Description
Since 2002 an unprecedented activism in Turkey’s Foreign Policy (TFP) behavior has been widely recognized. However, the combination of a multifaceted stance towards many issues with domestic alterations under AKP-led governments have polarized the debate around whether changes in TFP are mostly explicable either by systemic or domestic, either by material or ideational dynamics. In response to such dichotomies, this study builds on a multilevel analysis that examines the interplay between internal (domestic changes, leader images, strategic culture(s), institutional environment, socio-political constituencies) and external (systemic stimuli, international/regional power relations, external threat perceptions, political economy) factors.
Therefore, aiming to overcome traditional debates in IR, it theoretically relies on a pioneer flexible analytical framework drawn on recent theories of Foreign Policy Change. By integrating Foreign Policy Analysis with elements of Historical Institutionalism, it includes both material and ideational factors in order de-hierarchize the relations between three major parameters: transformations in the regional and global international system, shifts in domestic politics, and changes in individual leadership. Methodologically, it operates through a process-tracing (PT) for a cross-time analysis of TFP with the objective to capture: (1) elements of continuity and change along historical lines; (2) the two-way effect linking changes in foreign policy and domestic politics; (3) the dynamics at play in the decision- and foreign policy- making.
