Strategic autonomy in Turkish foreign policy: Defense or offense?

Abstract

Although the study of secondary state behavior has increasing schol-arly attention, existing studies suffer from a serious defect: privilegingdefensive over offensive behaviors. This is mainly due to the problemsof status-quo-bias and anarchy-centrism engulfing the discipline ofInternational Relations. This leads scholars either to ignore offensivestate behaviors or treat them as aberration. This could be corrected ifthe struggle for autonomy is taken as the primary motive behindstate behaviors. Defensive and offensive state behaviors, then, can begiven equal treatment. Defensive state behaviors aim to maintainwhereas offensive state behaviors seek to expand autonomy.Secondary states may display risky offensive behaviors to expandtheir autonomy. I shall examine this argument against the empiricalevidence provided by Turkish foreign policy after 2016. I argue thatthe policy of strategic autonomy determines Turkish foreign policyand in the context of this policy Turkey follows a leash-slipping strat-egy to expand its autonomy.