Workarounding: Tech Middle Power Cooperation in a Turbulent World
Event Type
Book launch event
Location / Date
Bonn & online, 01.07.2026
CASSIS - Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (University of Bonn) and German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
The multilateral order that enabled decades of technological exchange, global supply chains, and shared governance is under severe strain. As the United States and China intensify their rivalry across critical technologies, from semiconductors and AI to space and green technologies, the consequences extend far beyond these two great powers. Countries with substantial technological capabilities but without superpower status face mounting pressure toward bloc formation, exclusionary partnerships, and growing vulnerabilities in the supply chains and interdependencies they depend on.
Germany, Japan, India, Israel, South Korea, the UAE, and others find themselves in an increasingly difficult position. Multilateral institutions yield diminishing returns. Bilateral ties with either great power risk limiting strategic autonomy. Meanwhile, the technologies at the centre of this competition are precisely the ones these countries need to master for their own economic security and technological sovereignty.
In response, a new pattern of techno-statecraft is emerging: flexible, informal cooperation among tech middle powers, “workarounding” the constraints of an increasingly polarised technological landscape. But how far can such strategies go, in terms of securing autonomy, compensating for shrinking multilateralism, and in light of trade war escalations and massive global imbalances? A new edited volume examines these emerging patterns of techno-statecraft across regions and technology domains, from semiconductors and space to AI governance and green value chains.
This event marks the launch of Workarounding: Tech Middle Power Cooperation in a Turbulent World. The book's editors, contributors, and invited experts will ask what tech middle powers and their emerging allies can achieve in what is increasingly recognised not as a transition, but as a rupture in the global order.
Hinweis
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