The Korean dumplings in your grocer's freezer, the new Thai restaurant on the corner and that Burmese curry you ate for lunch are doing more than satisfying your craving for an exotic and flavorful meal. These foods are also helping to foster international relations.

This week will see the Korean Association of International Studies and the Korea Foundation host an international conference on the role of middle powers in the 21st century. The significance of the conference being held in South Korea is twofold ― it marks Korea’s prominence as a source of innovative and influential scholarship on middlepowerism, and it marks Korea’s growing acceptance of middlepowerism as a national role.

Against others in their income group, the most overperforming non-high income countries are Vietnam, India, China and South Africa". India is expected to occupy sixth position among the top 10 wealth markets in 2012, according to 2012 Global Wealth Market Report by Datamonitor.

The use of nation-branding by middle power states has continually increased as other nations engaged in the policy experience some success and create a name for themselves in the international community. Nation-branding allows states to distinguish themselves from other nations or create a new image due to negative perceptions of individuals across the world.

Kane concluded that the Turkish “blend of Islam, democracy, and soft power is a far more attractive regional template than the Iranian narrative of Islamic theocracy and hard power resistance.”

For those not of the PD cohort, a middle power is neither a super power nor small power, but resides somewhere in the middle...Middle Powers are usually multilateralist and are apt to try to use public diplomacy to increase their visibility on the international stage...