Browsing by Subject "Foreign policy analysis"

Now showing 1 - 14 of 14

Open Access
Constitution of Turkish self : a post-structuralist foreign policy analysis of JDP's foreign policy discourse on distant natural disasters
(2012) Ceydilek, Erdem
Identity is mostly portrayed as given in foreign policy analysis. However, the power of foreign policy discourse on identity constitution has been raised by poststructuralism for the last 30 years. As the overall objective, this study aims at showing the performative link between foreign policy and identity. Specifically, this study also aims at understanding the performative link between foreign policy discourse of Justice and Development Party (JDP) policy-makers and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) officials on distant natural disasters and the constitution of the Turkish self, through utilizing a critical discourse analysis methodology. There are three main findings of this study, namely (i) the foreign policy discourse of JDP on the distant natural disasters has constituted the Indonesia and Pakistan disasters as important events, (ii) this discourse has constituted the Turkish self as a homogenous community, (iii) this homogenous Turkish self is linked with several signifiers and differentiated from negated external others.
Open Access
David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett as founders of Israeli strategic culture: an operational code approach
(2022-08) Erğurum, Ahmet
This thesis examines the microfoundations of two Israeli strategic culture schools attributed to the first two prime ministers of Israel, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett. Historical accounts attribute Ben-Gurion to a realist orientation, while they attribute Sharett to an idealist orientation. However, these orientations rely on interpretive methods and lack empirical testing. By utilizing operational code analysis as a well-established foreign policy analysis tool, I empirically test to what extent these attributions are reflected in their political beliefs. This thesis employs an automated content analysis method via ProfilerPlus software based on the Verbs in Context System (VICS) procedure to code leaders' speeches as data. The results show that Ben-Gurion’s instrumental beliefs (image of Self) reflect a conflictual image of the political universe as a Type DEF realist leader, while Moshe Sharett’s instrumental beliefs reflect the cooperative characteristics of Type A idealist leadership typology, which align with the historical accounts. As for the philosophical beliefs (image of Other), the findings surprisingly show mixed results. Findings reveal that Sharett’s results differ from his historical accounts, while Ben-Gurion’s results confirm his historical accounts. Both Ben-Gurion and Sharett viewed Other as Type B realist leader. This thesis shows how the synthesis between individual-level variables and structural explanations of foreign policy orientations can advance the explanatory value of international relations theories.
Open Access
Do campaign speeches predict foreign policy? An operational code and leadership trait analysis of Donald Trump’s MENA policies
(Uluslararası İlişkiler Konseyi Derneği İktisadi İşletmesi, 2023-12-19) Özdamar, Özgür; Halistoprak, B. T.; Young, M.
This article investigates whether campaign speeches during the US presidential elections can help predict foreign policy behavior. We use speeches made by Donald J. Trump during his bid for president in 2016. We compare the analysis from 2016 with his actual foreign policy decisions during his tenure, 2017-2020. Operational code analysis and leadership traits analysis approaches are used to analyze candidate Trump’s foreign policy beliefs and strategies associated with them. We use Profiler Plus software to conduct content analysis which produces OCA and LTA results. We use three separate datasets to analyze Trump’s beliefs and traits focusing on his general foreign policy speeches, the MENA region, and a third one only about Islamic State and Syria. Our results show that Trump’s profile indicates a foreign policy orientation that avoids involvement in affairs that are perceived as beyond immediate interests. The consistency between his beliefs and traits during the 2016 campaign and his actual foreign policy behavior leads us to conclude that individual level analysis, and specifically OCA and LTA approaches, are useful tools to analyze, explain and predict foreign policy.
Open Access
Effects of economic sanctions on political beliefs of the targeted countries’ leaders
(2021-09) Shahin, Evgeniia
International organizations, individual states, and groups of states increasingly often use economic sanctions an alternative tool of foreign policy. While there are multiple studies analyzing effectiveness and economic, political, or humanitarian consequences of sanctions, much less attention is given to their psychological impacts. Presenting one of the rare systematic studies of psychological consequences of sanctions, this dissertation aims to analyze the effects of the economic sanctions on the political beliefs of the leaders of targeted states. Using operational code analysis, this research investigates whether economic sanctions lead to a change in operational codes of the leaders of Iran, Russia, and Syria representing the major cases of sanctions in the last two decades. The research demonstrates that while economic sanctions do not correspond to an immediate cognitive change, they are likely to trigger leaders’ more gradual learning. The results show that the leaders’ rhetoric after sanctions reflected multiple belief changes, some of which were similar across cases. For example, in five out of six analyzed instances, the targeted leaders started to perceive ‘other’ international actors less friendly than before. Presenting the first systematic analysis of a specific external shock on operational codes of leaders in different geographical, temporal, and political settings, this dissertation contributes to the political belief change literature. At the same time this study fills the gap in the research on psychological consequences of sanctions.
