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

Abstract

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.