Foreign policy beliefs of Victory Party chairman Ümit Özdağ: an operational code analysis

Abstract

This thesis examines the foreign policy belief system of Ümit Özdağ, the chairman of the Victory Party (Zafer Partisi), through Operational Code Analysis (OCA) and compares it with a group of European Populist Radical Right-Wing Party (EPRRP) leaders. While the Victory Party has emerged as a significant actor in Turkish politics with its rigid anti-immigration stance and populist-nationalist rhetoric, scholarly attention to its foreign policy orientation remains limited. Drawing on content from Özdağ’s public interviews and speeches, this study employs the ProfilerPlus tool and the Verbs in Context System (VICS) to assess his philosophical and instrumental beliefs. The thesis tests three hypotheses concerning Özdağ’s beliefs on the nature of the political universe, his instrumental beliefs, and control throughout historical development. The findings reveal that Özdağ’s foreign policy worldview is more conflictual and uncooperative than the average EPRRP leader. While sharing some ideological similarities with his European counterparts, such as skepticism toward international cooperation and a strong emphasis on national sovereignty, Özdağ exhibits a particularly antagonistic view of the global system and a less inclined belief towards cooperative strategies. These patterns suggest that while Prof. Özdağ fits within the broader populist radical right-wing party tradition, his foreign policy belief system reflects a distinctive articulation of these ideas. This thesis contributes methodologically by empirically applying OCA in a non-Western context by offering the first systematic leadership-level analysis of a Turkish populist radical right-wing party (PRRP) figure, thereby opening new avenues for comparative populism and foreign policy research.