Contextualizing change in Turkish foreign policy: the promise of the ‘two-good’ theory

Abstract

The level of activism in Turkey's foreign policy has reached unprecedented levels during the country's modern history. This increased activism contrasts starkly with Turkey's characteristically traditional status quo orientation evinced during the Cold War. This study aims to establish a theoretical foundation to explain this multifaceted change in Turkish foreign policy. In doing so, it contends that the ‘two-good’ theory of foreign policy renders considerable analytical leverage for contextualizing recent changes in Turkish foreign policy. The theory posits that change in a country's foreign policy is contingent upon its willingness and capability to actively promote its interests. Furthermore, the ‘two-good’ theory postulates the method a country might employ to implement its foreign policy is a function of these two factors as well. The theory leads to two testable hypotheses regarding Turkish foreign policy. This study supports these hypotheses with qualitative and quantitative evidence.

Notes

¹ In this capacity, this study also contributes to a burgeoning strand of literature that analyses various aspects of Turkish foreign policy by using formal models. Guner (2012), for example, uses a decision theoretic model to derive propositions regarding when the Justice and Development Party (AKP) will pursue new endeavours in Turkish foreign policy, and when the incumbent will be content to continue the status quo. Elaborating on Turkey–EU negotiations, Kibris and Müftüler-Baç (2011) utilize sequential games to model the strategic interaction between the EU and Turkey regarding the membership negotiation and acquis communautaire transposition processes. In doing so, they emphasize the level of audience cost the Turkish government is subject to when negotiating with the EU affects its ability and willingness to transpose politically challenging EU acquis into Turkish law. Note that ‘internally consistent logic’ in a formal model refers to the fact that, given the assumptions, causal arguments are linked to each other via mathematical relations. These relations, by definition, should be internally consistent. We do not make an ex ante claim on the level of the theory's success (that is, its external validity) when calling it ‘internally consistent’.

² These illustrations do not necessarily suggest that security-based concerns of the previous decades lost their relevance in Turkish foreign policy circles. Accordingly, Müftüler-Baç and Gürsoy (2010) argued that security-based issues, such as recurring crises in the Aegean with Greece, around Cyprus and disagreements with Syria, mostly induced over the terrorist group Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), continued to constitute some of the main elements of Turkish foreign policy during this decade.

³ Despite this decrease in the expectations–credibility gap, Turkey remains quite restricted in its capabilities to engage in an array of foreign policy endeavours. For instance, Öni¸ (2011, 60) argues that Turkey's ability to unilaterally act as a mediator in the conflicts surrounding its region is ‘considerably limited given the economic and diplomatic resources at its disposal’. Similarly, Robins (2013, 382) suggests that ‘Turkey has neither the power nor the strength to sustain a core role’ in its region.

⁴ Its participation in the NATO-led campaign in Afghanistan, and in UN-led peacekeeping operations in Liberia, Côte d'Ivoire, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo exemplify Turkey's increasing influence beyond its immediate geography. In many of these international missions, Turkey's contributions have not been confined to the deployment of military units either. Police support and assistance in civilian capacity building constitute other important dimensions of Turkey's participation in internationally mandated missions.

⁵ See, inter alia, Morgan and Palmer (1997; 1999; 2000; 2003), Palmer et al (2002), Palmer and Morgan (2007) for various applications of the TGT in world politics.

⁶ Again, it is important to note that foreign policy tools (for example foreign aid, economic sanctions) and foreign policy goods (that is change and maintenance) refer to different concepts. Foreign policy tools are used to produce foreign policy goods. Certain foreign policy tools have better application to produce either of the goods. For instance, change-seekers tend to initiate militarized interstate disputes while maintenance-seekers tend to reciprocate in such disputes. Alliance formation, on the other hand, can work in either way. In asymmetric alliances, where one of the allies is considerably more powerful than the other(s), the weaker state usually gains maintenance in return for supplying change to its ally. To illustrate, by granting basing rights to the US and thereby deterring an Iraqi invasion during the 1991 Gulf War, Saudi Arabia maintained the status quo with respect to its borders. The US, in turn, used these bases to project power in, and thus change, the status quo in the region towards its interests more effectively. Accordingly, Morgan and Palmer (2003) argued and presented evidence that weaker states which ally with major powers become more belligerent; entering such alliances frees resources for the weaker state since the stronger state adopts some of the weaker state's maintenance burden.

