Power and De Facto Leadership in Regional Organizations : An Exploration of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia

International relations literature pays surprisingly little attention to how dynamics of power and hierarchy play out in the context of regional organizations, particularly in terms of how states wield de facto leadership. This exploratory and constitutive thesis argues that a strong combination of material power, network power, and social power is possessed by states in periods where they wield more de facto leadership. Conversely, when states possess an overall weaker combination of power, they also demonstrate less de facto leadership. There is one exception – states can possess an overall combination of less power and still show strong de facto leadership if it is existential to their survival. These claims are supported throughout the thesis by evidence from two case studies: Indonesia in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Saudi Arabia in the Gulf Cooperation Council.