This thesis utilises a constructivist perspective to understand the ideational components of the AK Party’s foreign policy discourse and how it dramatically transformed Turkey’s relationships with...Show moreThis thesis utilises a constructivist perspective to understand the ideational components of the AK Party’s foreign policy discourse and how it dramatically transformed Turkey’s relationships with states in the MENA region. The thesis then goes on to analyse the difficulties the AK Party's foreign policy struggled to cope with the regional disorder brought about by the Arab Spring. The party’s electoral hegemony and almost-continuous rule allowed them to wield tremendous power and transform conceptions of the Turkish nation. The AK Party’s nationalist project departed sharply from Kemalist discourses by eschewing the traditional concern for secularism and a realist foreign policy outlook by instrumentalising and reinventing discourses of Islamic and Ottoman Heritage. This new nationalist project positioned Turkey at the centre of the Islamic World and as inheritor to the Ottoman Empire and sought to justify an unprecedentedly proactive foreign policy that saw Turkey forge ties with most states in the MENA region. Furthermore, it constructed durable ideological ties between the AKP, the state and Turkish society when formulating, justifying and defending the party’s foreign policy discourse and practice. Key to this transformation in theory and practice of Turkish foreign policy was former Professor of International Relations, and chief advisor to Prime Minister Erdoğan, Ahmet Davutoğlu. Davutoğlu can be clearly identified as the key personality leading this transformation, successfully channeling his theory into practice under the AKP and dramatically improving Turkey’s ties with MENA states with the “no problems with neighbours policy”. However, though Davutoglu and the AKP experienced profound success, the regional discontent and transformations brought about by the Arab Spring necessitated a dramatic recallibration of Turkish foreign policy discourse and practice to be more in line with the realist, Kemalist paradigm of the past.Show less
