed Yusuf, a Belfer Center senior fellow who serves as Vice Chancellor of Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan, and was formerly Pakistan’s national security adviser. 

“One of the defining features in this era of geopolitics is the prominence and influence of the countries often called ‘middle powers,’” said Meghan L. O’Sullivan. “Countries from India and Indonesia to Nigeria and Brazil are seeking to pursue their interests delicately amid a rapidly changing international order. Their policy decisions are central to the U.S.-China competition and to international efforts to grapple with technological advance, the energy transition, and much more. I am excited to work with colleagues from around the world on our new research project, bringing diverse perspectives and deep expertise to bear on this consequential theme.”  

“Both China and the U.S. are keen to create new partnerships and connections in the emerging markets and societies of the world,” said Rana Mitter. “Both are finding that the ‘middle powers’ of the world have their own agenda when it comes to security, economics and values, culture and ideology. This project is particularly compelling because it places the focus on how the Great Power competition looks from places as far apart as Abuja, Jakarta, Hanoi, and Cairo.  I’m enthused to find out working with brilliant analysts from the middle powers just how the world will look in the 2030s, as geopolitics reshapes itself around us.” 

At the project’s launch event this month, five scholars, from Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, Turkey, and the United States, joined O’Sullivan in discussing the aspirations of middle powers for strategic autonomy and influence in today’s international order. The launch event came amid a two-day project convening, where participants reviewed case studies currently in progress on 13 countries and shared expertise on issues with which these countries are grappling. 

 “In an increasingly tense stand-off between the US and China, how other nations seek to navigate to promote their own national interest is a key challenge,” said Anthony Saich. “At the Rajawali Institute we are delighted to collaborate with the Belfer Center to investigate the challenges and seek to find solutions.”  

“In the context of great power competition, 'middle powers' are charting their own course,” said Edward Cunningham. “We are excited to join forces with our colleagues at the Belfer Center and globally to examine how such nations are pursuing strategic autonomy - particularly in Asia. These national decisions are fundamentally reshaping our world in ways we are only beginning to understand, and must understand better.” 

The project will produce country case studies and outputs on the global issues that are both shaping and being shaped by middle powers. Project outputs, including reports, online features, and events, will be presented starting in 2025. 

Countries and authors involved in the project are:  

Brazil: Oliver Stuenkel, Associate Professor at the School of International Relations at Fundacao Getulio Vargas and Belter Center Visiting Scholar

Egypt: Karim Haggag, Professor of Practice at the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo and former career Egyptian diplomat; 

India: C. Raja Mohan, Non-Resident Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute, and Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies of the National University of Singapore;  

Indonesia: co-authors Muhamad Chatib Basri, Former Minister of Finance of Indonesia and former Chairman of the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board and Evan Laksmana, Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia Military Modernization at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  

Kazakhstan: Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow and Director of the Program on Central Asia at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard;   

Nigeria: John Kayode Fayemi, Visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre at King's College London, former Governor of Ekiti State and Nigerian Minister of Mines and Steel Development;  

Pakistan: Moeed Yusuf, Vice Chancellor of Beacon house National University, Belter Center Senior Fellow, and former National Security Advisor of Pakistan;  

Saudi Arabia: Bernard Haykel, Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton;  

Singapore: Joseph Liow, Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and Tan Kah Kee Chair in Comparative and International Politics at Nanyang Technological University;  

South Africa: Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, Professor in International and Diplomacy Studies at the Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs of the University of South Africa 

Turkey: Senem Aydin-Düzgit, Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University, Pierre Keller Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School;  

United Arab Emirates: Ebtesam Al Ketbi, President and Founder of the Emirates Policy Center;  

Vietnam: co-authors Vu Thanh Tu Anh, Dean of the Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management at Fulbright University Vietnam and Huynh Trung Dung, Lead Faculty for Public Policy at the YSEALI Academy at Fulbright University Vietnam. 

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs is the hub of Harvard Kennedy School’s research and policy outreach on international affairs, science, and technology. In 2021, the Belfer Center was named a “Center of Excellence” by the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, in recognition of the Center’s sixth consecutive year as the world’s #1 university-affiliated think tank.  

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation develops ideas and fosters practices for equal and inclusive, multiracial and multiethnic democracy and self-governance. 

For media enquiries, contact Shannon Felton Spence, shannon_spence@hks.harvard.edu