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ABSTRACT
A revisionist tone that has created several crisis has become more pronounced in Turkish foreign policy. This trend has been particularly evident after 2010 when the AKP consolidated its power base, the military's tutelage over politics subsequently disappeared and the Arab Spring opened a new window of opportunity for Turkey in the Middle East. This has been surprising because de-militarization of political space was envisioned to produce more cooperative stances in the globalized post-Cold War world. This trend has occurred alongside what many would argue has been the AKP's authoritarian and Islamist agenda. Such an argument suggests that earlier the AKP had pragmatically used democratic values and integrationist policies to weaken the military, and then adopted Islamism in foreign policy and authoritarianism in domestic politics. This study aims to explore the common characteristics of the AKP in domestic and international realms while the extant paradigm tends to divide the AKP period into two categories, which are democratic/pro-western and authoritarian/Islamist. In order to suggest a common characteristic to identify the AKP's domestic and foreign policy in a holistic manner, this article applies the term ‘populism’ to describe a number of AKP policies and positions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Burak Bilgehan Özpek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technology. His main research interests include failed states, conflict studies, contemporary politics of the Middle East and Turkish foreign policy. He has published articles in Journal of International Relations and Development, International Journal, Near East Quarterly, Iran and the Caucasus, Turkish Studies, Israel Affairs, Global Governance and Birikim.
Nebahat Yaşar is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of International Relations at Middle East Technical University. Her main research interests are on contemporary politics in the Middle East and North Africa.
Notes
1. Behlül, “Turkey, Davutoğlu”; Kıvanç, Pan-İslamcının; Kuru and Stepan, Democracy; Cornell, “What Drives”; Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads.”
2. Yeğen, “Kemalizm ve Hegemonya,” and Ersanlı, İktidar ve Tarih.
3. İçduyu and Kaygusuz, “The Politics of Citizenship.”
4. Yeğen, “Turkish State Discourse.”
5. Göle, “Secularism and Islamism,” and Kuru, Secularism and State Policies.
6. Keyman, “Introduction.”
7. Göle, “Authoritarian Secularism.”
8. Bilgin, “Turkey's Changing Security.”
9. Cizre, “Demythologizing.”
10. Özkan, “Turkey, Davutoğlu” and Kıvanç, Pan-İslamcının.
11. Öniş, “Turkey and the Arab revolutions.”
12. Park, “Turkey's ‘New’ Foreign Policy.”
13. Gülalp, “Using Islam,” and Browers, Political Ideology in the Arab World.
14. Wejnert and Woods, The Many Faces of Populism.
15. Mudde and Kaltwasser, “Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism”; Stanley, “The Thin Ideology of Populism”; Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-First Century Populism; Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism”; Madrid, “The Rise of Ethnopopulism in Latin America”; Canovan, “Taking Politics to the People”; and Taggart, Populism.
16. Wejnert and Woods, The Many Faces of Populism, 15
17. Canovan, “Populism for Political Theorists?,” 244.
18. Taşgetiren, “bravo, bravo, ama … .”
19. The term ‘White Turks’ was developed by Nilufer Göle for identifiying priviled secular urban segment in Turkish society. The term was also used by Erdoğan and several AKP supporters in relations with ‘Black Turks’. See Ferguson, “White Turks, Black Turks, and Negroes.”
20. Akyol, “Kemalist Elitler,” and “AKP'li Fırat: Atatürk devrimleri travma yarattı.” Radikal, June 22, 2006.
21. “Erdoğan: TSK sivil iradenin dışına çıkamaz,” Hürriyet, October 2, 2006.
22. Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads.”
23. Taspinar, “The End of the Turkish Model.”
24. “Gezi'nin PKK'lı teröristini anmaya CHP ve HDP'li vekiller birlikte katıldı,” Sabah, June 1, 2017; Tan, “Ana muhalefet mi … ?”; Babaoğlu, “En zehirli terör desteği … ”; and Tuna, “Yargı sizin emir eriniz mi?”
25. Gürakar, Politics of Favoritism, 5.
26. Bilgin, “Turkey's Changing Security”; Cizre, “Demythologizing”; Yeğen, “Turkish State Discourse”; Göle, “Secularism and Islamism”; and Kuru, Secularism and State Policies.
27. Efegil, “Analysis”; Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government”; İnsel, “The AKP and Normalizing Democracy”; Çınar, “Turkey's Transformation” and Dağı, “Turkey's AKP in Power.”
28. Kubicek, “Political Conditionality.”
29. Aydınlı, Özcan, and Akyaz, “The Turkish Military's March.”
30. “MHP’nin oyları Ak Parti’ye kaydı.” Milliyet, November 2, 2015.
31. “Turkey detains HDP leaders Demirtas and Yuksekdag,” Al Jazeera, November 4, 2016.
32. “İstanbul'da yolsuzluk ve rüşvet operasyonu.” Hürriyet, December 17, 2013.
33. Ergin, “Erdoğan’ın,” and “Bu oyunu bozup inlerine gireceğiz.” Sabah, December 22, 2013.
34. “MGK: Paralel yapı ulusal güvenliğe tehdit.” BBC Turkçe, February 26, 2014.
35. “15 Temmuz darbe girişimi: Türkiye'de 3 ay süreyle olağanüstü hâl ilan edildi.” BBC Turkçe, July 20, 2016.
36. “Devlette on Binlerce Tasfiye.” Milliyet, July 20, 2016.
37. “New York Times’dan kapsamlı haber: Türkiye’deki tasfiyelerin iç yüzü.” Diken, April 16, 2017.
38. As of 22 June 2017, 91,927 staff have been sacked from their positions, and 61 health-care centers, 1043 private education institutions, 140 foundations, 1611 associations, 19 syndicates, 15 universities, 140 media outlets and 29 publishers have been closed by statutory decrees. In addition there are 156 journalists in prisons.
39. Balcı, “Dış Politikada Hesaplaşmak.”
40. Çandar, “Avrasyacılık”; Cemal, “Ergenekon”; and Dağı, “Rus Yanlısı Darbe.”
41. Hinnebusch, “Back to Enmity.”
42. Akyol, “What Turned Erdogan.”
43. Putnam, “Diplomacy.”
44. Levy, “Domestic Politics.”
45. Rosecrance, Action and Reaction.
46. Aydın, “Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy.”