Description
This paper engages with recent international relations theorising and scholarship on middle powers in Southeast Asia, particularly as it pertains to Indonesia and Malaysia. These are two rising middle powers under the leadership of senior statesmen Prabowo Subianto and Anwar Ibrahim. Both leaders have recently announced their interest to join BRICS as partners, even though they are also members of ASEAN. What explains this move, and what does it tell us about the characters of Indonesia and Malaysia as mjiddle powers? This paper argues that both leaders have attempted to shape their country's middlepowership in new – but not always successful – ways, against the context of geopolitical rivalry between the great powers (the US and China) and as Muslim-majority countries during a time of war and tension in the Middle East. To substantiate the argument, this paper examines the track record of each leader’s new administration on the foreign policy front to determine two key aspects: how each has shifted attention to new and emerging partnerships, especially within the Global South; and whether both countries have successfully demonstrated norm entrepreneurship in regional and global organization