⁷ Formally speaking, while PPF indicates the level of ‘opportunity’ available to a state in its foreign policy endeavours, the placement of the indifference curve on the PPF reflects the nature of that state's ‘willingness’ in pursuing these different endeavours.

⁸ Notably, this axiom does not suggest that as a state becomes more powerful, it will try to produce less maintenance. On the contrary, states will try to produce more of both goods as they get more powerful.

⁹ Hence the disproportional increase on the change axis per unit increase in overall capabilities.

¹⁰ Turkey's foreign policy preferences have not remained constant after the Cold War. Arguably, three phases are discernable during this period: Turkey as the ‘post-Cold War warrior’, a period that lasted from the dissolution of the Soviet Union until 2001 (Kiri¸çi 2006), a Europeanizing Turkey focused on enhancing soft power and mediation efforts in its region that roughly includes the last year of the tri-party coalition leading to the AKP government's first six years (2001–2007), and an increasingly assertive Turkey that frequently resorts to coercive threats (for example against Armenia, Libya, Syria and Cyprus) after 2007. An important note is that, regardless of such classifications, Turkey has invariably demonstrated its inclination to change the status quo through a variety of foreign policy tools after the Cold War.

¹¹ See Singer (1987) for a detailed explanation. Note that this study has revised the CINC figures for Turkey. The original CINC data show a decline for Turkey during the last few years. This decline is due to a measurement error. The amounts for the last eight years of a constituent term of the index, the size of urban population in the country, were calculated erroneously. Correspondence with the hosts of the dataset confirmed this error, with consequent updating of the data by the authors of this paper.

¹² An important question that arises is whether or not another incumbent party that is less reliant on the merchant class would be as willing to utilize foreign aid. Empirically, the answer is obscure. Theoretically, whether or not another incumbent would be as willing to extend foreign aid depends on the location of that alternative incumbent's utility indifference curves.

¹³ One reason for this levelling off could relate to decreasing returns. After a threshold, the utility Turkey derives from extending aid may be decreasing with every dollar spent. The short length of the series limits our ability to draw further robust inferences.

¹⁴ In a recent statement, Anders Fogh Rasmussen (2010), the current Secretary General of NATO, contended, ‘[r]ather than spending on fixed infrastructure and soldiers, who are essentially stuck in their barracks, [NATO] should redirect [its] investments towards more flexible, mobile and modern armed forces’. This call reflects NATO's transforming role, from one of maintaining the status quo against the Soviet Bloc to a proactive one seeking change around the globe. The accompanying structural transformation, Rasmussen suggested, squares well with abovementioned arguments regarding the structure of a change-seeking military.

¹⁵ Also notably, spending for light defence items tend to accrue on a ‘per soldier’ basis. Therefore, it is unlikely that a significant portion of the military equipment spending would be allocated to light defence items while the number of personnel decreases. In a similar vein, Bennett (2008) argues that conventional capital-intensive power projection technologies, such as aerial bombing, may prove counterproductive in fighting insurgencies. Therefore, one could argue that most of these capital-intensive investments were not geared towards combating terrorism, especially during the last decade.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emre Hatipoglu

Emre Hatipoglu is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University. He obtained his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University in 2010. His research interest revolves around the question of how domestic institutions shape foreign policy processes. His dissertation examined how Congress affects the course of US economic sanctions. He has been published in Terrorism and Political Violence, International Studies Perspectives and Foreign Policy Analysis. Email: [email protected]

Glenn Palmer

Glenn Palmer is a Professor of Political Science at the Pennsylvania State University, the executive director of Peace Science Society (International) and the editor-in-chief of Conflict Management and Peace Science. He has published extensively on international conflict and comparative foreign policy. He is the co-author of A Theory of Foreign Policy, published by Princeton University Press in 2006. Email: [email protected]