Decoding Turkey's Rise: An Introduction

Abstract

Acknowledging Turkey as a rising power, and having commonalities in both objectives and outcomes with the other rising Southern powers, this study is a modest attempt to decode Turkey's rise with/within the West discursively and empirically and at multiple levels: systemic, regional and agent-based domestic. It aims to contribute to the debate over rising powers by developing new conceptualizations and challenging or reinterpreting the existing theoretical approaches in order to define Turkey's current power status vis-á-vis both other rising powers and the major Western powers. Turkey's recent rise, which has also been characterized by the country's high economic growth, must be nuanced from that of the Global South countries in some principal aspects. Unlike other rising powers, the Western factor weights more heavily in Turkey's recent rise. This issue's novel contribution to the existing literature on Turkish foreign policy is its attempt to understand Turkey's current rise, as well as its limitations in the context of its decades-long institutionalized and strategic relations with the West.

Acknowledgements

The editors of this special issue would like to thank Paul Kubicek for his valuable help and insightful comments for the earlier versions of the selected articles for this issue. The editors would also like to thank all the distinguished contributors to this issue for their articles.

Notes on Contributors

Tarık Oğuzlu is currently Prof. Dr in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Antalya International University. His research interests are international relations theories, Europeanization of foreign policy, European Union foreign and security policy, transatlantic relations, Turkish foreign policy, Turkey's relations with EU and NATO/USA, Turkey–Greece relations, Cyprus dispute, and Turkey and the Middle East.

Emel Parlar Dal is an assistant professor at Marmara University's Department of Political Science and International Relations. After graduating from Galatasaray University, she received her MA and PhD degrees at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris 3 Nouvelle Sorbonne Universities in France. She received the Swiss government's scholarship and conducted research as a visiting fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Between November 2013 and February 2014 she will conduct research as a visiting fellow at St. Anthony's College Middle East Center of Oxford University. She authored articles on Turkish foreign policy, Turkey and the Mediterranean region, Turkey's Middle Eastern relations, transatlantic relations, as well as Turkish–Iranian relations. During 2011–12, she edited a special issue on the new Turkish foreign policy and a collective book on Turkish politics. In 2013, she co-edited a special issue on Syria published by L'Harmattan in France.

Notes

1. Fontaine and Kliman, “The Global Swing States,” 93–109; Hart and Jones, “How Do Rising Powers Rise?” 63–88; Stephen, “Rising Regional Powers and International Institutions,” 289–309; Breslin, “China's Emerging Global Role,” 52–62; Zürn and Stephen, “The View of Old and New Powers,” 91–101; Florini, “Rising Asian Powers,” 24–33; Larson and Shevchenko, “Status Seekers,” 63–95; Kahler, “Rising Powers and Global Governance,” 711–29; Burges, “Brazil as a Bridge Between Old and New Powers?” 577–94; Terhalle, “Reciprocal Socialization,” 341–61; Narlikar, “India Rising: Responsible to Whom?” 595–614; Schirm, “Leaders in Need of Followers,” 197–221; Cooper and Alexandroff, “Introduction,” 1–14.

2. Sing and Dube, BRICs and the World Order, 1–46; Flockhart and Xing, Riding the Tiger, 1–4.

3. Narlikar, “Introduction: Negotiating,” 561–76; Gray and Murphy, “Introduction: Rising Powers,” 183–93; Chin and Quadir, “Introduction: Rising States,” 493–506.

4. Hart and Jones, “How Do Rising Powers Rise?” 63–88.

5. Vezirgiannidou, “The United States and Rising Powers,” 635–51.

6. Ikenberry, “The Three Faces of Liberal Internationalism,” 42.

7. Patrick, “Irresponsible Stakeholders,” 44–53.

8. Destradi, “Regional Powers and their Strategies,” 903–30.

9. Nolte, “How to Compare Regional Powers,” 881.

10. Katzenstein, A World of Regions.

11. Hurrell, “One World? Many Worlds?” 127–46.

12. Pastor, A Century's Journey, 25. The author includes among the regional powers: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. China is ranked as a great power.

13. Hart and Jones, “How Do Rising Powers Rise?”, 67.