Two Stages of Turkey’s Quest for a Regional Power Status in the Middle East: An Integrated Role- Status-seeking Approach

Year 2020, Volume: 14 Issue: 27, 1 - 29, 10.12.2020

Tayyar Arı Omar Munassar

https://doi.org/10.19060/gav.838831

Cited By: 2

Abstract

Since 2002, Turkey has actively been seeking a regional power status in the Middle East through the articulation of regional roles based on historical legacy and liberal experience. Theoretically, the paper seeks to contribute to regional power literature by integrating role theory with status-seeking theory and examining the interactions between them. This integrated approach suggests that the role rientations of aspiring regional power and regional counter-roles determine the level of status recognition of that regional power in a given regional power hierarchy. Using this approach, the paper examines the fluctuations in Turkey’s pursuit of regional power status in the Middle East over two uneven stages before and after the Arab Spring. It shows that Turkey was able to play regional cooperative roles and improve its regional power status during the first stage (2002-2011) while has stumbled over the period since the Arab Spring.

Keywords

Turkey, Role, Status-seeking, Middle East, Arab Spring

Türkiye’nin Orta Doğu’da Bölgesel Güç Statüsü Arayışındaki İki Aşama: Bütünleşik Rol-Statü Arayışı Yaklaşımı

Abstract

2002 yılından bu yana Türkiye, tarihsel miras ve liberal tecrübe iddiası temelinde bölgesellik rolünü vurgulayarak Orta Doğu’da bölgesel güç statüsü elde etmeye çalışmaktadır. Bu çalışma, teorik çerçevede rol teorisi ile statü arayışı (status-seeking) teorisini bir araya getirerek ve bunlar arasındaki ilişkiyi ele alarak bölgesel güç literatürüne katkı yapmayı hedeflemektedir. Bu bütünleşik yaklaşım, bölgesel güç olmayan çalışanlar aktörlerin rol eğilimleri ve bölgesel karşı-rollerin, bölgesel bir gücün belli bir bölgedeki hiyerarşi içerisindeki statüsünü tanımladığını ileri sürmektedir. Çalışma, bu yaklaşımından yararlanarak Arap Baharı öncesi ve sonrası dönemde, Türkiye’nin Orta Doğu’daki bölgesel güç olma arayışındaki dalgalanmaları incelemektedir. Türkiye, 2002-2011 yılları arasındaki ilk aşamada bölgesel işbirliği rolünü oynayabilmiştir ve bölgesel güç statüsünü geliştirmiştir ancak Arap Baharı sonrasında bu rolü oynama konusunda zorluklar yaşamıştır.

Keywords

Türkiye, Rol, Statü Arayışı, Arap Baharı, Orta Doğu

References

• ADIGBUO, Richard, “Beyond IR Theories: The Case for National Role Concep¬tions.” Politikon, Vol, 34, No, 1,2007,83–97.24
• AKTÜRK, Şener, “The Fourth Style of Politics: Eurasianism as a Pro-Russian Re¬thinking of Turkey’s Geopolitical Identity.” Turkish Studies, Vol,16.No,1,2015, 54-79.
• AKTÜRK, Şener, “Turkey’s Role in the Arab Spring and the Syrian Conflict.” Turkish policy quarterly, Vol,15, No, 4, 2017,87–96.
• “Toward a Turkish-Russian Axis? Conflicts in Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, and Cooperation over Nuclear Energy.” Insight Turkey, Vol,16, No, 4,2014, 13–22.
• AKBABA Yasemin, Özgür Özdamar, Role Theory in the Middle East and North Africa, New York, NY : Routledge, 2019.
• ALTUNIŞIK, MB, “The Possibilities and Limits of Turkey’s Soft Power in the Middle East.” Insight Turkey, Vol, 10, No, 2,2008, 41–54.
• “The Turkish Model and Democratization in the Middle East.” Arab Studies Quar¬terly, Vol, 27, No, 1-2,2005, 45–64.
• “Turkey’s ‘Return’ to the Middle East,” Regional Powers in the Middle East, Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014, 123–42.
• ALTUNIŞIK, Meliha B., and Lenore G. Martin, “Making Sense of Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East under AKP.” Turkish Studies, Vol, 12, No, 4,2011, 569–587.
• ARAS, Bülent, and Aylin Gorener. “National Role Conceptions and Foreign Pol¬icy Orientation: The Ideational Bases of the Justice and Development Party’s Foreign Policy Activism in the Middle East.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, Vol, 12, No, 1, 2010, 73–92.
• ARAS, Bülent, and Emirhan Yorulmazlar, “State, Region and Order: Geopoli¬tics of the Arab Spring.” Third World Quarterly, Vol, 37, No, 12, 2016,2259–2273.
• ARAB CENTER WASHINGTON, “Turkey’s Growing Role in Libya: Motives, Background, and Responses,” 2020, http://arabcenterdc.org/policy_analyses/ turkeys-growing-role-in-libya-motives-background-and-responses/#_edn3.
• ARI, Tayyar, “Türk Dış Politikasının Kavramsal ve Kuramsal Temellerini Yeniden Tartışmak,” XI. Uluslararası Uludağ Uluslararası İlişkiler Kongresi, Bursa: Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi, 2019, 1–8.
• AYATA, Bilgin, “Turkish Foreign Policy in a Changing Arab World : Rise and Fall of a Regional Actor ?” Journal of European Integration, Vol, 37, No, 1,2015, 95–112.
• AYDIN Mustafa, “Foreign Policy, 1923–2018,” The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics, Routledge, 2019, 367–77
• BANK André, Roy Karadag, “Before the Arab Revolts and After: Turkey’s Trans¬formed Regional Power Status in the Middle East,” Regional Powers in the Middle East, Palgrave Macmillan US, 2014,103–21, “The ‘Ankara Moment’: The Politics of Turkey’s Regional Power in the Middle East, 2007-11,” Third World Quarterly, Vol, 34, No, 2,2013, 287–304.