Emerging middle powers and the liberal international order

Abstract

In the post-Cold War era, a number of middle powers rose to prominence thanks to domestic reforms and a favourable international environment of economic and political globalization. These countries began to pursue middle power foreign policies, working actively in international organizations, engaging in areas such as conflict mediation, humanitarian assistance and the promotion of human rights, and helping to diffuse democracy and market reforms in their neighbourhoods. In this way, they contributed to the stability and expansion of the liberal international order in the post-Cold War period. Nonetheless, recent democratic and economic backsliding in these middle powers raises concerns. Focusing on the cases of Turkey and Mexico, this article explores how reversals in democratic and market reforms, exacerbated by recent trends towards deglobalization, influence emerging middle powers' foreign policies and their potential contributions to the liberal international order. I argue that whereas their rise had helped reinforce and expand the liberal international order, emerging middle powers' illiberal turn may have a destabilizing effect on this order.

The main pillars of the liberal international order, such as the open trading regime, human rights, democratic governance and co-management of global problems, are under growing pressure. The debate around the current crisis and the future of this order has so far concentrated on the Great Powers.¹ The United States and its western allies, which played crucial roles in establishing, maintaining and expanding this order, are now contributing to its crisis of legitimacy, as publics in these countries increasingly turn against free trade, globalization and international engagements.² Likewise, among emerging powers it is the rise of the two largest ones, China and India, that has generated the greatest academic and policy concern.³ Largely missing from this debate are emerging middle powers—countries such as South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey—which in terms of capabilities rank between the Great Powers and the small powers that make up the majority of states in the international system.

This article addresses that gap by exploring the impact of emerging middle powers on the liberal international order in the post-Cold War era. This period has been marked by the widespread diffusion of democracy and market reforms, the intensification of globalization and the expansion of the liberal international order.⁴ A number of emerging middle powers have benefited from the international environment of this era and risen to prominence, having in the previous decade launched democratizing and market reforms anchored to regional and international organizations. I argue that these emerging middle powers in turn helped strengthen the liberal international order by playing active roles in international organizations, engaging in issue areas such as human rights, non-proliferation and conflict mediation, and promoting democratic and market economy norms in their neighbourhoods. In this way, they contributed to the three pillars of the Kantian peace, and to the stability and expansion of the liberal international order.⁵

Recent backsliding in liberal reforms in emerging middle powers, however, has cast a shadow over their foreign policy activism. Democratic backsliding has complex domestic causes. In the past decade, these have been exacerbated by developments associated with the unravelling of the liberal international order and deglobalization, such as trade protectionism, anti-immigration sentiments and policies, the stagnation of regional organizations associated with the liberal order and the rise of alternative ones.⁶ These developments have weakened the inter- and transnational sources of support and legitimacy for pro-democracy and pro-market coalitions in new democracies, and instead have protected and legitimized leaders with authoritarian tendencies. Emerging middle powers in crisis, in turn, have retreated from active roles within international organizations and from norm promotion in regional politics, and have put pressure on the stability of the liberal international order.

I explore these arguments through case-studies of Turkey and Mexico, two countries that undertook economic and political reforms, and integrated into global markets, in the 1980s and the 1990s, and on the basis of these changes rose to prominence and played more active regional and international roles in the first decade of the twenty-first century. While neither country has self-identified as a middle power—Turkey in recent decades has sought to reclaim the greatness of the Ottoman empire, and Mexico has sometimes been described as a ‘reluctant middle power’—their material capabilities, willingness to play more active international and regional roles, and incorporation into international forums such as the G20 suggest that a middle-power perspective is useful in analysing their foreign policies.⁷ At the peak of their rise, both Turkey and Mexico contributed to the liberal international order—especially at its periphery, where they were seen as mediators, stabilizers and role models for their respective regions. However, recent backsliding in reforms have led them to retreat from middle-power activism, and a more recent populist and anti-democratic turn, especially in Turkey, has led to foreign policies that impair regional peace and add to the sources of instability in the liberal international order.

