Journals
2026 EN
Otte T. G.
Abstract No other country defined the trajectory of Churchill's political career more than Germany, a country of which he had little direct knowledge but which he either sought to emulate, accommodate or oppose throughout his time in politics. This article traces Churchill's relationship with Germany from his entry into politics at the beginning of the Edwardian era through to the end of his life, when a newly prosperous West Germany had become a fixture in Cold War international politics.
Journals
2026 EN
Carter Katherine
Abstract This special issue paper highlights the role of Chartwell – the country house purchased by Winston Churchill in 1922 – as a site of informal diplomacy. During the decade of his ‘wilderness years’ (1929–39), Churchill used Chartwell as a site to both cultivate and deploy international contacts. As the paper shows, these encounters could serve a variety of purposes for, from gaining information on ongoing international developments to exercising political influence in spite of the absence of a formal diplomatic role. Set against the backdrop of growing international tensions, the rise of Nazi Germany and the spectre of war, the article highlights a series of visits that involved guests from Germany, the United States, France, the Soviet Union and China. It shows that, at a point when he held no ministerial office, Churchill compensated for his political isolation at home by leveraging Chartwell as a resource to strengthen his connections with international elite networks.
Journals
2026 EN
WOTSHELA LUVUYO
Abstract The article traces Churchill's engagement with South Africa, from his time as a newspaper correspondent during the Anglo‐Boer War to his services in both Liberal and Conservative cabinets as well as, ultimately, his premiership. The discussion highlights three phases in this relationship. First, Churchill experienced South Africa as a site of imperial conflict and personal adventure, which reinforced his romantic imperialism. Second, in the years after the war, he adopted a pragmatic stance, accepting reconciliation with the Afrikaners and supporting self‐government as a necessary means of stabilizing the empire. Third, in the interwar period and beyond, South Africa became a more peripheral concern for Churchill, and he viewed it chiefly in strategic and imperial terms as part of wider Commonwealth and global defence calculations. Nevertheless, his close personal relationship with Jan Smuts was important to many issues, beyond South Africa itself.
Journals
2026 EN
SÁENZFRANCÉS EMILIO
Abstract This article offers a detailed analysis of Winston Churchill's relationship with Spain over the course of his long and eventful political and personal life. The article focuses on three key episodes: Churchill's ambivalent stance during the Spanish Civil War; his leadership and policy towards Spain during the crucial years of the Second World War; and the memory and legacy of Churchill in Spain, particularly in relation to his wartime role. The article argues that Churchill's engagement with Spain reveals a recurring tension between a quixotic impulse – rooted in his aristocratic and monarchist sensibilities, and in a sentimental view of Spanish history – and a more pragmatic, Sancho Panza‐like realism, which became especially prominent during the Second World War.
Journals
2026 EN
PACKWOOD ALLEN · TOYE RICHARD · GIFFORD JAYNE
ABSTRACT This article introduces a special issue that explores Winston Churchill's relationship with different countries. As its starting point, this piece takes Churchill's world view that Britain derived her status from its position at the focal point of three intersecting circles: Europe, the British Empire and the wider English‐speaking world. Although there was a fair degree of consistency in his approach, he progressively adjusted his outlook as the comparative size of the three circles changed over the course of his lifetime. His Victorian youth was dominated by the empire, but by the time of his death in 1965, Europe was divided by the Cold War, and the United States, rather than Britain, dominated the English‐speaking circle. The authors argue that modern representations of Churchill's world view have been further complicated by the impact of his own writings and by the debates on his contested legacy over empire and Europe. They conclude that detailed examinations of his approach towards different countries reveal a shifting, nuanced, pragmatic and political picture, with Churchill's views and actions evolving over time in response to Britain's relative position within the wider ‘three circles’ paradigm. In doing so, they introduce the overall premise of this special issue, namely, that exploring Churchill's attitude to a series of specific countries is a way of taking ‘core samples’ that illustrate his world view more generally.
Journals
2026 EN
Nossal Kim Richard
ABSTRACT Unsuccessful efforts to update the middle power concept for the contemporary international system have prompted calls for the concept to be “historicized”—to be retired from common use and treated as a purely historical term. The problem with this proposal is that “middle power” has become increasingly popular in the 2020s in analysis, commentary, and state practice. The purpose of this article is to offer an alternative to historicization. While we acknowledge that the traditional understanding of middle power was deeply rooted in the twentieth century, and particularly in that era of American hegemony during the Cold War and post–Cold War eras, the continued use of the term suggests that we need to embrace the flexibility that has always been associated with the concept. This paper calls for a return to a variant of the nineteenth‐century idea that middle powers were located geographically “in the middle” between great powers. In the 2020s and 2030s, which we argue is marked by “fuzzy bifurcation,” we propose that middle powers are those located geostrategically “in the middle” between the two great powers of the contemporary international system, the United States and China.
