Secondary powers' strategies towards great powers: Analysis of Turkey and Iran's strategies towards Russia

Hegemonic Stability Theory and similar theories explain power relations in international system by using the hierarchy concept. In this context, the arguments on how to develop the relations between countries on the top of the hierarchy and others were presented while lower countries relations have not been theorized adequately. In this dissertation, in order to fill the above-mentioned gap, "how secondary powers determine their strategies during the crisis towards countries that are militarily, economically, geographically greater and that have land order or sea border" was problematized. In this regard, it was argued that the most important concept to formulate a strategy is the identity culture that is shaped cooperativeness and competition areas. This argument was transformed into a model by using the strategies that are explained in international relations literature such as balancing, bandwagoning. Afterwards, aforementioned strategy model was tested by evaluating the relations of the countries that are selected in accordance with the frame of the research question. Empirical areas in this dissertation are Turkey and Iran's relations with Russia and these two countries' strategies towards Russia during Georgian Crisis, Syrian Crisis, and Ukranian Crisis. The functionality of strategy model which is main argument of the dissertation is explained with the findings obtained from the relation of identity culture of two countries and secondary powers' strategy during the crisis. In the end, as a result of the reseach on Turkey-Russia and Iran-Russia relations, It was came to the conclusion that secondary powers's strategies during the crisis towards countries that are economically, militarily, geographically greater and that have land border or sea border, is influenced by the identity culture that are formed during the historical process of the secondary power and great power. This conclusion demonstrated the functionality of the proposed strategy model. Keywords: Turkey, Russia, Iran, Hierarchy, Georgian Crisis, Ukrainan Crisis, Syrian Crisis, Strategy Model.