Türkiye and Azerbaijan’s Quest For Status in World Politics

This article examines how Türkiye and Azerbaijan have pursued international status since the early 2000s and how their once-separate trajectories have fused into a mutually reinforcing partnership. Drawing on Social Comparison and Social Identity approaches, it employs a tripartite typology-status mobility, social creativity and status competition-to trace foreign-policy change across two discrete timelines: Türkiye’s EU-centred mobility phase (2000-2010) followed by a creativity-and-competition blend (2010-present); and Azerbaijan’s four-stage path from energy-driven mobility (1994-2003) through creativity (2004-2013) to assertive competition (2014-2020) and the hybrid strategy that has prevailed since the 2020 Karabakh war. Process-tracing official statements, strategic agreements and secondary scholarship, the study shows that joint instruments-cross-border pipelines, defence cooperation, Turkic multilateral initiatives-now serve as shared levers of prestige. The 2021 Shusha Declaration crystallises this alignment, recasting bilateral ties as a formal alliance that links hard-power coordination with soft-power projection. The analysis demonstrates, first, that mobility, creativity and competition can be layered rather than sequential; and second, that bilateral synergy magnifies individual gains, enabling both capitals to project influence well beyond their immediate neighbourhoods. By integrating these cases, the article advances debates on status politics and offers a refined lens for assessing foreign-policy change in contemporary world politics.

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