Middle Powers and Institutional Adaptation in Regional Security Organizations: The Case of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Abstract

This article investigates how a middle power can drive institutional adaptation within a regional security organization, focusing on Kazakhstan’s role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). While most studies emphasize the dominance of China and Russia, the mechanisms through which medium-sized states influence organizational development remain underexplored. The research adopts a qualitative comparative design that combines structured content analysis and process tracing. The unit of analysis is Kazakhstan-led initiatives introduced during its four SCO chairmanships (2005, 2011, 2017, 2023–2024). Three mechanisms of middle-power agency are operationalized: agenda-setting, norm entrepreneurship, and coalition-building, and their outcomes are measured using a three-level institutionalization scale (rhetorical → procedural → institutional). The corpus includes 50 official SCO documents and 20 national strategy papers from 2001 to 2024.The findings show that Kazakhstan consistently used its chairmanships to broaden the SCO agenda beyond traditional security, advancing issues of energy, digital transformation, and climate sustainability. By aligning its initiatives with the priorities of major members and mobilizing regional coalitions, Kazakhstan was able to move several proposals from a declarative to either procedural or institutional status. The study contributes to the middle power theory by demonstrating its applicability in the Eurasian context and offers an operational framework for evaluating institutional change in regional organizations. It also provides policy-relevant insights into how middle powers can enhance their agency under conditions of great-power asymmetry.