The strategic culture and political beliefs of Turkey’s far-right leaders: an operational code analysis of Alparslan Türkeş and Devlet Bahçeli
Author(s)
Advisor
Özdamar, ÖzgürDate
2022-12Publisher
Bilkent University
Language
English
Type
ThesisItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
Far-right parties with strong nationalist tendencies have occupied a central role in Turkish politics.
Sometimes as the radical voice of the opposition parties, sometimes as the minor coalition partner,
Turkish nationalism has found itself a strong grip on the political scene since the 1950’s. Alparslan
Türkeş and Devlet Bahçeli are viewed as the pioneer figures in the long journey of Turkish
nationalism. Both leaders have served as party leaders for more than two decades through several
coups, domestic and international changes. In this regard, understanding their belief systems
becomes a must in order to understand the foreign policy culture of the Turkish far-right. By
utilizing the operational code, a quantitative leadership assessment method that maps the political
beliefs of leaders in order to identify causal mechanisms in foreign policy decisions (George,
1969); (Walker, 1983) the study looks to identify the general patterns of Turkish far-right leaders
in foreign policy. While analysing the belief systems of Türkeş and Bahçeli, the thesis also looks
at the foreign policy events that the leaders experienced. Thus, the quantitative results that stem
from the automated coding system ProfilerPlus will be combined with a qualitative aspect that will shed light to the events that give meaning to the beliefs. Three main sets of hypotheses are
tested in the thesis. First, Bahçeli is expected to have more stable views on the nature of political
universe; Türkeş is believed to have a more hostile understanding of the political universe
compared to Bahçeli; and both leaders are expected to see their political other more hostile than
the average world leader. Secondly, the study hypothesizes that Türkeş and Bahçeli select more
cooperative strategies during their governmental terms but remain conflictual compared to the
average world leader in any setting. Third and finally, the thesis argues for the two leaders to
possess lower self-control over the course of historical development compared to the average
world leader; and expects them to have similar control levels during the 1990’s –a time period in
which both leaders ruled their Parties. The findings of the study reveal that Türkeş and Bahçeli
possess high levels of hostility towards the political universe, adopt conflictual strategies
compared to the average world leader, and their level of historical control remain slightly over the
average world leader. While there are minor differences among the two leaders, a clear party
orientation can be spotted in the field of foreign policy. Approaching the strategic culture debate
from a theoretical perspective, their typologies correspond with a ‘realist-other’ approach on the
nature of political universe alongside ‘mixed self-strategies’ that swing between moderate
‘idealism’ and ‘realism.’ Nevertheless, the findings also show that most deviations from their
career averages have occurred during governmental power and brief opportunity windows. In
adopting a longitudinal approach, the thesis analyses the belief systems of the two leaders in
several time-frames.
Keywords
Foreign policy analysisOperational code analysis
Strategic culture
Turkish far- right
Turkish foreign policy