MEĐUNARODNI PROBLEMI

Compelled to Hedge: Explaining Algerian Foreign Policy in a Fragmented International Order

Sour Lotfi (Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law & Political Science, “Mustapha Stambouli” University of Mascara, Algeria), l.sour@univ-mascara.dz

This article reconceptualises strategic hedging as a structural constraint rather than a discretionary foreign policy choice for middle powers in an increasingly fragmented international order. While existing scholarship—concentrated predominantly in East and Southeast Asian contexts—treats hedging as an instrument of strategic flexibility, it undertheorizes the systemic conditions that render hedging a near-necessity rather than a preference. Drawing on structured interpretive case analysis of Algeria’s foreign policy across security, economic, and diplomatic domains, this article advances a probabilistic-structural argument: that the intersection of multipolar fragmentation, resource dependency, and institutionalised non-alignment generates cross-domain constraints that most parsimoniously explain Algeria’s persistent hedging posture, irrespective of leadership preferences or conjunctural variation. The analysis identifies two theoretically significant findings: an autonomy-resource paradox, in which hydrocarbon revenues simultaneously enable and constrain strategic flexibility, and a domain interdependency dynamic, in which hedging gains in one domain systematically generate constraints in another, which existing behavioural frameworks have not adequately captured. By extending structural hedging theory to a North African, Global South middle power, the article contributes to ongoing debates on middle power adaptation and the evolving architecture of a fragmented international order.

Keywords: strategic hedging, middle powers, Algeria, geopolitical fragmentation, structural constraint, non-alignment