Open Access
The EU-Turkey refugee deal: multiple levels of international negotiation
(2020-08) Gülen, İrem Aybala
In March 2016, the European Union (EU) and Turkey agreed on a deal which envisaged to put an end to the irregular crossings of Syrian refugees from Turkey to Europe. This thesis aims to explain two important puzzles regarding the deal. While almost all countries governed by right-wing populist political parties around the world adopt antiimmigrant policies, Turkey emerged as an anomaly in terms of being a top refugee hosting country and striking a deal which keeps the refugees within the country. At the same time, despite its obvious benefits for the EU, the EU did not hold up its own side of the deal and cooperation between two sides deteriorated in ensuing years. This study argues that Turkey aimed to use Syrian refugees as a leverage vis-a-vis the EU to obtain political, financial and normative concessions. Although the AKP government got the EU to accept its demands on paper, the EU could not keep its side of bargain as a result of simultaneous interaction within and between its multiple levels. In order to explain inability of the EU in delivering its promises, this study extends Putnam’s two-level game analysis to three-levels, and analyzes how the interplay of these levels affected the outcome of the deal.
Open Access
European populist radical right leaders’ foreign policy beliefs: An operational code analysis
(Sage Publications, 2020-03) Özdamar, Özgür; Ceydilek, Erdem
Despite the significance of the subject, studies on the foreign policy preferences of European populist radical right leaders are scarce except for a handful of examples. Are European populist radical right leaders more hostile than other world leaders or comparatively friendly? Do they use cooperative or conflictual strategies to achieve their political goals? What are the leadership types associated with their strategic orientations in international relations? Using the operational code construct in this empirical study, we answer these questions and depict the foreign policy belief systems of seven European populist radical right leaders. We test whether they share a common pattern in their foreign policy beliefs and whether their foreign policy belief systems are significantly different from the norming group of average world leaders. The results indicate that European populist radical right leaders lack a common pattern in terms of their foreign policy belief systems. While the average scores of the analysed European populist radical right leaders suggest that they are more conflictual in their world views, results also show that they employ instrumental approaches relatively similar to the average group of world leaders. This article illuminates the microfoundations of strategic behaviour in international relations and arrives at conclusions about the role of European populist radical right leaders in mainstream International Relations discussions, such as idealism versus realism. In this sense, the cognitivist research school complements and advances structural accounts of international relations by analysing leadership in world affairs.
Open Access
Forum: coding in tongues: developing non-english coding schemes for leadership profiling
(Oxford University Press, 2020) Brummer, K.; Young, M. D .; Özdamar, Özgür; Canbolat, S.; Thiers, C.; Rabini, C.; Dimmroth, K.; Hansel, M.; Mehvar, A.
Over the last twenty years since the introduction of automated coding schemes, research in foreign policy analysis (FPA) has made great advances. However, this automatization process is based on the analysis of verbal statements of leaders to create leadership profiles and has remained largely confined in terms of language. That is, the coding schemes can only parse English-language texts. This reduces both the quality and quantity of available data and limits the application of these leadership profiling techniques beyond the Anglosphere. Against this background, this forum offers five reports on the development of freely available coding schemes for either operational code analysis or leadership trait analysis for languages other than English (i.e., Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, German, and Persian).
Open Access
From good neighbor to model: Turkey's changing roles in the Middle East in the aftermath of the Arab Spring
(International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK), 2014) Özdamar, Ö.; Halistoprak, B. T.; Sula, İ. E.
The recent Arab uprisings have forced many actors to reconsider their positions regarding Middle Eastern politics. Role theory provides a viable tool to explain changes in actors’ foreign policy behaviors, presuming that states’ foreign policies are shaped by the ruling elites’ foreign policy role conceptions. This article analyzes Turkish foreign policy roles with regard to the Middle East and North Africa before and since the Arab uprisings that began in December 2010. We argue that these uprisings caused Turkey to change its emphasis from roles built on soft power instruments to harder roles requiring material capabilities. We also discuss the implications of this change with reference to theories of international politics.
