🎓📃I am very happy to announce that yesterday I successfully defended my dissertation, “Hedging the Dragon: How Domestic Elites Shape Foreign Policy Toward China.” This marks the completion of my graduate degree in International Security at the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po.

My thesis investigates how political leaders in Romania, Georgia, and Turkey develop distinct approaches toward China based on their perceptions of risks and opportunities. Using neoclassical realism as my theoretical framework, I analyzed how domestic elites navigate between two types of hedging strategies:

▶️Romania evolved from transactional hedging (maximizing economic benefits) under Social-Democratic governments to value-based hedging (prioritizing Euro-Atlantic alignment) after center-right parties came to power in 2019.
▶️Georgia intensified its transactional hedging approach under the Georgian Dream party, culminating in a 2023 strategic partnership with China, using economic cooperation to offset deteriorating Western relations.
▶️Turkey employs a blend of both strategies—pursuing economic opportunities with China while managing cultural sensitivities regarding the Uyghur minority to maintain regime legitimacy.

This distinction between transactional and value-based hedging aims to explain why states in the same region respond so differently to China’s growing influence, with implications for future Euro-Atlantic security strategies in the Black Sea.

I am optimistic that this research will make a modest contribution to the literature on China’s growing influence in Europe, which currently overrelies on “supply-side” approaches and does not adequately factor in the much-needed “demand-side” angle. Understanding demand-side dynamics is, in my opinion, a prerequisite for formulating a credible transatlantic counter-offer to China’s growing influence in the Black Sea.

I want to dedicate this academic endeavor to my two special mentors: Professor Mihaela Herbel and my former boss, Pavel Popescu. Their genuine friendship and inspiring mentorship remain, to this day, among the greatest gifts God has blessed me with.

I also want to thank Ambassador Egemen Bağış for helping me untangle some key aspects of Turkish foreign policy, and express my sincere appreciation to my thesis director, Dr. Claudia Astarita, and Dr. Bayram Balci for leading my defense jury. Lastly, I want to thank my dear friends at Georgetown, “the Black Sea girls” IYKYK, for their unwavering support and shared commitment to a Black Sea region that is free, open, and transatlantic. Ana Jeranashvili Zeynep O.
🔽You can read my dissertation in the first link in the comments.