The Middle Power Moment: A New Basis for Cooperation between Indonesia and Australia?

In this chapter, Beeson and Lee canvass the prospects of middle power cooperation between Australia and Indonesia. Middle powers are not only defined by their material attributes, but their collaboration to institute rules-based behavior in international politics. Beeson and Lee argue that despite both Australia and Indonesia harboring ambitions of middle power diplomacy, their respective national interests impose limits on what they can collaborate on. For Australia, its unalloyed alliance with the United States hampers middle power activism, while for Indonesia, the Westphalian parameters of the ‘ASEAN Way’ constrains initiatives which seek to attenuate state sovereignty in international politics