Journals
2026 EN
Vieira Marco
ABSTRACT This paper explores why a group of Global South middle powers has adopted stances on the Ukrainian war that diverged from the positions of the United States under President Joe Biden, the European Union and the broader NATO/Western alliance. I claim that these disparities are partially explained by the affiliation these states have with the notion of non‐alignment that has been re‐signified in the context of the conflict in Ukraine. I argue that ‘non‐alignment’ has, over the years, provided postcolonial states with a sense of common purpose and ontological security. This was done through a set of institutionalised practices and narratives anchored on principles such as autonomy, anti‐Western colonialism and equality that provided them with a sense of identity in the unstable context of the Cold War conflict and beyond. The claim, therefore, is that these states' positions are not necessarily related to developments in the war itself, and the undeniable fact of Russia's aggression. Instead, they are rooted in a sense of ontological (in)security and historical resentment towards the exclusions and hierarchies of the Western‐led international order. I engage with the cases of India, Brazil and South Africa as representative democratic middle powers and leaders in the Global South.
Journals
2026 EN
Süsler Buğra · Alden Chris
ABSTRACT This article examines the role of mediation in emerging middle power conduct in an increasingly fragmented world. It asks why and how emerging middle powers seek mediator roles in international conflicts, focusing on Turkey and Indonesia's responses to the Russia–Ukraine war. Through content analysis of public documents and interviews with diplomats, it argues that the war has enabled emerging middle powers to seek influence by emphasising their bridge‐building capacity. While the conventional literature on middle powers explains such activism in terms of the traditional leadership–followership dynamic—where middle powers are seen as followers who act as ‘good international citizens’—our findings suggest that international systemic instability, the search for status and domestic factors provide better explanations for their actions. Specifically, we argue that the saliency of middle power followership diminishes as a source of status under conditions of structural uncertainty and manifests through stability‐seeking conduct like mediation. Concurrently, we show that mediatory approaches are motivated not only by international considerations but also significantly by domestic elite concerns. These findings contribute to middle power scholarship by illustrating how these states use mediation to seek both domestic regime support and international recognition, offering a more nuanced understanding of emerging middle power agency.
Journals
2026 EN
Shin SoonOk · Alden Chris · Higgott Richard
ABSTRACT The post–1945 international order is in flux. Trump's return to the White House in 2025 marks a critical juncture, reinforcing a structural transformation characterised by intensifying US–China rivalry, the weaponisation of economic statecraft and the fragmentation of multilateralism. Middle powers—positioned at the intersection of Washington's security imperatives and Beijing's economic gravitational pull—face mounting strategic challenges, but with the requisite expertise and strategic conviction also have opportunities to reinvigorate their regional and global ambitions. This article outlines the rationale and objectives of the Special Issue, reinterpreting the theory and practice of middle powers beyond Cold War‐era behavioural models of ‘good international citizenship’ and the ‘leadership‐followship’ paradigm. Tracing the historical evolution, it proposes a more fluid, pragmatic and instrumentalist understanding of middle power agency in a post–hegemonic world—marked by renewed activism and normative pragmatism. In addition, it presents empirical case studies that illustrate how middle powers variously construct and navigate geopolitical and geoeconomic ‘middle‐ness’, shaped by a dynamic interplay of domestic ambition and international constraint. Lastly, it argues that middle powers—once the supporting buttresses in a US‐led liberal order—are asserting agency through strategic adaptability, emerging as key actors in securing a more stable and peaceful global transition.
Journals
2026 EN
Mangueze Agostinho de Nazaré · Mamugy Faruk Pires Semedo · BriersLouw Willem
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ABSTRACT Large herbivore spatial ecology is shaped by the spatio‐temporal heterogeneity of biotic and abiotic factors. This study investigated space use and habitat selection of sable antelope ( Hippotragus niger ) in the Marromeu Complex of central Mozambique, which supports one of the largest populations in Africa. Telemetry‐based data were collected from three adult females over 3 years (2018–2020) to estimate annual and seasonal variations in home range size and habitat use. Annual home ranges were small (11–20 km 2 ), representing some of the smallest recorded sizes across Africa to date, which is likely explained by the high population density and resource availability. While no distinct seasonal differences were recorded in home range sizes, home range overlap was smaller during the dry season, suggesting a more patchy distribution of resource availability. Habitat use varied across years and seasons, with sable antelope generally showing a preference for grassland, flooded grassland and shrubland vegetation. These patterns demonstrate the value of incorporating spatio‐temporal variability into better understanding species movement ecology, which may contribute toward species‐specific conservation strategies. This study also provides important insights into the spatial dynamics of a recovering, post‐war sable antelope population, which is of both national and international importance.