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- Convenors:
-
Ana Cristina Alves
(Mohammed VI Polytechnic University - Faculty of Governance, Economics and Social Sciences)
JOHN ÅBERG (Malmö University)
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- Chair:
-
Obert Hodzi
(University of Liverpool)
- Discussant:
-
Motolani Peltola
(Tampere University)
- Format:
- Roundtable
- Disciplinary streams:
- Politics and International Relations
Short Abstract
As geoeconomic fragmentation intensifies, intermediary states increasingly connect competing economic networks. Taking Africa as a point of departure, this roundtable explores how intermediation works, what enables it, and what it reveals about power and interdependence.
Long Abstract
Contemporary IR debates on geoeconomic fragmentation have focused predominantly on great-power competition and attempts to restructure global economic networks through decoupling, de-risking, friendshoring, industrial policy, and the weaponisation of interdependence (Farrell and Newman, 2019). Yet globalisation is not simply giving way to separate economic blocs. Trade, capital, technology and production continue to move across geopolitical divides, through what the economics literature refers to as ‘connector’ states linking increasingly fragmented economic networks (Aiyar and Ohnsorge 2024; Aiyar et al., 2026; Gopinath et al., 2024). Recent research distinguishes between vertical and horizontal connectors (Aiyar et al.; 2026), and between trade rerouting and deeper trade and production reallocation (Schulze and Xin, 2025), raising questions about the nature and sustainability of such intermediation.
Despite their growing importance, ‘intermediary’ states remain comparatively underexplored in IR. This roundtable seeks to bring them more explicitly into debates on geoeconomic fragmentation and explore intermediation as a lens for understanding a fragmenting yet persistently interconnected global economy.
Taking Africa as a central point of departure, the roundtable asks: What functions do intermediary states perform and how should they be conceptualised and identified? Why do opportunities for intermediation emerge in some countries and sectors but not others? What determines their success or failure? How does intermediation differ across critical-mineral and energy, digital ecosystems, infrastructure and logistics, manufacturing, trade and finance? How do African experiences compare with those elsewhere? Ultimately, what does focusing on intermediary states add to debates on fragmentation, network power and global economic interdependence?