The (un)making of the Pax Turca in the Middle East: understanding the social-historical roots of foreign policy

Abstract

Turkey's foreign policy activism has received mixed reviews. Some feel threatened by the alleged increasing Islamization of the country's foreign policy, sometimes called 'neo-Ottomanism', which is seen as a significant revision of Turkey's traditional transatlanticism. Others see Turkey as a stable democratic role model in a troubled region. This debate on Turkish foreign policy (TFP) remains dominated by a sense of confusion about what appear to be stark contradictions that are difficult to make sense of. Intervening in this debate, this article will develop an alternative perspective to existing accounts of Turkey's new foreign policy. Offering a historical sociological approach to foreign policy analysis, it locates recent transformations in Turkey's broader strategies of social reproduction. It subsequently argues that, contrary to claims about Turkey's 'axis shift', its changing foreign policies have in fact never been pro-Western or pro-American. All foreign policy 'shifts' and 'inconsistencies', we argue, are explicable in terms of historically changing strategies of social reproduction of the Ottoman and Turkish states responding to changing domestic and international conditions.

The International from the perspectives of Gezi Protestors

“…Among the many points that are raised by the interaction between IR and HS, we believe the following three are especially relevant when examining the crisis in the Middle East: the need to escape essentialism; Euro‐centrism; and methodological nationalism (Bhambra, ; Chernilo, ; Matin, ; Wimmer & Glick‐Schiller, ). HS in IR (Hobden, ; Lawson, , ; Lawson & Shilliam, ; Rosenberg, ) has produced important work in these directions, and the Middle East as a region (Halliday, ; Hoffmann & Cemgil, ; Matin, )has already been the focus of some of these works. Yet much empirical research is still needed not only to grasp the current crisis in all its path‐dependencies but also to further the HS research agenda in new directions.…”

“…The complex transformation of Turkish foreign policy, with some ruptures and some continuities, has been well discussed in the literature (Altunışık & Martin, ; Hoffmann & Cemgil, ). If one is limited to academic writing, it would give the impression that the foreign policy changes especially towards the Middle East are intimately linked with the political crisis within Turkey.…”