Turkey and Mexico, both large, upper-middle-income countries, are ideal cases for exploring the plausibility of the arguments outlined above, as similarities in their economic size, development trajectories and timing of their reforms allow us to control for these factors. Mexico is the 15th largest economy in the world and Turkey the 19th.⁸ Their state-led development trajectories in the twentieth century, and their economic liberalization in the 1980s, also show parallels. In the 1990s, both countries sought membership of regional trade agreements, which motivated further reforms. Notwithstanding these similarities, Mexico and Turkey show variation in terms of their geographical proximity to Great Powers and their domestic conditions, which allows us to explore how these factors have influenced their middle-power activism.

Middle powers in world politics

This article combines a positional and a behavioural approach to defining middle powers.⁹ While I consider material capabilities a prerequisite for middle-power potential, I also argue that a country needs to combine such capabilities with a foreign policy focus on multilateralism, mediation, coalition-building and niche diplomacy to have middle-power status.¹⁰ Traditionally, the middle-power literature has focused on wealthy, stable and democratic middle states such as Canada and Australia, but more recently a number of emerging powers such as South Africa, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia have been analysed through the middle-power perspective.¹¹ These countries are middle powers in the sense that they possess mid-range material capabilities and their foreign policies have tended towards coalition-building, with a preference for multilateralism and niche diplomacy. They are ‘emerging’ in the sense that they have been on an upward trajectory in terms of military and economic capabilities; they have shown diplomatic ambition in pursuit of higher status in world affairs; and their new-found status is recognized among their peers and established powers, for instance, by their elevation into informal clubs such as the G20.¹²

Middle powers' foreign policies are shaped primarily by their limited capabilities compared to Great Powers, and share a number of common features. First, middle powers favour international institutions and multilateralism because of the potential of these mechanisms to constrain the most powerful states.¹³ Within international institutions, they tend to join coalitions of like-minded states to gain leverage, such as the Cairns Group in the Uruguay Round of the GATT.¹⁴ Second, owing to their limited capabilities, they focus their diplomatic efforts on specific issue areas of global governance where they can make a mark, rather than attempting to cover the entire range. Canadian leadership on the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines, the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, and the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty are examples of such ‘niche diplomacy’.¹⁵ Third, middle powers tend to play important roles in conflict mediation and negotiation, thanks to their reputation as honest brokers.¹⁶

Material capabilities enable middle powers to pursue activist policies, but how this activism becomes manifest in practice depends on a number of factors. Systemically, periods of uncertainty such as the aftermath of the Cold War or financial crises provide more opportunities for middle-power activism, as does the diffusion of power in the international system.¹⁷ Domestically, as Ravenhill shows in the case of Canada and Australia, leadership and party ideologies may influence levels of activism.¹⁸ In the case of emerging middle powers, favourable domestic conditions such as sustained economic growth and democratization can allow an emerging middle power to devote more resources and energy to foreign policy, and to act more confidently on the international scene.¹⁹ Rapidly growing material capabilities may also motivate emerging middle powers to seek enhanced status in the international system through a more activist role.²⁰

Middle powers and the liberal international order

During the Cold War, middle powers in Europe and east Asia supported the United States in building and preserving the liberal international order.²¹ They benefited from the security and economic openness provided by this order, and were committed to maintaining its stability.²² Middle powers that rose to prominence in the post-Cold War era have likewise benefited from and contributed to the stability of the liberal international order. They have participated actively in multilateral institutions such as the UN, and forums such as the G20, where they have joined coalitions of like-minded states to pursue common goals. They have sought to play bridge-building roles between developed and developing countries in these organizations, and to broaden the range of interests pursued by them, thus helping to increase their legitimacy. Emerging middle powers have also contributed to issue areas beyond their immediate self-interest, such as the promotion of human rights, humanitarian aid and conflict mediation.

I argue that emerging middle powers of the post-Cold War era have made an additional contribution to the liberal international order as role models and promoters of democratic and market reforms in their neighbourhoods. These countries rose to prominence thanks to domestic reforms launched in the previous decades, which helped them achieve economic growth, political openness and stability. These improved domestic conditions have enabled them to project soft power and to support democratization, market reforms, economic interdependence and cooperation in their neighbourhoods. In this way, emerging middle powers have helped extend the norms of the liberal international order and the Kantian peace to countries at its periphery.

