Kabiliyetler ve Dış Politika: Türkiye’nin Küçük ve Orta Düzeyde Güç Statüsünün Karşılaştırılması

Abstract

IR literature has proposed tangible and intangible criteria for defining and differentiating rankings of countries, albeit without much success. The literature's limited success is primarily due to the subjective, unclear and immeasurable qualities of these criteria. The differentiation between small powers and middle powers is particularly ambiguous. This article proposes an amalgamated method, which combines foreign policy behavior capabilities to characterize and separate small powers and middle powers. There is a relationship between capabilities and a country's global status ranking that also determines foreign policy behavior. This also underlines a complementarity between national capabilities and foreign policy objectives. Lower capabilities means a low-key/restrained foreign policy but do higher capabilities mean a more proactive/highly strung foreign policy? Increased capabilities boost the position of a country from a small power to a middle power but do not completely eliminate constraints imposed by great powers. This article examines Turkey's experiences since the 1930s as an empirical narrative of the complementarity between power and level of influence.

Foreign Policy Choice or Domestic Compulsion? Maldives’ Deep Ties With Saudi Arabia

“…Second, in terms of politico-strategic matters, the small powers do not have enough resources to spend on military means which restricts them to have an independent foreign policy. Third, most small island states are vulnerable to climate change (Baba and Önsoy, 2021). Realists feel that small states usually follow two strategies to overcome their vulnerabilities: balancing the threat by allying with a powerful state or collecting medium or small-sized states, or bandwagon with a powerful state that threatens the small state (Waltz 1979; Zahir, 2021: 81).…”

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“…The simultaneous focus on Turkey's growth can lead to considerations of balancing between a small power and a middle power status (Baba & Önsoy, 2016), or the effectiveness of a 'restrained middle power' concept (Oğuzlu, 2023). These two strategic lines of self-identification are united by a hybrid option -the perception of Turkey as a re-emerging power, seeking to restore its importance on the world stage.…”