Foreign Policy Preferences in an Era of Global Polycrisis: Evidence on Public Support for Strategic Autonomy in Asia

Abstract

The compounding of economic, security, health, and climate shocks that scholars have termed the global polycrisis has reshaped how ordinary citizens across Asia perceive their countries place in an increasingly contested international order. This study examines the determinants of public support for strategic autonomy — the preference that one's country should retain independent decision-making capacity rather than aligning fully with any single major power — focusing on Pakistan as a case study of a middle power situated at the intersection of great-power rivalry and acute polycrisis pressures in Asia. Drawing on Hedging Theory and the revisionist public opinion tradition in foreign policy analysis, the study proposes that perceived global polycrisis severity, great-power rivalry threat perception, and economic interdependence vulnerability positively predict public support for strategic autonomy, while trust in multilateral institutions exerts a negative effect. National identity salience is theorized as a mediating mechanism, and media exposure to geopolitical news as a moderating condition. A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed, with primary data collected from 850 respondents across Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar using a structured five-point Likert questionnaire. Data were analyzed through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), with bootstrapping procedures used to test mediation and moderation effects. Results indicate that great-power rivalry threat perception is the strongest positive predictor of support for strategic autonomy, followed by perceived polycrisis severity and economic interdependence vulnerability, while trust in multilateral institutions is negatively associated with such support. National identity salience partially mediates these relationships, and media exposure to geopolitical news significantly strengthens them. The study contributes to foreign policy analysis by integrating polycrisis scholarship with hedging theory and public opinion research, and it offers policy implications for Pakistani policymakers and, more broadly, for governments across Asia seeking to understand mass-level foundations of strategic-autonomy preferences in a fragmenting global order.