Emerging middle powers may have advantages in norm promotion compared to western powers and international organizations. They often share economic and political background conditions, and have cultural, linguistic and religious links with nearby countries that ease norm transmission.²³ The fact that their own reforms are works-in-progress allows emerging middle powers to avoid the hierarchical relationship that inevitably forms when established democracies seek to diffuse norms to others.²⁴ Moreover, emerging middle powers may help their neighbours adapt global norms to local conditions, as they have developed their own experience and knowledge of how these universal norms work in practice.

Whereas successful domestic reforms and growing capabilities enable emerging middle powers to pursue foreign policies that contribute to the liberal international order, backsliding in reforms may undermine their middle-power foreign policies in various ways. First, domestic crises and democratic backsliding may make emerging middle powers' foreign policies more unpredictable and weaken their commitment to multilateralism. Internal crises may promote a more aggressive foreign policy or hostility towards international organizations and norms, as leaders seek to divert attention from domestic problems or shift blame onto international actors. Emerging middle powers in crisis may also resort to more transactionalist strategies with international and regional organizations and forgo longer-term relationships built on trust. As a consequence, emerging middle powers can no longer be counted on as reliable coalition partners, or as builders of consensus and bridges in international organizations. Second, emerging middle powers' contributions to niche areas such as human rights, humanitarian aid and conflict mediation may suffer, as their resources and willingness to engage in these areas dwindle, and their neutrality becomes questionable.

Third, emerging middle powers' regional norm promotion efforts may be undermined by domestic problems and backsliding in reforms. Being an acceptable role model requires credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of other states. If economic institutions no longer deliver the expected results, it is unlikely that they will serve as exemplars for other countries. If a country's democratic institutions and values are under attack, it cannot credibly be a democratic role model for countries in its vicinity, and its norm diffusion efforts may appear hypocritical. As the former foreign minister of Australia, Gareth Evans, notes, ‘any country which preaches abroad what it fails to practice at home cannot be expected to be taken very seriously for very long’.²⁵

In sum, whereas emerging middle powers' rise to prominence contributed to the stability of the liberal international order, their stagnation and decline might be detrimental to it, at a time when it is already challenged on multiple fronts, as Kornprobst and Paul outline.²⁶ As they decline, emerging middle powers no longer help to support and legitimize multilateral organizations, and their contributions to niche areas and to norm promotion in the periphery dwindle. Rather than acting as stabilizers and conflict mediators, they may even become spoilers of peace in their regions. While the literature to date has for the most part emphasized middle powers' positive impact on the international order, this article highlights how their decline may destabilize both their own regions and the international order. Emerging middle powers do not challenge the liberal international order as Great Powers are capable of doing; nonetheless, they may still chip away at its stability.

The rise and decline of emerging middle powers: Turkey and Mexico

Despite being allied with the western powers and members of key postwar multilateral institutions, Turkey and Mexico remained at the margins of the liberal international order throughout the Cold War, owing to their weak democracies and closed economies. This changed in the 1980s when both countries embarked on economic reforms, followed in the next decade by the deepening and institutionalization of market reforms and steps towards political liberalization. Economic interdependence with the West, and ties to regional and international organizations, helped strengthen and anchor these reforms,²⁷ as a consequence of which both countries reached greater political openness and economic growth in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and began to play middle-power roles. Nonetheless, the domestic conditions that enabled this middle-power activism proved short-lived. By the mid 2010s, both countries experienced significant domestic problems and a loss of momentum in their middle-power foreign policies.

Turkey

From the birth of the republic in 1923 until 1945, when it entered the Second World War on the side of the Allied powers, Turkish foreign policy followed a neutral line. After the war, Soviet demands regarding the Bosporus and the north-eastern territory of Turkey paved the way for the Truman Declaration, and Turkey's eventual inclusion in NATO in 1952.²⁸ Over the ensuing years Turkey also became a member of the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and the Council of Europe, and remained committed to NATO and the western powers throughout the Cold War. It was also committed domestically to a project of westernization and secularization that had its roots in the late Ottoman period.²⁹ Nevertheless, owing to its weak democratic and human rights credentials, and its relatively closed economy, Turkey did not become fully embedded in the liberal international order until recent decades.

