Description
In global politics, “outsider” is both a descriptive and performative label; it names who does not belong while constituting the very boundaries of belonging. Yet the category remains analytically neglected in International Relations. This paper theorizes “outsiderness” as a relational and performative condition that becomes visible during moments of geopolitical transformation. As global blocs such as the EU, NATO, BRICS, and the Arctic Council expand, fracture, and compete for normative authority, they redraw the symbolic and institutional edges of inclusion, deciding who may enter, observe, or narrate a region. The Arctic provides a revealing case study to explore this dynamic; non-Arctic actors such as EU, China, and Turkey are alternately dismissed as “outsiders,” performing proximity, legitimacy, and expertise to move from the edge toward the center of governance. Methodologically, the paper combines discourse and performance analysis of diplomatic statements, policy imaginaries, and symbolic gestures to trace how outsiderness is enacted and contested. It argues that “outsider geopolitics” reveals not geographical exclusion but the ongoing performative production of regionalism, exposing how global hierarchies are reproduced and occasionally subverted through the language of inclusion, distance, and desire for entry.
