This book advances our understanding of small powers’ collective and individual agency in the international system. Drawing on realist, constructivist and relational perspectives, it explores such agency in conceptual terms and analyses instances of it in Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Islands region. A further focus is on New Zealand, a small power at the global level but a regional power in the Pacific.

The book brings together contributions by IR scholars, area specialists, and (former) practitioners. They zoom in on the experience of small powers in several world regions pertaining to the Indo-Pacific in strategic terms but exhibiting quite different dynamics. Offering fresh analytical perspectives and rich empirical insights, the book is a must-read for anyone interested in small powers and agency in the international system.

Patrick Köllner is Vice President of the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Director of the GIGA Institute for Asian Studies, and professor of political science at the University of Hamburg. Patrick’s last publications include the co-edited volumes Order and Agency in the Indo-Pacific (Palgrave Macmillan 2025) and Advancing Comparative Area Studies: Analytical Heterogeneity and Organizational Challenges (OUP 2025).

Robert Patman is one of the University of Otago’s Inaugural Sesquicentennial Distinguished Chairs and a specialist in international relations. He is the Director of the Master of International Studies programme. Robert has authored or edited 14 books with the most recent being the co-edited volume New Zealand’s Foreign Policy under the Jacinda Ardern Government: Facing the Challenge of a Disrupted World (World Scientific Publishing 2024). 

Balazs Kiglics has taught in the Asian Studies and Global Studies programmes and is the Co-ordinator of the Otago Foreign Policy School and Otago National Security School at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Balazs has co-edited the volumes New Zealand and the World: Past, Present and Future; From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific: Diplomacy in a Contested Region; and New Zealand’s Foreign Policy under the Jacinda Ardern Government.