This process began in 1980 when the Turkish government introduced an economic programme to deregulate the economy, reduce the state's role in it and integrate it with the world economy.³⁰ The reforms continued after the military overthrow of the civilian government in the same year and after the return to civilian rule in 1983, and deepened in the following decade. On the foreign policy front, the end of the Cold War presented Turkey with the opportunity to become a more assertive player. Its active foreign policy towards the former Soviet republics in central Asia was a step in this direction, as were its rapprochement with Greece, its efforts at reconciliation between Israel and Palestine, and its role in the conflicts in the Balkans.³¹ Nonetheless, frequent financial crises, weak coalition governments, ethnic tensions and human rights abuses constrained Turkey's foreign policy activism during the 1990s.

The end of the Cold War also presented a challenge for Turkey, as its human rights abuses and anti-democratic practices increasingly came under scrutiny from its western allies.³² Incremental reforms in these areas had begun after the return to civilian politics in 1983, and these continued through the 1990s, with international and regional treaties and organizations serving as external anchors. In the mid- and late 1980s, Turkey signed the conventions of the Council of Europe and the UN on the prevention of torture and inhumane treatment, and recognized the right of its citizens to make individual complaints to the European Court of Human Rights.

A major impetus for democratic reforms came in 1999, when the EU granted candidate status to Turkey. With the possibility of EU membership in sight, the coalition government pushed through political and legal reforms that strengthened the rights and liberties of citizens and civil society groups.³³ After the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, the commitment to EU membership grew stronger, and the pace of democratic reforms accelerated. Most significantly, the influence of the military over civilian politics was gradually reduced.³⁴

On the economic front, the financial and banking crisis of 2000–2001 led to significant reforms that transformed Turkey's economic policy framework to a less discretionary, more rule-based model.³⁵ These reforms were aided by the twin anchors of the IMF and the EU. Laws adopted in 2001 and 2002 ensured the independence of the Turkish central bank, made public procurement more transparent, restructured public banks, established independent regulatory agencies and strengthened existing ones. These institutional improvements—combined with a favourable international environment—contributed to average annual economic growth of 7 per cent from 2002 to 2007, and to increasing productivity, declining poverty rates, a reduction in inequality, and the expansion of health and education infrastructure.³⁶

The democratic opening and high levels of growth achieved during the first decade of the century gave impetus to Turkey's rise as a significant regional and international actor that truly embraced the norms of the liberal international order for the first time. This new visibility both enabled and motivated Turkish elites to assume a more assertive regional and international role in search of greater status and recognition.³⁷ It also prompted them to adopt a foreign policy that emphasized multilateralism, and contributions in areas such as peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and mediation. From the mid-2000 onwards, Turkey began to take an active part in international forums such as the UN and the G20. In 2009–2010 it was elected to fill a UN non-permanent Security Council seat for the first time since 1961. In its official statement after winning the vote in the UN, the Turkish foreign ministry emphasized the country's commitment to the peaceful settlement of regional disputes and its determination to play the facilitator to this end, and to contribute to interfaith dialogue.³⁸ Meanwhile, Turkey's participation in UN, EU and NATO-led peacekeeping operations increased from 2001 onwards, and it became an important player in humanitarian assistance, surpassing in its contributions many traditional and emerging donors.³⁹

In parallel with these developments, the focus of Turkish foreign policy began to shift from Europe and the United States towards the Middle East and North Africa, central Asia, the Balkans and the Black Sea region.⁴⁰ Part of the motivation for this new agenda was economic. While the EU continued to be Turkey's most important economic partner, in the 2000s trade and investment ties with other neighbouring regions grew impressively, generating incentives to create a favourable commercial and investment environment for Turkish companies in these areas.⁴¹ This agenda was also driven by a new understanding of Turkey's place in regional and world affairs—as a central country with a privileged geographical position, and historical and cultural ties to its neighbourhood—under the intellectual leadership of Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign policy adviser to the prime minister (2003–2009), and later minister of foreign affairs (2009–2014) and prime minister (2014–2016). As part of this vision, Turkey launched a policy of ‘zero problems’ with its neighbours, and tried to resolve outstanding issues with Armenia, Cyprus and Syria.⁴² It thus began to contribute, directly and indirectly, to reducing conflicts, strengthening economic relations and forging regional cooperation in its neighbourhood.

