Malaysia's ambivalent middle power status: a global south perspective from a reconceptualised geoeconomics

This article adds a geoeconomics dimension to the geopolitics-focused middle power literature that generally depicts Malaysia as an ambivalent middle power, especially from the identity and behavioral perspectives, even if the country's middle power status stands on stronger capability indicators. The wider aim is to consider insights that a geoeconomics approach can bring to discussions of emerging middle powers from the Global South. Drawing from critiques and openings in the middle power and geoeconomics literatures, this paper explores other ways to think about geoeconomics and middle powers beyond zero-sum power competition that allow analytical space for smaller or middle states from the Global South to be participants in, even shapers of, geoeconomics. Towards this end, the paper develops a reconceptualised geoeconomics that pays especial attention to spatial dynamics, relational agency, and the long arc of time. It then applies this framework to Malaysia, showing Malaysia's geoeconomic contributions in several issue areas but focusing the analysis on two key cases—mobilising the South and mobilising with the South, as well as advancing global Islamic finance—that reveal Malaysia's contributions through varied forms of agency along the long arc of these projects towards their geoeconomic impact.