Decrypting the Agency of African Middle Powers in Global Politics: A Global IR Perspective

Abstract

This article reconceptualizes the agenda-setting capacity of African middle powers through the lens of Global International Relations, arguing that these states can become effective actors in shaping political agendas through context-specific strategic practices. It contends that the prevailing categorization in the middle power literature, distinguishing between Western and non-Western middle powers, remains insufficient for explaining the foreign policy behaviour of African middle powers. To address this limitation, this study focuses on South Africa and Nigeria, examining their strategies through five key dimensions: mediation diplomacy, regional leadership and security management, institutional entrepreneurship and forum strategy, climate and development engagements, and South–South partnerships with emerging powers. These repertoires of agency may generate both continental rivalry and complementary forms of cooperation and argues that African middle powers’ global agency depends not only on their individual capacities but also on the patterns of interaction between them and their ability to scale regional influence into global agency.