Linking Turkey’s domestic politics and foreign policy: the Justice and Development Party’s political strategies and their divergent foreign policy effects

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines Turkish domestic politics and the country’s foreign policy behaviors under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), using Joe Hagan’s three alternative political strategies: accommodation, insulation, and mobilization. The first AKP administration used an accommodation strategy to avoid confrontations with military and judiciary institutions, resulting in restrained foreign policymaking. During its second tenure, the AKP leadership successfully insulated domestic opposition, allowing for implementation of a new foreign policy agenda. In the post-failed coup period, to discredit domestic adversaries, unify the public, legitimize leadership positions, and demonstrate a capacity for maintaining the nation’s security, the AKP has adopted a mobilization strategy and manipulated Turkish foreign policy through a ‘diversionary war’ in Syria and periodically escalated tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean region. This strategy has helped contain domestic opposition, while diverting public attention from divisive domestic problems to Turkish military activities abroad.