The Hinge States: Middle Powers That Tip the Balance - Couverture rigide

Ghobashi-Nour, Omar

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 9377941199 ISBN 13 : 9789377941192

Editeur : Vij Books, 2026

Synopsis

In every era of rivalry, from empires to the Cold War to today, the balance between blocs has often been decided not in great capitals but in the corridors of states that rarely make headlines. The Hinge States argues that these middle powers are not simply followers orbiting larger planets. They are hinges: their consent, cooperation, or obstruction determines whether ambitious projects of dominance can actually be implemented. By tracing how such states bargain over bases, trade, recognition, and rules, the book reveals a quieter, more intricate map of global power.

Moving across regions and decades, the book examines swing state diplomacy, regional coalitions, security arrangements, and patterns of trade leverage that allow ostensibly secondary actors to tip outcomes between rival blocs. It unpacks strategies of selective alignment and strategic autonomy, showing how governments mix alliance ties, neutrality claims, and hedging to keep options open while extracting concessions. Case-driven chapters are paired with clear conceptual tools, giving readers a vocabulary and framework for identifying hinge states, evaluating their leverage, and understanding the risks they run when flexibility turns into exposure.

Written for students of international relations, policy analysts, and historically minded general readers, The Hinge States offers neither simple celebration nor condemnation of middle-power activism. Instead, it provides a structured way to see how access politics, economic networks, and institutional roles make some states pivotal in contests they do not control. Readers will come away able to map which actors really matter in a given crisis, why their choices are constrained the way they are, and how their decisions can quietly reshape the trajectory of great power rivalry.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Omar Ghobashi-Nour writes at the intersection of international political economy, regulatory governance and the everyday realities of firms navigating global markets. His work is animated by a basic puzzle: why rules that are presented as neutral and technical so often have such unequal and contested effects. He is drawn to spaces where legal texts, engineering decisions and commercial interests collide, and where the stakes are both abstract and intensely material.A long-standing engagement with questions of global inequality and institutional trust informs his approach to standards and trade. Rather than treating technical language as a barrier, he treats it as a rich archive of political and economic choices. His writing aims to translate across communities that rarely meet directly: regulators, business strategists, lawyers, activists and citizens who simply want to understand why some products and producers move easily across borders while others do not.Ghobashi-Nour is particularly attentive to the vantage point of smaller states and smaller firms, for whom compliance demands can feel existential rather than routine. Influenced by histories of empire, decolonisation and development planning, he approaches contemporary trade debates with an awareness of longer trajectories of power and dependence. In this book, he brings those threads together in a clear, grounded narrative that invites readers to see standards not as arcane details, but as one of the key political arenas of the twenty-first century.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Vij Books
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 9377941199
• ISBN 13: 9789377941192
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 380
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible