Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T12:53:00.787Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Globalization, modernity and democracy: In search of a viable domestic polity for a sustainable Turkish foreign policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

E. Fuat Keyman*
Affiliation:
Department of International Relations, Koç University, Rumeli Feneri Yolu, 34450, Sarıyer, Istanbul, [email protected]

Abstract

In recent years. Turkey has initiated a proactive, multi-dimensional and constructive foreign policy in many areas, ranging from contributing to peace and stability in the Middle East, to playing an active role in countering terrorism and extremism, from becoming a new “energy hub” to acting as one of the architects of “the inter-civilization dialogue initiative” aiming at producing a vision of the world, based on dialogue, tolerance and living together. Thus, there has been an upsurge of interest in, and a global attraction to, Turkey and its contemporary history. Moreover, the global attraction to Turkey has stemmed not only from the geopolitical identity of Turkey, as a strong state with the capacity to function as a “geopolitical security hinge” in the intersection of the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasian regions, but also from its cultural identity as a modern national formation with parliamentary democratic governance, secular constitutional structure and mainly Muslim population. Furthermore, as the world has become more globalized, more interdependent and more risky, this new foreign policy identity entailed the employment of not only geopolitics but also identity and economy. Thus, geopolitics, modernity and democracy have become the constitutive dimensions of Turkish foreign policy today This paper explores the ways in which the increasing role and visibility of “soft power” in Turkish foreign policy operates, and suggests that to be sustainable, Turkish foreign policy, relying on soft power, should go hand in hand with the process of the consolidation of Turkish democracy, and also accept and put into practice Turkey-EU relations as the main axis of proactiveness and constructiveness.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramowitz, Morton, ed. Turkey's Transformation and American Policy. Washington: The Century Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Ahmad, Feroz. Turkey: The Quest for Identity. Oxford: One World, 2003.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Aronowitz, Stanley, and Cautney, Heather, eds. Implicating Empire: Globalization and Resistance in the 21st Century World Order. New York: Basic Books, 2003.Google Scholar
Aydın, Mustafa, and Sinem, Açıkmeşe. “Europeanization through EU Conditionally: Understanding the New Era in Turkish Foreign Policy.” Journal of Southeastern European and Black Sea Studies 9, no. 3 (2007): 263–74.Google Scholar
Aydın, Zülküf. The Political Economy of Turkey. London: Pluto Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Baban, Feyzi, and Keyman, E. Fuat. “Turkey and Postnational Europe.” European Journal of Social Theory 11, no. 1 (2008): 107–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Ulrich. Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York: Basic Books, 1997.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival. New York: Hamish Hamilton, 2003.Google Scholar
Cornell, Erik. Turkey in the 21st Century: Opportunities, Challenges, Threats. Richmond: Curzon Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Davutoğlu, Ahmet. Stratejik Derinlik. İstanbul: Küre Yayınları, 2001.Google Scholar
Delanty, Gerard. Social Theory in a Changing World. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Düzgit, Senem Aydın, and Keyman, E. Fuat. “Turkey and European Integration: Towards Fairness and Reciprocity.” In Remaking Turkey: Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Democracies, edited by Keyman, E. Fuat, 245–59. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, Samuel N.Multiple Modernities.Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000): 131.Google Scholar
Fuller, Graham E.The New Turkish Republic: Turkey as a Pivotal State in the Muslim World. Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Fuller, Graham E., and Lesser, Ian O.. Turkey's New Geopolitics: From the Balkans to Western China. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Jung, Dietrich, and Raudvere, Catharina, eds. Religion, Politics, and Turkey's EU Accession. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keyman, E. Fuat, ed. Remaking Turkey: Globalization, Alternative Modernities, and Demoiracies. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008.Google Scholar
Keyman, E. Fuat, and Ziya, Öniş. Turkish Politics in a Changing World, İstanbul: Bilgi University Publications, 2007.Google Scholar
LaGro, Esra, and Jorgensen, Knud Erik, eds. Turkey and the European Union: Prospects for a Difficult Encounter. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larrabee, F. Stephen, and Lesser, Ian O.. Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty. Santa Monica: RAND, 2003.Google Scholar
Lechner, Frank J., and Boli, John, eds. Globalization Reader. London: Blackwell, 2004.Google Scholar
Lesser, Ian O.Turkey to Face Tough Foreign Policy Choices.Today's Zaman, 18 September 2008.Google Scholar
Mardin, Şerif. Din ve ideoloji, İstanbul: İletişim, 1999.Google Scholar
Martin, Lenore G.Introduction.” In The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy, edited by Martin, Lenore G. and Keridis, Dimitris. Cambridge: MIT, 2004.Google Scholar
Martin, Lenore G., and Keridis, Dimitris, eds. The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy. Cambridge: MIT, 2004.Google Scholar
Nye, Joseph S.Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. New York: Public Affairs Books, 2004.Google Scholar
Özbudun, Ergun. Contemporary Turkish Politics. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Özyürek, Esra. Nostalgia for the Modern. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Rubin, Barry, and Kemal, Kirişçi. Turkey in World Politics: On Emerging Multiregional Power, İstanbul: Boğaziçi University Publications, 2002.Google Scholar
Smith, Steve, Hadfield, Amelia, and Dunne, Tim, eds. Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Sunar, İlkay. Stote, Society and Democracy, İstanbul: Bahçeşehir University Publications, 2004.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. “Two Theories of Modernity.” In Alternative Modernities, edited by Gaonkar, D. P., 172–97. London: Duke University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Turam, Berna. Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Williams, Andrew J.Failed Imagination? New World Orders of the Twentieth Century. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.Google Scholar