In this period, Turkey's increased material capabilities and soft power both enabled and motivated it to engage in norm promotion in its neighbouring regions, through multiple channels.⁴³ First, the country's recent democratic and economic accomplishments had a demonstrative effect in its neighbourhood, especially in the Middle East. Surveys in the Arab world showed that up to 80 per cent of those surveyed had a positive opinion of Turkey in 2009–2010, and 66 per cent thought that Turkey could be a model for the Arab world.⁴⁴ More specifically, Turkey's combination of democracy and secularism with Islam, and its economic model, which generated high levels of growth and delivered tangible improvements in people's lives, became an inspiration for leaders and publics alike. In the post-Arab Spring period, Ennahda in Tunisia, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria, talked openly about Turkey and the AKP as role models for their countries and parties.⁴⁵ In the economic arena, Syria sought to learn from Turkish banking experience, and businesspeople from countries around the Black Sea approached the Turkish Industry and Business Association to seek assistance in establishing an umbrella association and learning from Turkey's business experience.⁴⁶

Second, Turkish non-governmental organizations, which had flourished in the more permissive political environment since the 1990s, became transnational promoters of democracy, and of human and women's rights norms.⁴⁷ The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, for instance, assisted in drafting a higher education law for private universities and a reform of local government in Syria, as well as the establishment of a gender institute in the Middle East and North Africa region as part of the Democracy Assistance Dialogue.⁴⁸

Finally, the government actively promoted democratic, human rights and market reforms in neighbouring countries. The budget of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency increased significantly after 2004, and the content and geographic scope of its activities diversified.⁴⁹ The agency became a key supporter of capacity-building and institutional development efforts in the neighbourhood.⁵⁰ The Turkish police, judiciary, the central bank and competition authority, and the Turkish Statistical Institute, recognized as capable and prestigious institutions, all engaged in capacity-building and training activities for their peers in the Middle East, North Africa, central Asia and the Balkans.⁵¹

As an emerging middle power, Turkey's foreign policy activism and its credibility as a regional norm promoter depended on its own democratic credentials and economic performance, both of which showed signs of fragility in the early 2010s. Political reforms had already slowed down in the previous decade, when membership negotiations with the EU stalled owing to the opposition of some member states.⁵² Anti-democratic practices on the part of the government became more troubling after the 2011 elections, won by the AKP for the third time in a row with a majority of the votes; they became yet more noticeable after the Gezi Park protests in 2013, and reached a new peak after the failed coup attempt in 2016.⁵³ The AKP gradually eliminated most veto players in the political system and centralized power in the executive, a process that culminated in 2017 with the introduction of a formal presidential regime endowed with extensive powers and few checks and balances.⁵⁴ The waning influence of the EU over the Turkish democratization process, the Ankara regime's repression of opponents—selective at first, widespread and intensive after 2013—and the creation of a business class and media loyal to the government through an elaborate system of rewards and punishments left pro-reform forces in the country weak and divided.⁵⁵

The economy, too, was mired in problems, as the government increasingly replaced rule-based governance with centralized and discretionary decision-making.⁵⁶ A law introduced in 2011 weakened the independence and autonomy of regulatory agencies. The central bank came under constant attack from the government for not reducing interest rates. The Public Procurement Law adopted in 2002 was amended a total of 150 times in the following decade to allow for discretionary decision-making in awarding public contracts.⁵⁷ Such was the deterioration of the institutional environment that, even though the economy bounced back from the slowdown related to the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, it did not regain the performance levels of the period between 2002 and 2007, and in 2018 it entered a currency and debt crisis.⁵⁸

