Browsing by Subject "Turkish Foreign Policy"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8

Open Access
The Analysis of Turkish foreign policy under Justice and Development Party government in the post-9/11 world
(2008) Yanarışık, Oğuzhan
The disastrous attacks on 11 September 2001 signalled the beginning of a new era within which more people believe that Islam is in conflict with the West and western values. Although the Islamic political identity was traditionally based on opposition to the West and the westernization in Turkey, rapprochement between the Turkish Islamists and western values occurred ironically in the same era. The establishment and the rise of Justice and Development Party (JDP) are seen by many observers as an evidence of this transformation in the position of Islamists towards the West. This thesis evaluates the impact of systemic interactions on the identity formation, interest construction, and thus foreign policy behaviours of JDP-led Turkey through constructivist lenses. In other words, it takes the changing international environment in the post 9/11 world as independent variable, within which international norms are interrogated, East-West perceptions are reconsidered and identities are reconstructed. On the other hand, it takes identity, interests and behaviors of JDP-led Turkey and other international actors as dependent variables.
Open Access
The decision-making process of Turkey deploying Turkish troops to Korea
(2005) Tek, Hakan
This thesis examines the foreign policy decision-making process and its functioning in Turkey (especially in Turkey’s troop deployment decisions) within the context of the Korean War. Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP) shifted with the changes in the international era after World War II. The threat perception increased resulting in Turkey joining in the United Nations and sending its troops to Korea in order to support the USA and to join NATO. The decision of sending Turkish troops to Korea was given and executed by a few leaders governing Democratic Party. Besides the disputes on the legality of the decision held at the Turkish Assembly the main argument was on the political outcomes (being excepted to western security institutions). So, by underlining how the decision was given, the governing party leaders were criticized rather than the decision itself. In the postCold War era, Turkish Foreign Policy was released from Cold War burdens and foreign policy options multiplied.
Open Access
Foreign policy and the construction of modern Turkish citizenship during the national struggle period
(2003) Kaygusuz, Özlem
This dissertation is an attempt to present a different historical account of the construction of modern national citizenship and the politics of inclusion and exclusion that is the politics of citizenship through a rereading of the official foreign policy of the formative years of the Turkish Republic. From the theoreticalanalytical point of view, the dissertation rests on the proposal that there is a relationship between the foreign policy dynamics and the domestic socio-political structure, namely the nature of the relationship between the state and the citizen, the basic features of the collective and individual political identities and the formation of the terms of legitimate and proper membership which can all be termed as the politics of citizenship of a particular country. Within this framework, the dissertation uses the general foreign policy orientation and specific acts and decisions of the nationalist Ankara government as the analytical instrument to follow up the formation of the early premises of Turkish national citizenship identity. The main argument is that the territorial, cultural (national) and political boundaries of modern citizenship identity in Turkey were drawn mainly in and through the foreign policy acts and decisions of the new ruling elite which were reflected in the foreign policy texts –treaties and agreements- of the period between 1919-1923.
Open Access
Fourty five years of Turkish foreign policy towards Syria : under the shadow of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(2005) Aydoğdu, Özay Murat
This thesis analyzes the Turkish-Syrian relations between 1945 and 1990 and examines whether there was an influence of the Soviet Union or not in relations between both states. Although Turkish foreign policy was accepted as pro-western oriented policy by academic environment, it can be said that Turkey was partly influenced by the Soviet Union in its policy towards Syria. Turkey established relations with Syria and Middle Eastern states in varying approaches, and adopted these approaches in order to be in harmony with the West. However, the Soviet Union was important in Turkish foreign policy towards Syria because Syria was a Soviet advocate in the Middle East and was supported widely by the Soviet Union. Although the opinion of the Turkish foreign policy was stemmed from the Soviet Union was widespread, Turkey used the Soviet menace for its domestic and international interests. On the contrary, especially in post-1960 policies, Turkey improved its relations with the Soviet Union while it established rapprochement with Arab states in order to keep its national interests
Open Access
The place of social identity in Turkey's foreign policy options in the post-Cold War era in the light of liberal and constructivist approaches
(2001) Kılınç, Ramazan
This thesis aims to describe the positions of diverse social identities in Turkey concerning Turkey’s foreign policy options in the post-Cold War era. This exercise will be placed within the framework of the theoretical propositions of liberal and constructivist International Relations (IR) theories with special references to their emphases on the role of identity on foreign policy making in a comparative manner. For liberal theoreticians, key concept is “state preferences” in the formation of foreign policy. They argue that state preferences are formed in the process of the competition of views among social identities in the society as well as by the constraints resulting from the preferences of other states. In the constructivist theory, a key concept is “national interests” which are constructed and negotiated socially by the discourses among different national identities. In this context, it will be examined the impact of diverse social identities, namely, Kemalist, liberal, nationalist, Kurdish and Islamic identities on the Turkey’s foreign policies towards Europe and Eurasia.
