Beyond “Middle Power”: Postcolonial Liminality and the Social Construction of Indonesia's Foreign Policy

This article proposes a new framework for understanding Indonesia's foreign policy. I argue that, rather than the widely accepted conception of Indonesia as a middle power, defined in terms of size, capability, identity, or status, Indonesia's foreign policy is better characterized by postcolonial liminality: a position in which Indonesia sits between multiple powers. Postcolonial liminality emerges from the tension between a postcolonial state's normative aspiration to transform international order and the pressures of great-power politics, leading the state to embrace a position of “non-belonging.” By historicizing Indonesia's foreign policy since its independence, I argue that Indonesia's foreign policy has been shaped by liminality resulting from a desire to advance global decolonization on the one hand and the pressures of great-power politics during the Cold War on the other. This tension has created a liminal position for Indonesia in its engagement with great powers, though it has maintained its autonomy and an independent foreign policy in the post-Cold War world. The story of Indonesia's postcolonial liminality offers a new perspective on the Global South's foreign policy in the changing global order.