The regional powers’ research programme in international relations: a critical assessment

Abstract

More than a decade has passed since an intense research interest in Regional Powers arose in IR. However, this original impetus has of late notoriously tailed off. This was in part the result of an unfavourable international environment but also, I argue, of an exhaustion of the programme’s conceptual and analytical framework as such. This can be specially seen in three fronts. First, in the inability of the initial theoretical framing to account for new empirical observations, and an insufficient engagement of Area Studies research for revising these initial propositions; second, in a conceptualisation of global-level influences that has been too restrictive and theoretically impairing; and third, in the difficulties encountered by efforts to explain the formation of regional orders by leveraging regional powers as main explanatory variables. A second argument is that some of the fresh approaches needed to overcome these problems might be found in Comparative Regionalism.