Approaches to Turkish Foreign Policy: A Critical Realist Analysis

Abstract

This article analyses different approaches to Turkish foreign policy (TFP) from a critical realist perspective. It seeks to criticize positivist and post-positivist approaches to TFP, arguing for a non-reductionist, historical materialist approach based on the principles of critical realism. It argues that historical materialist approaches are missing both from the analysis of TFP and from the mainstream foreign-policy analysis in general. In emphasizing the importance of a historical materialist approach, the paper also underlines the importance of acknowledging the structural context of foreign policy-making as a complement to the agent-centric, micro-level analyses that dominate the mainstream TFP analysis. Finally, it advocates a research agenda that focuses on the development of a historical materialist approach to TFP.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their supportive comments and suggestions. My special thanks to Jonathan Joseph who has read and commented on an earlier version of this article.

Notes on Contributor

Faruk Yalvaç is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations of the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and an MA from Tufts University, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he was on a Fulbright Scholarship. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics in International Relations. His main interests are international relations theory, critical realism, historical sociology, Marxism, international political theory, Turkish foreign policy and political economy of Turkey.

Notes

1. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” 2; Altunışık, “The Possibilities and Limits of Turkey's Soft Power”; Oğuzlu, “Soft power,” 81–97.

2. Aras and Fidan, “Turkey and Eurasia,” 193–214.

3. Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik.

4. Duran, “Türk Dış Politikasının İç Siyaset Boyutu,” 20.

5. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” 12; also Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: In Search of a Viable Domestic Polity,” 22.

6. Kirişçi, “The transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy,” 52.

7. Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, 3. See also Fuller, The New Turkish Republic.

8. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” 3.

9. Öniş, “Multiple Faces of the ‘New’ Turkish Foreign Policy,” 48.

10. Gözen, “Türk Dış Politikasında Değişim Var mı?,” 31.

11. Ibid., 31.

12. Ibid., 32.

13. Aydın, “Twenty Years Before, Twenty Years After,” 13.

14. Oğuzlu, “Turkey and the West,” 981.

15. Uzgel, “Dış Politikada AKP,” 379.

16. Ibid.

17. See Kirişçi, “ Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy,” 34–41 for a summary of different causes of the transformation in Turkish foreign policy.

18. See the Special Issue of Uluslararası İlişkiler (International Relations) 2, no. 6 (2005) for a discussion of the state of IR discipline in Turkey.

19. Hudson, “Foreign Policy Analysis,” 1–30.

20. Cox, “Social Forces, States and World Orders,” 209.

21. Ibid., 247.

22. See Hobson and Lawson, “What is History in International Relations,” 415–35.

23. Ashley, “The Poverty of Neorealism,” 268, 270.

24. Aydınlı, Kurubaş, Özdemir, Yöntem, Kuram, Komplo, 126, 135 although correctly observe the dominance of positivism in Turkish IR studies, nevertheless very narrowly define what positivism is.

25. Houghton, “Reinvigorating the Study of Foreign Policy Decision-Making,” 24–45.

26. Joseph, “Philosophy in International Relations,” 349.

27. Ibid., 355, ftn. 34, 348.

28. Aydınlı, Kurubaş, Özdemir, Yöntem, Kuram, Komplo, 125.

29. Gönlübol, Olaylarla Türk Dış Politikası; Oran, Türk Dış Politikası.

30. For example, Ülman and Sander, “Türk Dış Politikasına Yön Veren Etkenler.”

31. Bayram Sinkaya, “Rationalization of Turkey-Iran Relations: Prospects and Limits,” 137–56.

32. Gözen, “Türk Dış Politikasında Değişim Varmı?” 29.

33. Yalvaç, “Strategic Depth or Hegemonic Depth,” 165–80.

34. Oğuzlu, “The Changing Dynamics of Turkey-Isreal Relations,” 273–88.

35. İşeri and Dilek, “The Limitations of Turkey's New Foreign Policy Activism,” 41–54, particulary 43–5.

36. Ibid., 44.

37. See Doyle, “Liberalism and Foreign Policy,” 50–70.

38. References to Keyman are from “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” and “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: In Search of a Viable Domestic Polity for a Sustainable Turkish Foreign Policy.”

39. See Gürpınar, “The Trajectory of Left Liberalism in Turkey,” 147–68 for a discussion of left liberalism.

40. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: Turkish Foreign Policy 2009 and Beyond,” 12–14.

41. Duran, “Türk Dış Politikasının İç Siyaset Boyutu: 2010,” 53; Bülent Aras, “İç Politika, Dış Politika,” Sabah, 27 Ocak 2010.

42. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: Turkish Foreign Policy 2009 and Beyond,” 17.

43. Kirişçi, “The transformation of Turkish foreign policy,” 29–57: see also and Kaptanoğlu, “The Politics of Trade and Turkish Foreign Policy,” 705–24.

44. See Kirişçi, “Turkey's Engagement with its Neighborhood,” 319–41.

45. Ibid., 320, 321.

46. Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics.

47. Ibid., 1, 20, 25; Joseph, “Philosophy in International Relations,” 351.

48. Carlsnaes, “Actors, Structures and Foreign Policy Analysis,” 93.

49. See Doty, “Foreign Policy as a Social Construction,” 297–320.

50. Checkel, “Constructivism and Foreign Policy,” 75.

51. See Aksoy and Çemrek, “Türk Dış Politikasında Kimlik Sorunu,” 151–69.

52. Cizre, “Demythologizing the National Security Concept,” 213–30; Bilgin, “Turkey's Changing Security Discurse,” 175–201.

