Party Competition Over Turkish Foreign Policy: Understanding Policy Revisions of the Rival Parties

Abstract

Why do parties change policy positions? Theories of party competition analyze this question by looking at how parties respond to their voters, to their rivals, to the lobbying groups, or to the results of the past elections. The research on the motives of change in Turkish foreign policy (TFP) partially accounts for such factors from the domestic level. This article is interested in the relative impact of party competition over TFP. To this end, it analyses and compares foreign policy positions as presented in the successive election manifestos of the mainstream Turkish political parties. The analysis rests on all the pre-election party programs of the ruling Justice and Development Party, the Republican Peoples Party and the Nationalist Action Party in the period from 2002 to 2018. The article solely concentrates on sections of these parties’ election programs that are devoted to foreign policy. First, it examines transformations regarding parties’ general framings about TFP visions and then analyses party policies and adjustments regarding Turkey’s relations with the West, Middle East, and other regions. The article also examines the level of the resemblance of parties’ foreign policy proposals with their rivals’ proposals from the previous electoral period. The findings of this article are expected to help understand parties’ choices for particular foreign policy positions, as well as, contribute to the existing discussions on the magnitude and determinants of change in TFP.