As the country drifted into authoritarianism and economic malaise, its middle-power foreign policy became less tenable. At the global level, its active presence in international institutions waned, and its leaders, most notably President Erdogan, began to attack multilateral institutions, and question international and regional treaties that reflected commitments to key values of the liberal international order. He vocally challenged the legitimacy of the UN Security Council with the motto ‘the world is bigger than five’, and questioned the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Turkey is a signatory, for not allowing the country to acquire nuclear weapons.⁵⁹ Relations with the EU took an increasingly transactionalist turn, as exemplified by the refugee deal signed in 2016 that promised visa-free movement for Turkish citizens within the EU and the re-initiation of membership talks in return for Turkey preventing Syrian refugees from reaching the EU member states.⁶⁰ Erdogan also signalled his willingness to abandon membership talks with the EU and join alternative alliances such as the Shanghai Cooperation Council.⁶¹ Turkey's decision in 2017 to purchase the S-400 air defence system from Russia created friction with its NATO allies, prompting the Trump administration to impose economic sanctions on the country in December 2020.⁶²

Turkey's regional activism, and its role as a negotiator and stabilizer in its own neighbourhood, also suffered from its backsliding in reforms. The country has recently resorted frequently to ‘coercive diplomacy’, and has become entangled in regional conflicts in northern Iraq, Syria and Libya.⁶³ This more confrontational foreign policy stance has turned it into a spoiler of regional peace, for example in the dispute with Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean over drilling rights, and in its unconditional support for Azerbaijan in the fighting that broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.⁶⁴ Turkey's attractiveness as a role model has likewise been diminished by the backsliding in its liberalizing reforms and the slowdown in its economy.⁶⁵ By 2013, surveys in the Arab world showed that those who held a positive view of Turkey had declined to 60 per cent, and those who thought that Turkey could be a model for the Arab world had declined to 50 per cent.⁶⁶

Mexico

Mexico traditionally followed a cautious, reserved and defensive foreign policy, and adhered strictly to the principles of non-intervention and equality of nations, avoiding pronouncements either giving or explicitly denying recognition to foreign governments.⁶⁷ In the aftermath of the Second World War, it embraced multilateralism as a balance against its highly unequal relationship with the United States, and joined postwar multilateral organizations such as the UN, the IMF and the World Bank. Yet, like Turkey, it remained at the margins of the liberal international order owing to its weak democracy and closed economy. Moreover, it kept a low profile in regional and international politics to avoid coming into conflict with the United States. During the Cold War it served only once as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, in 1980–81, and did not participate in peacekeeping operations or send troops abroad.⁶⁸

As in the case of Turkey, Mexico's economy and politics began to change in the 1980s. After a major debt crisis in 1982, Mexico embarked on reforms to deregulate and privatize its economy and liberalize its trade.⁶⁹ In 1986 it joined the GATT, and in the early 1990s began to negotiate a trade agreement with the United States and Canada. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into force in 1994, became an anchor for economic and political reforms and the internationalization of the Mexican economy.⁷⁰ Mexico also joined the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping in 1993 and the OECD in 1994, and started to negotiate a free trade agreement with the EU in 1998. Throughout the 1990s, the government also introduced various political reforms to respond to growing electoral competition at the local and state levels, an active civil society, and transnational pressures arising from its new international commitments. It established the National Human Rights Commission, accepted the jurisdiction of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, and established and reformed the Federal Electoral Institute.⁷¹ The turning point for Mexican democracy came in the presidential elections of 2000, when victory by the opposition candidate Vicente Fox ended 70 years of uninterrupted rule by the dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Fox's election also marked a turning point for Mexican foreign policy. Democratization boosted the country's soft power, and enabled it to play an energetic middle-power role that emphasized human rights and democracy. In a departure from the non-interventionist tradition in Mexican foreign policy, the Fox administration promoted human rights and democracy regionally and around the world.⁷² It supported the inclusion of democracy clauses in regional agreements, which previous administrations had resisted, and promoted political opening and respect for human rights in Cuba.⁷³ In 2011 the emphasis on protection and promotion of human rights was included in the constitution among the core principles of Mexican foreign policy.