Open Access
From good neighbor to model: Turkey’s changing roles in the middle east in the aftermath of the arab spring
(Uluslararası İlişkiler Konseyi Derneği İktisadi İşletmesi, 2014) Özdamar, Özgür; Halistoprak, B. Toygar; Sula, İ. Erkam
The recent Arab uprisings have forced many actors to reconsider their positions regarding Middle Eastern politics. Role theory provides a viable tool to explain changes in actors’ foreign policy behaviors, presuming that states’ foreign policies are shaped by the ruling elites’ foreign policy role conceptions. This article analyzes Turkish foreign policy roles with regard to the Middle East and North Africa before and since the Arab uprisings that began in December 2010. We argue that these uprisings caused Turkey to change its emphasis from roles built on soft power instruments to harder roles requiring material capabilities. We also discuss the implications of this change with reference to theories of international politics.
Open Access
Multiple dualities: seeking the patterns in Iran’s foreign policy
(Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research, İhsan Doğramacı Peace Foundation, 2019) Bayar, Tuğba
As one of the most significant actors of the region, Iran’s interactions with great powers (as well as regional powers and non-state actors) have come under scrutiny. This article adopts an historical account and suggests a framework to study Iran’s foreign policy. The framework is contextually built with a multilevel approach to specify the independent and intervening variables of Iran’s foreign policy through the light of neoclassical realist theory. In this context, it is argued that the independent variables of Iran’s foreign policy are geopolitics, threat perceptions and balance of power politics. These systemic variables are filtered through nationalism, theological and revolutionary ideology and policy making mechanisms.
Open Access
The strategic culture and political beliefs of Turkey’s far-right leaders: an operational code analysis of Alparslan Türkeş and Devlet Bahçeli
(2022-12) Gül, Kerem
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.
Open Access
Turkish foreign policy towards the Cyprus crises of 1964, 1967, and 1974 : A poliheuristic perspective
(2014) Erciyas, Okhan
This thesis analyzes Turkish foreign policy towards Cyprus crises of 1964, 1967, and 1974. It summarizes the Cyprus question in the 20th Century. The thesis examines the Cyprus crises and Turkey’s ultimate decisions in each crisis by ‘poliheuristic’ decision making model. The decision making processes of Turkish leaders will be analyzed. By comparing the crises, this thesis studies how Turkish decision makers decided to use force in 1974, whereas refrained from using force against Cyprus in the previous crises of 1964 and 1967. The thesis argues that during each Cyprus crisis, Turkish decision makers framed some of the policy options as ‘noncompensatory’ which resulted in the decision not to intervene in Cyprus during the 1964 and 1967 crises, and resulted in the intervention decision during the 1974 crisis.
Open Access
Turkish leaders and their foreign policy decision-making style: a comparative and multi-method perspective
(Routledge, 2020-02-09) Çuhadar, Çerağ Esra; Kaarbo, J.; Kesgin, B.; Özkeçeci Taner, B.
Using both quantitative and qualitative research techniques, we investigate the effect of leaders’ style and personality on foreign policy. The study examines six Turkish leaders, Süleyman Demirel, Bülent Ecevit, Necmettin Erbakan, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Abdullah Gül, and Turgut Özal, and 18 foreign policy cases to answer the following questions: do Turkish leaders differ from each other in terms of their personality traits and styles?; how did their styles affect their foreign policy choices?; and how did they react to various domestic and international constraints they encountered in cases of foreign policy? Our findings suggest that: (a) in terms of their personality traits, Turkish leaders do not collectively fit in one category; (b) there are some stark differences among our six leaders, although some leaders are more similar to each other than others in terms of their personality traits and styles; (c) these differences were observable in the foreign policy decisions they made.
Open Access
Understanding Turkish foreign affairs in the 21st century : a homegrown theorizing attempt
(2014) Biltekin, Gonca
For Turkish scholars, understanding especially the last decade of Turkey’s international politics has been a great challenge. Answering fundamental questions, -and many others-, requires collection of reliable, complete and uniform data and interpreting them on conceptual terms. The purpose of this thesis is to understand and explain Turkey’s foreignl affairs in a holistic way and offer a homegrown model based on original data. Building an original event dataset, this thesis accounts for the empirical observations made out of Turkey’s international practice and conceptualizes it as a complex system. It accounts for foreign policy change in complex systems, introduces concepts such as domestic responsivity, domestic, international nodes as well as intermestic and international nexus, and puts forward a helical model of power accumulation, as an outcome of successful foreign policy change.