Unpredictable great-power behaviour and a straining international order seemingly at the outer limits of its capacity have prompted many to champion the idea of increased and more systematic collective middle-power action, both to advance the interests of middle powers and to add a potentially stabilizing influence on the global stage. S. Yash Kalash and I made that case in 2025, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney reinforced these ideas at the 2026 Davos summit, advocating for “variable geometry” to enable agile, flexible cooperation.
Variable geometry among middle powers is most likely to achieve its full potential when it operates within a permanent institutional framework dedicated to middle-power deliberation and collaboration. Such an institution would maximize middle-power leverage and provide continuity, identity and coordinating capacity to its efforts while operating alongside and interacting with existing institutions in the broader global governance architecture.
Virginia Woolf famously argued that women required “a room of one’s own”: an independent space in which creativity could flourish free from external constraints. Borrowing that metaphor here, it describes a dedicated institutional home where middle powers can develop ideas, build relationships and coordinate collective action on their own terms, without interference from others.
The Limits of Ad Hoc Cooperation
The growing influence of middle powers has been accompanied by an equally impressive growth in geo- and issue-specific arrangements among middle powers. Regional trade agreements, diplomatic groupings and security dialogues demonstrate that middle powers are increasingly willing and able to cooperate independently of the great powers.
But the proliferation of ad hoc middle-power collective arrangements must be juxtaposed against a new strategic reality of aggressive great-power pressure across trade, security and digital domains. In the absence of a central coordinating institution for middle powers that can work toward coherent global responses by its members, their fragmented, disconnected alliances dilute their collective leverage and leave their sovereignty particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
Four limitations of the current ad hoc approach are described here. First, middle-power cooperation, as currently practised, is for the most part institutionally disjointed, with multiple regional and functional arrangements evolving independently and without strategic coordination. Second, there is no permanent global forum through which middle powers can deliberate collectively as international events unfold. Third, most existing arrangements lack permanent and adequate analytical and operational support. Finally, because relationships, agendas and organizational structures must continually be recreated, serial cooperative approaches carry unnecessarily high transaction costs.
The problem is therefore not a lack of willingness to cooperate; it is the absence of an institutional framework capable of leveraging cooperation to be more systematic, efficient and strategically coherent. Such a framework would provide an enabling environment in which variable geometry arrangements could be developed, tested and refined, increasing the likelihood that promising coalitions achieve critical mass and can subsequently be scaled, adapted or reconfigured as circumstances evolve.
Trade illustrates both the promise and limitations of the current model. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership demonstrated that middle powers could successfully preserve and expand an ambitious trade agreement following the withdrawal of the United States. Yet its subsequent evolution (including the functional anomaly of adding the United Kingdom into a trans-Pacific partnership), together with the proliferation of European and other regional trade arrangements, illustrates an increasingly fragmented landscape. The challenge is no longer creating regional agreements; it is coordinating those agreements for more effective collective middle-power leverage.
Comparable challenges arise in security and digital governance. When major geopolitical crises occur, no standing forum exists where middle powers can confer privately and determine whether coordinated global responses would better advance their interests and support the international rules-based order. Likewise, issues such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and digital platform governance increasingly place the sovereignty and autonomy of individual middle powers opposite to multinational technology companies possessing immense economic and political influence. Essentially, acting collectively would significantly strengthen middle powers’ capacity to respond.
Existing initiatives, such as MIKTA and the Alliance for Multilateralism, demonstrate both the possibilities and limitations of informal modes of cooperation. Both have facilitated dialogue, but, lacking permanent institutional structures, they have struggled to sustain broader strategic influence.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) offers a more instructive model. Much of its effectiveness derives not simply from its membership but also from its permanent secretariat, its significant analytical and operational capacity, and robust deliberative processes capable of developing both legal and soft-law instruments across a wide range of issues. These institutional characteristics have enabled the OECD to exert influence well beyond its formal authority. A middle-power institution should draw upon these strengths while avoiding governance arrangements that permit domination by any single major power.
The broader lesson is straightforward: permanent institutions reduce transaction costs by providing continuity, institutional memory, trusted deliberative processes and analytical support. Rather than requiring governments to recreate relationships and organizational mechanisms whenever new issues arise, they create the conditions under which cooperation becomes more timely, efficient and effective.
Variable geometry should therefore not be viewed as an alternative to institutions. Flexible coalitions work best when supported by a stable institutional framework that enables them to form, evolve and dissolve as circumstances require.
A Middle-Power Room of Their Own
The proposal advanced here is modest but potentially transformative. Middle powers should establish a permanent institutional home through which they can deliberate collectively while retaining complete autonomy in their external relationships.
Such an institution would neither replace the United Nations nor compete with existing regional organizations. Nor would it constitute a geopolitical bloc. Participation would not require common positions on every issue, nor would it restrict bilateral or multilateral relationships with great powers. Rather, it would provide a standing forum, permanent analytical capacity and organizational continuity through which middle powers could determine when (and with whom) it makes sense to cooperate.
As a practical first step, a representative founding secretariat should be established to draft proposals on membership, governance, funding and organizational structure. These proposals would then be finalized at an international conference. Establishing joint headquarters in both the Global North and the Global South would clearly signal a commitment to the realities of global governance in the twenty-first century.
To be sure, significant operational challenges lie ahead. These include addressing definitional hurdles regarding what constitutes a “middle power”; aligning on a shared value system, such as the rule of law, human rights, free markets and institutional accountability; and establishing flexible, fit-for-purpose, deliberative decision-making processes. While responding effectively to challenges such as these will undoubtedly require ingenuity, history demonstrates that diverse groupings of countries — when united by a common purpose — can overcome these obstacles while respecting individual differences.
Governance evolves because the world evolves. The institutional architecture established after the Second World War reflected the geopolitical realities of its time. Today’s multi-polar world is characterized by a broader distribution of influence in which middle powers have become indispensable contributors to trade, technology, security and the maintenance of the international rules-based order. Recognizing that reality through a permanent institutional home for middle powers would improve their collective leverage but would not diminish existing institutions. It would strengthen the global governance architecture by filling one of its most significant institutional gaps.
The twentieth century required institutions designed primarily around the great powers. The twenty-first century needs the development of an institution reflecting the increasingly consequential role played by middle powers that leverages their interests and ideas for maximum influence on the global stage. It is time that middle powers had a room of their own.
