Strategic Autonomy in Foreign Policy and Obstruction in International Organisations

Why do some governments that are formally supportive of international organizations engage in selective obstruction of those very institutions’ policy initiatives? Existing explanations portray obstructionism either as a bargaining tactic or as an extension of anti-institutional ideology, yet these accounts struggle to explain the phenomenon of pro-institutional obstructionists, i.e. states that defend an international organization’s (IO) core functions and most of its normative commitments while overtly blocking specific initiatives. This paper addresses this puzzle by asking under what conditions states obstruct institutional decision-making despite sustained formal support for the organization. We advance the argument that obstructionism should be understood as a proactive instrument of grand foreign policy strategy rather than a pathology of institutional politics. Drawing on theories of strategic autonomy and institutional alignment, we theorize obstruction as emerging when a government’s externally anchored strategic objectives diverge from an IO’s collective policy trajectory. Obstruction is thus not driven by hostility to the institution but by the need to preserve room for manoeuvre in adjacent geopolitical arenas. In this framework, we identify grievance-based justificatory practices as discursive mechanisms that translate strategic concerns into institutionally legible behaviour. Methodologically, the paper employs within-case, over-time comparison to analyse Turkey’s engagement with the European Union. Using multiple episodes spanning periods of both alignment and divergence, we demonstrate that Turkey’s shift from pursuit of EU accession to obstruction of EU defence cooperation and strategic autonomy initiatives does not track changes in ideological orientation or domestic preference coalitions. Instead, episodes of obstruction consistently coincide with moments of foreign policy misalignment, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean. The paper ultimately repositions obstructionism as analytically meaningful evidence of states’ external calculus, thereby inviting scholars to reassess assumptions about the boundaries of cooperative behaviour in IOs.