An Introduction to Workarounding: A New Strategy for Navigating Geopolitical Competition

This chapter focuses on how technological middle powers (TMPs), such as Germany, India, South Korea, and the UAE, are navigating intensifying bipolar competition and global governance transformation by cooperating with one another. To that end, we introduce a novel form of diplomacy—workarounding—defined as pragmatic, small-group cooperation that excludes the US and China. Building on a new dataset and the case studies included in this volume, we first introduce TMPs and contextualize their activities in the middle power and minilateralism literatures. After that, we present empirical trends apparent in our dataset. We conclude with an overview of the chapters, organized by four themes which seem crucial for future understandings of TMP workarounding. These include workarounding as a means of navigating bloc formation, as a tool for increasing TMPs’ economic security and autonomy, as a means of finding TMPs’ role in ongoing global governance transformations and as an innovative approach for addressing technological and regional challenges. Ultimately, the book advocates for a nuanced understanding of middle power agency, emphasizing their capacity to influence technological development and international order through innovative statecraft practices in a competitive and uncertain environment rather than relying on traditional strategies such as hedging or balancing.