The AKP’s Foreign Policy

When Turkey’s Justice and Development Part (AKP) came to power in 2002, it brought a new strategy to foreign policy. Some scholars ascribed this reorientation to the rise of neo-Ottomanism, others to Islamization, and yet others to a Middle Easternization of foreign policy. All labels have one elem...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Kubilay Arin
Format: article
Langue:EN
Publié: International Institute of Islamic Thought 2015
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:https://doaj.org/article/5587b88f8cce40ebaac8700954beaa36
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
Description
Résumé:When Turkey’s Justice and Development Part (AKP) came to power in 2002, it brought a new strategy to foreign policy. Some scholars ascribed this reorientation to the rise of neo-Ottomanism, others to Islamization, and yet others to a Middle Easternization of foreign policy. All labels have one element in common: They give weight to Islam and Turkey’s imperial past as soft power assets in the conduct of foreign policy by rejecting secular Kemalism in the country’s diplomacy. The AKP capitalized on Turgut Özal’s neo-Ottomanist foreign policy and Necmettin Erbakan’s multi-dimensional foreign policy by using Turkey’s pivotal geopolitical location to transform it into a global actor. The ongoing Islamic revival has caused the country’s attempted full westernization to slow down. But the West itself is hardly a monolithic bloc, given its own many internal cultural, linguistic, religious, political, and economic differences. I therefore describe Turkey as a “hybrid,” a modern and developing “semi-western” state, and argue that over time it will become ever more “socially conservative.”