Quest for regional power status: Explaining Turkey’s assertive foreign policy
| Author | Muhammet Koçak,Musa Akgül |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00207020221130310 |
| Published date | 01 June 2022 |
| Date | 01 June 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essay |
Scholarly Essay
International Journal
2022, Vol. 77(2) 292–312
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/00207020221130310
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Quest for regional power
status: Explaining Turkey’s
assertive foreign policy
Muhammet Koçak
Florida International University
Musa Akgül
Lancaster University
Abstract
This article explains Turkey’s hard power usage in Syria, Azerbaijan, and Libya. We
argue that gaining a respected status forms the basis of Turkish foreign policy and
the main cause of Turkey’s hard power usage was the failure of Turkey’sprevious
status-seeking strategy. Turkey had followed a cooperationist strategy since the
early 1990s by pursuing membership in the EU, strengthening ties with the West,
and leading regional mediation efforts. However, this strategy failed due to
the changing the security environment in the early 2010s and the discord between
the interests of West and Turkey. This led Turkey to be more prone to using hard
power, through which Turkey could achieve status and influence in multiple re-
gions. This study provides an insight into the status-seeking strategies of Turkey, as
an emerging middle power, by unpacking its priorities and contributes to the
ongoing debates on Turkey’s foreign policy under Erdo˘
gan.
Keywords
Turkish foreign policy, middle powers, status, Middle East, Syrian civil war, Nagorno-
Karabakh, Libya
Corresponding author:
Muhammet Koçak, Florida International University, International Relations, 11200S.W. 8th Street, Miami, FL
33199, USA.
Email: mkocak@yandex.ru
The literature on Turkey’s foreign policy lacks a consensus on the causes of the change in
Turkish foreign policy towards a more assertive strategy with proneness to military power
projection since the mid-2010s. Such change is commonly seen as a shift of axis in the
Wes t.
1
Indeed, a significant part of the literature deems Recep Tayyip Erdo˘
gan’sper-
sonality, the ideology of the Justice and Development Party (JDP), domestic events in
Turkey, regional developments, and changes in the global balance of power as responsible.
This portion of the literature focuses on the domestic factors stemming from Turkey’s
internal politics. In these works, the agency of Erdo ˘
ganismainlyseenasresponsiblefor
bringing about such a shift.
2
Another strand of the literature attributes the change to the
regional or international context.
3
These analyses point to the decline of US influence in the
Middle East; the trajectory of the Arab uprisings, particularly the Syrian Civil War; and the
change in the global balance of power as possible reasons for a change in Turkish foreign
policy strategy.
Aside from these aforementioned factors, which evidently play a role in the construction
of Turkey’s foreign policy, we argue that reaching regional power status is an essential
factor in Turkey’sforeign policy. Status is an important concept in international relations. A
higher status might open the doors for greater regional and/or global influence. While a
middle power is limited in exerting influence outside of its borders, a regional power can
easily enjoy regional influence and a great power can enjoy global power.
Turkey is considered a middle power in international politics regarding its GDP,
population size, growth rate, military spending, and export figures.
4
Middle power, as a
concept, was popularized by Canadian policymakers during the Cold War. According to
this conceptualization, Canada was a junior yet effective partner of great powers, with
moderate influence outside of its immediate neighbourhood.
5
With the coming of the JDP
1. Ekrem T. Bas
¸er, “Shift-of-axis in Turkish foreign policy: Turkish national role conceptions before and
during AKP rule,”Turkish Studies 16, no. 3 (2015): 291–309.
2. See Lars Haugom, “Turkish foreign policy under Erdogan: A change in international orientation?,”
Comparative Strategy 38, no. 3 (2019), and Henri Barkey,“How Erdogan muscled Turkey to the center of
the world stage,”Council on Foreign Relations, 30 October 2020, https://www.cfr.org/article/how-
erdogan-muscled-turkey-center-world-stage (accessed 29 Aug 2022).
3. See TarıkO
˘
guzlu, “Turkish foreign policy in a changing world order,”All Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign
Policy and Peace 9, no. 1 (2018): 127–136, Malik Mufti, “Turkey’s choice,”Insight Turkey, 1 January
2017, https://www.insightturkey.com/articles/turkeys-choice(accessed 30 August 2022); Murat Yes
¸iltas
¸,
“Deciphering Turkey’s assertive military and defense strategy: Objectives, pillars, and implications,”
Insight Turkey 22, no. 3 (2020): 89–114; Soner Ça˘
gaptay, The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of the
Modern Turkey (I.B. Tauris, 2020).
4. See Ziya ¨
Onis
¸and Mustafa Kutlay, “The dynamics of emerging middle-power influence in regional and
global governance: The paradoxical case of Turkey,”Australian Journal of International Affairs 71, no. 2
(2017): 164–183; Emel Parlar Dal, Middle Powers in Global Governance: The Rise of Turkey (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2018).
5. Hasan Basri Yalçın,“The concept of ‘middle power’and the recent Turkish foreign policy activism,”Afro
Eurasian Studies 1, no. 1 (2012): 197.
Koçak and Akgül 293
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