Mexico also became more active in international forums. It served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in 2002–2003, and again in 2009–2010, and hosted a number of international and regional summits. During the administration of Felipe Calderón (2006–2012), Mexico assumed the presidency of the newly established Human Rights Council of the UN for the period 2006–2007. It hosted the COP-16 climate negotiations in 2010, and the G20 in 2012, winning praise for its leadership of both.⁷⁴ It was one of the promoters of the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons Initiative, whose second conference it hosted in 2014.⁷⁵

Mexico's take-off as a middle power in the 2000s also enabled it to pursue a more activist regional policy. As president-elect, Fox's first foreign trip was to Latin America where he sought closer political cooperation with the region's governments. In Colombia, his administration offered to help mediate between the government and the rebel groups in the country's civil conflict.⁷⁶ In Central America, the Fox administration launched the Puebla–Panama Plan, which promoted the development of Mexico's south-eastern region along with other areas of Central America. Fox's successor Felipe Calderón renamed and revitalized this plan, though its impact remained limited.⁷⁷ Mexico also directed technical assistance and human expertise to Central America and the Caribbean.⁷⁸ Its prestigious National Electoral Institute offered training for election officials, and its regulatory agencies provided technical assistance and cooperation, thus helping the diffusion of electoral standards and market economy regulations in Mexico's neighbourhood.⁷⁹ Mexico also sought more engagement with South American countries. In 2011, it launched the Pacific Alliance together with Chile, Colombia and Peru, countries with which Mexico shares a liberal economic orientation. It also created, together with Brazil, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the only regional grouping that brings together all 33 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mexico's activist regional strategies, however, face limitations in Central and South America. On the one hand, Mexico's highly asymmetric economic interdependence with the United States, which is also host to more than 11 million Mexican-born migrants, means that Mexico's foreign policy is dominated by bilateral relations with its northern neighbour.⁸⁰ Mexico has 50 consulates in the United States, the largest consular network that any country has in another one, representing about a third of all Mexican diplomatic missions across the world.⁸¹ On the other hand, Central and South American countries are sceptical about Mexico's foreign policy towards their region, which they perceive to be too closely bound to US interests.⁸² In South America, Mexico's influence is further constrained by Brazil's leading role.⁸³ Thus, while Mexico engaged in regional activism and norm diffusion as it rose to prominence, its efforts and impact remained more limited than Turkey's, owing to its geographical proximity to and interdependence with the United States.

It is hard to pinpoint an exact turning point when Mexico's middle-power moment began to fade, but by the mid-2010s the country was mired in crises on a number of fronts. Criminal violence started to rise from 2007 onwards, reaching a peak in 2011 and undermining political stability.⁸⁴ The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 and US economic contraction also severely affected the Mexican economy. President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012–2018) came to power with the promise of sweeping domestic reforms, high economic growth, and the transformation of Mexico into an actor with global responsibility.⁸⁵ However, the initial optimism surrounding the Pact for Mexico, an agreement between the major parties in the Congress on reforms, soon dwindled when the reform process became gridlocked in the Congress. The disappearance of 43 students in July 2014 in Iguala in the state of Guerrero, and the subsequent revelations of the involvement of security forces and organized crime in the event, was a turning point for the president. Peña Nieto's handling of the investigation diminished his popular support, and the rest of his term was marked by allegations of corruption, low economic growth, and instability caused by violence.⁸⁶

As its domestic economic and political stability eroded, Mexico gradually retreated from its regional activism. Peña Nieto did not attend the 2015 and 2017 summits of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and Mexico had no role to play in regional developments such as the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States in 2014, or in the Colombian peace process.⁸⁷ In addition to domestic instability and the president's unpopularity, external developments such as Donald Trump's candidacy for and subsequent election to the US presidency in 2016 posed a significant challenge for Mexico, and consumed its foreign policy resources and energy.⁸⁸ The uncertainty caused by the renegotiation of NAFTA, the Trump administration's threat of sanctions, and the overall more protectionist stance of the United States under Trump have added to Mexico's economic woes in recent years.⁸⁹