53. Gündoğdu, “Identities in Question,” 106–17; Rumelili, “Impacting the Greek-Turkish Conflicts”; “Transforming Conflicts on EU Borders,” 105–26.

54. See Kösebalaban, “The Permanent ‘Other’,” 87–111.

55. Bilgin, “Securing Turkey Through Western-oriented Foreign Policy,” 105–25; also “Türkiye'nin Güvenliğinde Batı Yönelimli Dış Politikaların Rolü Anlamak,” 1–20.

56. Booth, Critical Security Studies and World Politics; Booth, Theory of World Security.

57. Kösebalaban, “The Permanent ‘Other’,” 110.

58. Bilgin, “Türkiye'nin Güvenliğinde Batı Yönelimli Dış Politikaların Rolü Anlamak,” 7. See also Rumelili, “Constructing Identity and Relating to Difference,” 27–47; “Turkey,” 135–249; “Negotiating Europe,” 97–100.

59. Coş and Bilgin, “Stalin's Demands,” 43–60.

60. Balcı and Kardaş, “The Changing Dynamics of Turkey's Relations with Israel,” 99–120.

61. Uzer, Identity and Turkish Foreign Policy, 9.

62. Ibid., 184, 186.

63. Bozdağlıoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity.

64. Ibid., 7, 27, 25.

65. Rivas, “Realism. For Real this Time,” 203.

66. Düzgit, “Avrupa Birliği- Türkiye İlişkilerine Postyapısalcı Yaklaşım,” 49–70.

67. Doty, “Foreign Policy as Social Construction”; Mark Laffey, “Locating Identity,” 429–44.

68. Ibid., 52.

69. See Tekin, “The Construction of Turkey's Possible EU Membership in French Political Discourse,” 727–63. Also Yılmaz, “Turkish Identity on the Road to the EU,” 293–305.

70. Rumelili, “Liminal Identities,” 496.

71. Ibid., 500.

72. Yanık, “Constructing Turkish ‘Exceptionalism,’” 82, 87.

73. Balcı, “1990 Sonrası Türk Dış Politikası Üzerine Bazı Notlar,” 87–99.

74. Ibid., 87, 88, 89, 91, 89.

75. Joseph, “Foucoult and Reality,” 150, 158.

76. Ashley, “Foreign Policy as Political Performance,” 51.

77. Joseph, “Foucoult and Reality,” 159, 154.

78. See Joseph and Wight, Scientific Realism and International Relations for different aspects of the relation between IR theory and critical realism.

79. Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science; The Possibility of Naturalism; “Philosophy and Scientific Realism.”

80. Rivas, “Realism: For Real this Time,” 203–27.

81. Teschke and Smith, “The Dialectics of Globalization,” 171–2.

82. Joseph, “Philosophy in International Relations,” 345, 346, 347.

83. Bhaskar, “Philosophy and Scientific Realism,” 41.

84. Wight and Joseph, “Scientific Realism and International Relations,” 19.

85. See Carlsnaes, “The Agency-Structure Problem in Foreign Policy Analysis,” 245–70. See also Altunışık and Martin, “Making Sense of Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East under AKP,” 575–81.

86. Hudson, “Actor-Specific Theory and the Ground of International Relations,” Chp. 6.

87. See Yalvaç, “Strategic Depth or Hegemonic Depth,” 167–87.

88. For a discussion of the relation between critical realism and Marxism, see, Yalvaç, “Critical Realism, International Relations Theory and Marxism,” 167–85.

89. Wight and Joseph, “Scientific Realism and International Relations,” 21–3.

90. For the concept of totality and its significance for international relations theory see Yalvaç, “Critical Realism, International Relations Theory and Marxim,” 177–84.

91. Wood, “The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism,” 66–95; Teschke and Smith, “The Dialectics of Globalization, 177.

92. Apeldoorn, “Theorizing the transnational,” 142–76.

93. See Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism.

94. Callinicos, “Does capitalism need the state system?” 162–75; Teschke, The Myth of 1648. Teschke's “property relations approach” linking geopolitical orders with social structures of property relations is particularly relevant. In Teschke's view, “property relations define the ruling-class strategies that explain international conduct,” 220.

95. Oran, Turkish Foreign Policy, 15 and passim.

96. Uzgel, Ulusal Çıkar ve Dış Politika, 89–104.

97. Ibid., 90, 96–7, 101.

98. Pozo-Martin, “Autonomous or Materialist Geopolitics?” 551–63.

99. Ibid., 552–3.

100. Joseph “The International as Emergent,” 63.

101. Jessop, State Theory, s. 61.

102. Patomäki, After International Relations, 81. See also Joseph, “The International as Emergent,” 64.

103. Carlsnaes, “The Agency-Structure Problem in Foreign Policy Analysis.”

104. Joseph, “A Realist Theory of Hegemony,” 179–202.

105. Bob Jessop, State Theory, 162.

106. For a discussion of the concept of state classes see van der Pijl, Transnational Classes and International Relations, 79–83. Pijl argues that state classes dominated social formations in what he calls the Hobbesian contender states (including Turkey) to the liberal Lockean heardland. The implications of this concept need to be separately analyzed and discussed in the context of Turkey.

107. SeeYalvaç, “Strategic Depth or Hegemonic Depth.”

108. Rupert, “Marxism and Critical Theory,” 170.

109. This article does not directly deal with the implications of different approaches in terms of specific foreign policy strategies. Its focus is on the alternative approaches to TFP analysis. I would like to thank one of the referees for pointing this out. My current work explicitly deals with what a critical realist and historical materialist TFP entails.

110. Wight and Joseph, “Scientific Realism annd International Relations,” 24.