Open Access
Portrait of a Turkish social democrat : İsmail Cem
(2011) Örmeci, Ozan
İsmail Cem (1940-2007) was a Turkish intellectual and social democratic politician who spent his life investigating the characteristics and problems of Turkish modernization and social democratic solutions to these problems. Cem started his career as a peculiar socialist journalist who had a special curiosity towards the Ottoman past in the late 1960s and early 1970s. With his books and articles he became an influential and prestigious figure in the leftist intellectual and political circles and served as the manager of Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT). Unlike usual leftist-modernist intellectuals, he was very critical of “top to bottom” Turkish modernization and had propositions to solve Turkey’s political problems within the limits of democracy. During these years, Cem’s democratic socialism slowly evolved into social democracy. Starting from the 1980s, Cem appeared this time as a social democratic politician and tried to realize his projects and reduce his theories into practice. He was one of the leading figures of Turkish social democracy and was the creator of the “Anatolian Left” together with Deniz Baykal. In the mid-1990s he served for a short time as the Minister of Culture and starting from 1997 -with short interruptions- for five years he worked as the Foreign Minister of Turkey. He continued to write about Turkish politics and foreign policy and left behind an important collection of books and articles. İsmail Cem saw his life’s work as involving basically three tasks: to reconcile Turkey with its Ottoman past by softening the radical modernist mentality of the earlier Republican period both on the intellectual and social levels, to find solutions to Turkey’s various political problems by making a social democratic interpretation of Kemalism and thus, achieving democratic consolidation in Turkey and to transform his country into a respected regional power in international relations by pursuing an active foreign policy through full membership to the European Union as well as by developing relations with Middle Eastern and Eurasian countries. Both as a public intellectual and politician, he was able to take considerable steps in order to realize these three tasks, though he did not have chance to complete his mission. Although he was an important part of the intellectual force behind Turkey’s pro-Western secular segments, we do not know too much about Cem’s personal life and intellectual development throughout the years. This thesis is an attempt to analyze İsmail Cem by focusing on his life, his ideas, his political career, his propositions to Turkey’s major democratic problems and his foreign policy understanding and practices analytically.
Open Access
Transnationalism and the state : Turkish foreign policy towards the Turkic world
(2010) Köstem, Seçkin
Transformation in world politics, which is marked by globalization, has led to the emergence of transnational actors. This on the one hand caused different forms of governance to occur and on the other hand resulted in cooperative behavior by states in their interaction with non-state units. This cooperation is a result of the necessity felt by states to incorporate normative issues in their national interests as well as changing identity perceptions of decision-makers. This study focuses on how Turkish foreign policy towards Turkic-speaking states and communities has been influenced by the transnational idea of “Turkic World” in the post-Cold War era. The explanatory factor or the independent behavior in this case study is the transnational idea of “Turkic World”, which is advocated by non-state actors. Although the Turkish state distanced itself from the idea of “Turkic World” in the early Republican period and during the Cold War, it re-emerged in Turkish politics in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. In the last two decades Turkish foreign policy towards the Turkic world has passed through a process evolution; in which stages were rapid entrance in the early 1990s, disappointment in the late 1990s and revision in the 2000s. This evolution includes certain patterns of behavior that indicate that the idea of “Turkic World” is institutionalizing in Turkish foreign policy. This institutionalization stages indicate that Turkish foreign policy in this case is not only influenced by the geopolitical factor, but by ideational factor, which has driven Turkish decision-makers towards closer political, economic and cultural cooperation with Turkic states.
Open Access
Turkey and the Kurdish Question: Last Exit before the Bridge
(Brill Academic Publishers, 2016) Özpek, B. B.; Mutluer, O.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government initiated a peace process with the Kurds in January 2013 to become the first government since 1984 to systematically negotiate with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) instead of using the military against them. Nevertheless, a bloody war restarted after AKP lost its majority in the parliament due to the Kurdish backed Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) success in the 7 June 2015 elections. In the coalition negotiation process, the AKP, which is under the strict control of Erdoǧan, did not make a serious offer to any of the opposition parties, and Erdoǧan did not mandate other parties to form a coalition government. Thus, holding a snap election remained the only option. Erdoǧan's strategy to attract the nationalist voters worked, and the AKP re-gained the overall majority in the parliament by receiving the nationalist votes again. Nevertheless, this was a Pyrrhic victory for the AKP. In addition to the domestic polarization, the new AKP government has needed to deal with the Kurdish Question, which has turned into armed conflict since the 7 June elections, along with re-formulating its relations with the allies of the PKK in Northern Syria and in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Furthermore, increasing activism in the ISIS issue and the "jet crisis" experienced with Russia seems to have complicated Turkey's foreign policy and compelled the AKP to revise its approach towards the Kurdish Question. © 2016 Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.