The sweeping election victory of Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador (AMLO) and his party, the National Regeneration Movement, in the presidential, congressional and gubernatorial elections of 2018 raised the public's expectations for reforms that could bring domestic stability to the country and raise its regional and international standing. Yet the record of the administration during its first two years has not been positive. AMLO's actions have centralized decision-making in the executive, eroded institutional checks on power and weakened independent centres of power, raising concerns for Mexican democracy.⁹⁰ Despite his promise of a more progressive approach on the campaign trail, like his predecessors he turned to the military to quell violent crime, and established a more militarized police force, the National Guard.⁹¹ The administration's fiscal austerity policies have crippled the state bureaucracy, and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic difficulties have generated criticism.⁹²

The AMLO administration has also backed away from an activist foreign policy at the regional and international levels. For more than a year into his presidency, AMLO did not make any foreign visits; he also skipped his first UN General Assembly, the G20 in Japan and the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.⁹³ The administration appears to lack a clear strategy on the foreign policy front, and austerity policies are further constraining the foreign ministry's already meagre budget.⁹⁴ On the regional front, the AMLO administration offered a comprehensive plan for the development of Central American countries.⁹⁵ Yet this appeared to be a reaction to US pressure to stem the tide of migrants from Central America, rather than a genuinely proactive initiative. On the issue of Venezuela, Mexico reversed its critical stance towards the Maduro government, retreated from the Lima Group that it had helped to found in 2017 together with 11 Latin American governments and Canada to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Venezuelan crisis, and embraced a return to the country's traditional foreign policy principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries.⁹⁶

Conclusion

In this article I have argued that middle powers that rose to prominence in the post-Cold War period pursued activist foreign policies and contributed positively to the liberal international order by working through international organizations, contributing to global governance in niche areas, and helping to diffuse democracy and market regulations in their neighbourhoods. However, recent democratic and economic backsliding in these countries has reduced their soft power and foreign policy activism, to the detriment of the liberal international order.

To illustrate these arguments, I have explored the rise and recent decline of two emerging middle powers, Turkey and Mexico. These countries began to pursue middle-power foreign policies in the first decade of the twenty-first century, thanks to their growing material capabilities and soft power. They worked actively and in coalition with like-minded states in multilateral organizations, contributed in niche areas, and promoted democratic and economic reforms in their respective neighbourhoods, thereby deepening and extending the reach of the liberal international order in those regions. However, in the next decade, as their democratic and economic reforms started to unravel, both countries gradually retreated from active and constructive roles in multilateral organizations, their contributions to niche areas declined and their regional norm promotion efforts became less credible.

Significant backsliding in democratic and economic reforms has eroded Turkey's soft power and its willingness and capability to act as a norm diffuser, mediator, and promoter of regional stability and cooperation. The government has become more critical of multilateral organizations, and has increasingly adopted an aggressive foreign policy, getting embroiled in a number of regional conflicts and tensions with its neighbours. In Mexico, an increase in drug-related violence, a dismal growth record and corruption scandals held back the pursuit of Peña Nieto's ambitions to turn Mexico into an actor with global responsibility. AMLO's combination of populism and fiscal conservatism, along with his elimination of checks on executive power, have led to a more isolationist, reactive and less predictable foreign policy. Given their limited capabilities compared to Great Powers, the retreat of these countries from positive middle-power roles should not have a devastating impact on the liberal international order. Nonetheless, the loss of their influence as system stabilizers, legitimizers and norm diffusers at the periphery of the liberal international order, where democratic and market economy norms are less institutionalized and illiberal Great Powers are increasingly consolidating their influence, is troubling.

The findings of the article emphasize the importance of international support for democratization and economic reforms in emerging countries. While the impulses for reform in Turkey and Mexico were domestically rooted, they were aided by globalization, positive engagement on the part of the US and the EU, and anchoring of reforms by international and regional organizations. These domestic reforms, in turn, spurred an era of middle-power activism that was short-lived, but that nonetheless proved that democratically oriented emerging middle powers can contribute to regional peace and the stability of the international liberal order. Similarly, the roots of recent deterioration in democracy and market reforms in these countries are primarily domestic, but are exacerbated by the current environment of deglobalization and loss of appetite for engagement on the part of western powers. Renewed and more constructive engagement of emerging middle powers by the Biden administration in the United States and European governments, based on common interests and values of the liberal international order, is therefore of the utmost importance to bring these countries back on board to restore a workable version of that order.

Footnotes

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