Strategic autonomy in a fragmenting world order: Kazakhstan and Mexico in comparative perspective, with lessons from Türkiye and Brazil

Abstract

This article compares how Kazakhstan and Mexico preserve political agency under structurally asymmetric interdependence, using Türkiye and Brazil as secondary reference cases. It develops negotiated autonomy as a middle-range concept for secondary and Global South powers that cannot eliminate dependence but can sometimes reorganize it. The study integrates constructivist, poststructuralist, decolonial, and Latin American autonomy traditions while assigning each a distinct analytical function. Methodologically, it uses a structured qualitative comparison of official foreign-policy documents, leadership statements, trade and integration data, and recent peer-reviewed research from 2020-2026. Evidence is coded across five dimensions: concentration of dependence, partner diversification, multilateral strategy, narrative sovereignty, and demonstrated capacity for selective resistance. The comparison shows that Kazakhstan institutionalizes autonomy through multivectorism and visible post-2022 resistance on questions of territorial recognition; Mexico retains diplomatic room for maneuver despite extreme North American economic integration, including issue-specific disagreement with Washington-centered policy responses. Türkiye illustrates the possibilities and political-economic limits of assertive autonomy, while Brazil represents autonomy through diversification and active non-alignment traditions. The article further distinguishes diplomatic from infrastructural autonomy and identifies scope conditions under which diversification ceases to generate meaningful agency. Negotiated autonomy therefore explains not independence from interdependence, but the variable capacity to prevent asymmetry from becoming automatic political obedience.