Instrumentalising International Status Anxiety: Authoritarian Legitimation Through Foreign Policy in Erdoğan’s Turkey

Comparative politics scholarship emphasizes that authoritarian leaders must maintain regime legitimacy within society to ensure stability (Gerschewski 2013; von Soest and Grauvogel 2017). Existing research has focused primarily on procedural (Williamson 2021; Morgenbesser 2017; Magaloni 2010; Brusis 2016) and performance-based (Geddes 2004; Reuter and Gandhi 2011; Huntington 1991) legitimisation strategies. However, there is a lack of systematic analysis regarding the influence of ideational factors on regime legitimacy (Demmelhuber and Thies 2023, 1003) and the international context in which these regimes operate (Sinkkonen 2021, 1185). Some scholars further argue that future research on authoritarian stability should employ more nuanced concepts to capture both specific and diffuse support for legitimation (Maerz 2020, 82). Addressing this research gap, the paper presents foreign policy as a means by which authoritarian leaders legitimise their rule. Foreign policy not only generates specific support by enhancing the country’s security but also can serve as a platform through which elites, by acting on the international stage, can shape collective identities (Campbell 1992, 53-90). As a result, it can also become a source of diffuse support. To analyse this phenomenon, the paper employs a theory-testing process tracing method. By combining insights from comparative politics, namely the authoritarian stability literature, with theories of foreign policy analysis such as ontological security and international status, the article develops a theoretically grounded middle-range causal mechanism. The proposed causal mechanism through which Turkish society’s international status anxiety is instrumentalised is tested by examining Turkey’s veto of Sweden’s and Finland's accession to NATO. The analysis demonstrates that the Turkey's authoritarian regime framed the veto as essential for attaining deserved respect from Western states, thereby highlighting Turkey’s ascent in the international hierarchy despite ongoing challenges from external and internal actors. This strategy advanced Erdoğan’s objective of positioning Turkey as an independent power centre within the global order, diverging from the post-Second World War system. State-controlled media reinforced this narrative by emphasising that Erdoğan’s leadership is enhancing Turkey’s global standing and enabling the country to secure long-overdue respect from the West. The article advances research on authoritarian legitimisation strategies by highlighting the ways in which foreign policy can be instrumentalised to generate diffuse support. It also contributes to the ontological security literature by specifying how ontological insecurity, such as international status anxiety, can be strategically used by authoritarian regimes to reinforce their legitimacy.