When tension borders aggression: Turkey, the European Union, and the politics of interdependence

The 2010s witnessed Turkey (Türkiye) exhibiting an obtrusive, short of embattled, foreign policy towards its primary trading partner and ally, the European Union. The situation has persisted, giving rise to the question: why? Centring on this question, the paper adopts an international political economy perspective. Employing the concept of ‘vulnerability interdependence,’ it argues that as Turkey has been diversifying away from the EU by deepening cooperation with Asian partners, the opportunity costs of breaking its relationship with the former have been reduced, enabling it to exhibit a more forceful profile vis-à-vis the EU. The findings show that the concept has been applied to a much broader context of bilateral relationships than usual, demonstrating how an actor can manipulate bilateral interdependencies to its advantage, on the border of aggression. All these at a time when novel theories, such as ‘weaponized interdependence,’ re-emphasize concepts such as ‘structural power.’