Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East: power projection and post-ideological politics

Abstract

Abstract Power projection, security, pragmatic considerations and a disparate mix of national interests and narrower party-political objectives have driven the foreign policy of Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Middle East since it came to power in 2002. Ideological concerns, consisting of a fluid blend of Islamist, neo-Ottoman and ‘civilizationalist’ ideas, mingled with a hefty dose of Turkish nationalism, have played a variable, auxiliary but none the less significant role. The Arab uprisings of 2011 opened up opportunities for the AKP to pursue its ideological objectives and they became more central to its policies, if only in some areas or clusters of relationships. However, they receded after 2015, when a confluence of domestic and regional factors caused the onset of a transactional, ‘post-ideological’ phase. The article places the Middle East in the wider context of Turkish foreign policy, both historically and in comparison with other regions, arguing in the process that categories of ‘East’ and ‘West’ are of limited value for its proper understanding and interpretation. It then divides it into four sub-regions, distinct in geographical and issue terms: Syria and Iraq (the ‘near abroad’), the wider Arab world, Israel–Palestine, and Iran. It analyses Turkish foreign policy towards them in sequence, illustrating the ways in which power-political considerations have predominated in all, albeit in different ways and to varying degrees, over the past five years.