The article explores Turkey's renewed interest in the Balkans through the scope of neo-Ottomanism. It researches the effects of Turkey's neo-Ottomanist Foreign Policy. The article devotes a special...Show moreThe article explores Turkey's renewed interest in the Balkans through the scope of neo-Ottomanism. It researches the effects of Turkey's neo-Ottomanist Foreign Policy. The article devotes a special look into the minority politics in Bulgaria. It researches the shifts in Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Turkish minorities in the Balkans under the ruling AK party in Turkey.Show less
The foreign policy of Turkey, as summarized on the Website of the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), states that “Turkey is on the right side of history….Her most important...Show moreThe foreign policy of Turkey, as summarized on the Website of the Republic of Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), states that “Turkey is on the right side of history….Her most important advantages come from her central geography…” (MFA, 2018b, p. 1). The centrality of Turkey, as rhetorically presented in this Turkish foreign policy summary, is expressed with reference to two geographies in particular: The Middle East and Europe. In terms of Europe, the Turkish foreign policy document includes the following statements: Turkey is pursuing membership of the European Union, underlining that her membership would benefit both the EU and Turkey. Turkey is actively contributing to the efforts to address many challenges that also effect Europe…Turkey is part and parcel of Europe and almost all European institutions. (MFA, 2018b, p. 1) In terms of the Middle East, the Turkish foreign policy summary notes Turkey’s position as part of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as well as various ties, bilateral and collective, to countries in the Middle East. The emergence of strategic centrality as a pillar of Turkish foreign policy appears to date from the 2000 publication of Ahmet Davutoğlu’s Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position (Murinson, 2006). In this book, Davutoğlu, then a professor and subsequently to become both the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister of Turkey, articulated what has since come to be called Neo-Ottomanism (Kraidy & Al-Ghazzi, 2013; Türkeş, 2016). The Ottoman Empire, which was formally replaced by the Republic of Turkey in 1923, possessed the “central geography” cited by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the “strategic depth” of Davutoğlu’s book. Despite the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the resulting Turkish state replicated some of the geographic and strategic dynamics of its predecessor, with its borders placed directly between the Middle East in the east and south, Russia in the north, and Greece and the Balkans in the west. The characteristics and direction of Turkish foreign policy can be examined not only by analysis of larger themes (such as Neo-Ottomanism) and documents (such as Strategic Depth), but also through a document analysis of official announcements made by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Such documents exist dating back to January, 2002, and, of the writing of this proposal, are current until January, 2018. These documents are of interest for a number of reasons. More importantly, the documents contain distinct eras in Turkish foreign policy. The documents made available on the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Website overlap with the Prime Ministerial rule of five people: Bülent Ecevit, Abdullah Gül, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ahmet Davetoğlu, and Binali Yıldırım. Of these Prime Ministers, the latter four were connected with the Ak Party, but at different eras. Of the Ak Party-affiliated Prime Ministers of Turkey, Binali Yıldırım has the reputation of somewhat being Erdoğan’s personal assistant, whereas both Gül and Davetoğlu have reputations of being somewhat independent from Erdoğan (Cagatay, 2017). In addition, during the 16-year period covered by the Turkish documents, Turkey has had eight Foreign Ministers. Thus, an analysis of the official announcements made by the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs can reveal changes in the orientation of Turkish policy over time. The objective of this empirical study is to provide such an analysis.Show less
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
