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ABSTRACT
This paper examines the role of ideas and identities in the making of the AKP’s foreign policy in Turkey. After briefly examining the institutional and international constraints on Turkish foreign policy before 2002, the discussion turns to the driving factors in three evolutionary stages of AKP’s foreign policy. It becomes apparent that a neo-Ottoman worldview and accompanying identity constitute the interpretive framework of the AKP’s political elite. The article traces how this worldview became dominant in Turkey’s policy making after the government dismantled the country’s Kemalist institutions and the AKP consolidated its political power.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Behlül Özkan, Birol Başkan, Umut Uzer, Zenonas Tziarras, Mehmet Arısan, Paul Kubicek, Fumiko Sawae, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the initial draft of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For different versions of neo-Ottomanism, see Yavuz, Nostalgia for the Empire, 70-71; Erdogan’s Islamized neo-Ottomanism, 162-178.
2 Lobell, et al. Neoclassical Realism.
3 For one of the best books on Turkish foreign policy, see Kösebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy.
4 Yavuz, Erdoğan. 77-112.
5 Başkan. “Islamism.”
6 Başkan, “Islamism,” 272.
7 Davutoğlu, “Turkey’s foreign policy.”
8 Yavuz and Khan, “Turkish Foreign Policy,” 70-71, and Robins, “Turkey’s ‘Double Gravity’”.
9 Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”
10 For one of the best books for examining the domestic evolution of Turkish political and social landscape with an emphasis on the impact of Ottoman influence, see Findley, Turkey, Islam, and Modernity.
11 Öztürk,. Religion, Identity and Power.
12 Onar, “Echoes.”
13 Arısan, “From `client’.”
14 Yavuz, Erdoğan, 282-313.
15 Aydın, “Determinants,” 154-56.
16 Millman, “Turkish Foreign.”
17 Hasanli, Stalin and the Turkish Crisis.
18 Laciner, “Turgut Özal.”
19 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity, 81-102.
20 Khan, “The Two Hundred Year Crisis.”
21 Karaosmanoğlu, “The evolution.”
22 Tziarras, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”
23 Saraçoğlu and Demirkol, “Nationalism,” 314. For the ideological underpinnings of neo-Ottomanism, see Uzer, “Conservative Narrative.”
24 Kalin, “Debating Turkey,” 91-92.
25 Davutoğlu, “Dışişleri Bakanı.” See also Bashirov and Yilmaz, “The rise of transactionalism.”
26 Quoted from Saraçoğlu and Demirkol, “Nationalism,” 314-315, and Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik, 143.
27 Lesser, “The Evolution,” 261.
28 Holt, The Balkan Reconquista.
29 Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity.
30 Kaliber, “Securing the ground.”
31 Nasr, “The Rise of ‘Muslim Democracy’.”
32 Uzer, “The downfall.”
33 For more on Turkish-Brazilian cooperation on the Iranian nuclear deal, see Ozkan, “Turkey-Brazil Involvement.” Also see “Text of the Iran-Brazil-Turkey Deal,” Julian Borger's Global Security Blog, Guardian, May 17,2010.
34 Taş, “Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
35 “Saudi Prince Says Turkey Part of `Triangle of Evil’: Egyptian Media.” Reuters, 7 March 2018.
36 Interview with Nihat Ali Özcan, 12 June 2022.
37 Kubicek, “Structural dynamics.”
38 Mukherjee, “Chaos as opportunity,” 429.
39 Đidić and Kösebalaban, “Turkey’s Rapprochement.”
40 Erşen, “The Return of Eurasianism.”
41 Kubicek, “Structural dynamics.”
42 Pierini and Siccardi, “Why the EU.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
M. Hakan Yavuz
M. Hakan Yavuz is Professor of Political Science at the University of Utah. He has published widely on the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Islamic movements, and Turkish politics.