The Domestic Context of New Activism in Turkish Foreign Policy
| Published date | 01 March 2012 |
| Date | 01 March 2012 |
| Author | Dietrich Jung |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070201206700103 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
| International Journal | Winter 2011-12 | 23 |
Dietrich Jung is a professor and head of department at the centre for contemporary Middle
East studies, University of Southern Denmark. Currently, he is a guest research fellow at the
centre for studies in religion and society, University of Victoria.
Dietrich Jung
The domestic
context of new
activism in Turkish
foreign policy
Does religion matter?
The novelty of Turkish foreign policy is currently on everybody’s lips.
With catchwords such as “soft power,” “activism,” or the assumption of a
new “eastern orientation,” media pundits and scholars alike discuss the
transformation of Ankara’s neighbourhood policy for which the minister of
foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoğlu, has coined the slogan of “zero-problem
policy” with Turkey’s neighbours. There is no doubt that in comparison
with the rather hands-off approach toward the Middle East that was a core
element of the foreign policies of Turkey’s Kemalist political elite, under
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the country has made its immediate
and more distant neighbourhood a field of foreign policy activism. To a
| 24 | Winter 2011-12 | International Journal |
| Dietrich Jung |
certain extent, Davutoğlu’s slogan has turned the Kemalist perception of
encirclement upside-down: for some time the ring of enemies was replaced
by a circle of friends. That this approach to the Middle East is equally one-
sided, however, has been shown by the deteriorating relationship with Israel,
the tension with Iran over the installation of NATO’s early warning radar
system, and the difficulties in dealing with the often puzzling realities of
the “Arab spring.” Apparently it is impossible to avoid problems with
neighbours who have severe conflicts among themselves as well as with
their own populations.
In describing the transformation of Turkey’s foreign policy, the scholarly
debate refers to such diverse processes as the Europeanization, the Middle
Easternization, or even the Arabization of Turkish politics.1 The cultural
references of these labels suggest that we cannot understand foreign policies
through the prisms of the realist tradition alone. To be sure, states, their
power relations in the international system, and their respective national
interests matter, but so do worldviews and ideas. To paraphrase Max Weber’s
famous statement, foreign policies are the expression of state interests, but
ideas often play the switchman with regard to the way those interests are
pursued.2 In this way, national interests, geopolitics, and ideas mesh in
the making of foreign policy. Moreover, the ideas and interests of foreign
policymakers are closely linked to factors of domestic politics. Foreign policy
is not insulated from society but inseparably knitted into the often erratic
relationship between state institutions, political elites, and people.3 Seen
from that perspective, for instance, Erdoğan’s foreign policies have been
closely linked to his party’s home constituencies and the political struggle
1 Nur Bilge Criss, a staunch critic of the Freedom and Justice party, sees the Arabization
of Turkey “through switching cultural norms, control of women’s attire in the name
of religion, and new architecture styled after arabesque aesthetics for the conservative
nouveau riche.” Nur Bilge Criss, “Dismantling Turkey: The will of the people?” Turkish
Studies 11, no. 1 (2010): 46. A good summary of the recent literature on Turkish foreign
policy is found in Kemal Kirişçi, “The transformation of Turkish foreign policy: The rise
of the trading state,” New Perspectives on Turkey 40 (2009): 29-57.
2 Max Weber, “The social psychology of the world religions,” in H.H. Gerth and C.
Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge, 1991),
280.
3 Christopher Hill, “Introduction: The Falklands War and European foreign policy,”
in Stelios Stavridis and Christopher Hill, eds., Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy.
Western European Reactions to the Falklands Conflict (Oxford and Washington, DC:
Berg, 1996), 5.
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