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ABSTRACT
Turkish foreign policy under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been the subject of much change, especially as regards relations with the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We create and analyze a novel dataset of Turkey’s treaties with MENA countries to offer and assess several arguments empirically. We find that Turkey became more diplomatically active in the MENA and emerged as a ‘trading state’ in the AKP’s first decade. In the wake of the Arab Uprisings, especially after 2016, Turkey became less diplomatically active and more security oriented. However, it did not necessarily lose all of the characteristics of a ‘trading state.’
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 The AKP’s foreign policy doctrine of ‘zero problems (with neighbors)’ was first articulated by Ahmet Davutoğlu. See Davutoğlu, “Türkiye Merkez Ülke Olmalı.”
2 Rosecrance’s notion of ‘trading state’ was first employed by Kemal Kirişçi in relation to the Turkish foreign policy. See Kirişçi, “The Transformation.”
3 Kalın, Twitter Post.
4 Regarding Turkey’s image in the Middle East, the term ‘post-Cold War warrior’ was first adopted by Ramazan Gözen. See Gözen, “Turkish-Iraqi Relations.”
5 Kirişçi, Tocci, and Walker, A Neighborhood Rediscovered.
6 Bilgin, “Turkey's Changing Security Discourses”; Bozdağlıoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy; Cizre, “Demythologyzing”; and Dağı, “Ulusal Kimliğin İnşası ve Dış Politika.”
7 Akçapar, Turkey's New European Era; Aydin and Açıkmeşe, “Europeanization”; and Öniş, “Turkey and the Middle.”
8 Hatipoğlu and Palmer, “Contextualizing Change”; İpek, “Ideas and Change”; Kutlay, “Economy”; and Kirişçi, “The Transformation.”
9 Kirişçi, “The Transformation.”
10 Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State.
11 Öniş, “Turkey and the Middle East.”
12 Altunışık and Martin, “Making Sense”; Kardaş, “Turkey: Redrawing the Middle East Map”; and Ennis and Momani, “Shaping the Middle East.”
13 Kutlay and Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”
14 Ibid.; Also see Keyman, “A New Turkish Foreign Policy.”
15 Akkoyunlu, “The Five Phases”; Dalacoura, “Turkish Foreign Policy”; Kirişçi, Turkey and the West; and Keyman, “A New Turkish Foreign Policy.”
16 Altunışık, “The New Turn” and Uzel, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”
17 Cop and Zihnioğlu, “Turkish Foreign Policy”; Öniş, “Monopolising the Centre”; and Kutlay and Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy.”
18 Zalewsky, “How Turkey Went,” and Lowen, “Erdogan’s ‘New Turkey’.”
19 Turkey closed its embassy in Damascus in 2012.
20 Demiryol, “Natural Gas and Geopolitics.”
21 France, not a founding member of the EMGF, joined the forum in 2021.
22 Altunışık, “The New Turn.”
23 Ibid.
24 Leeds et al., “Alliance Treaty Obligations.”
25 Denemark et al., “Diplomacy and Controversies.”
26 Inoguchi and Le. The Development.
27 Ibid. Also see Jönsson and Hall, Essence of Diplomacy; Denemark and Hoffmann, “Just Scraps of Paper?”; Keene, “The Treaty-Making Revolution”; and Milewicz and Snidal, “Cooperation by Treaty.”
28 Schultz and Levick, “Regional Patterns.”
29 Turkey’s Official Gazette is accessible at https://www.resmigazete.gov.tr; UNTS can be accessed at https://treaties.un.org/pages/AdvanceSearch.aspx?tab=UNTS&clang=_en.
30 Aydın-Çakır and Arıkan-Akdağ, “An Empirical Analysis”; Aydın-Çakır and Arıkan-Akdağ, “Uluslararası Antlaşmaların Analizi”; and Taşkıran, “Measuring Foreign Policy Activism.”
31 Aydın-Çakır and Arıkan-Akdağ, “Uluslararası Antlaşmaların Analizi.”
32 Altunışık, “The New Turn.”
33 Kirişci, “Post-Revolutionary Iran.”
34 For pragmaticism in Turkish-Iranian relations, see Kirişci, “Post-Revolutionary Iran”; Özer-İmer and Kılıç, “Reciprocal Dependencies” and Dalay, “Turkish Iranian Relations.”
35 Kirişçi, “The Transformation.”
36 Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik.
37 Kirişçi, “The Transformation,” 41.
38 Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State, 24.
39 Ibid., Chapter 2.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Hasan Yönten
Hasan Yönten is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Neumann University. His research interests include Turkish foreign policy, international treaties, global cooperation, and international migration. He is the co-author of ‘Diplomacy and Controversies in Global Security Studies: The Sea Power Anomaly and Soft Balancing,' which appeared in Journal of Global Security Studies in 2019.
Robert A. Denemark
Robert A. Denemark is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Delaware. His research interests include the long-term development of global systems and the role of cooperative mechanisms in such systems. He is the author of ‘Pandemics in Global and Historical Perspective,’ which appeared in Globalizations in 2022.