This thesis is devoted to analysing change in Turkish strategic culture, which is conceptualized as change in narratives. In the mainstream literature it has been customary to provide explanations about the change in Turkish foreign policy by applying existing theories which focus on the ideological differences between Kemalism, Islamism and Liberalism or the implications of democratization and globalization for Turkish society, economy and politics. This thesis proposes a different framework based on the discursive practices of the Turkish foreign policy elite in the form of narratives. The main research question is: What sorts of narratives regarding national defence and security have been produced by the AKP elite to challenge the dominant national security state narratives? It is the overarching argument in this thesis that within the emerging Turkish strategic culture the Ottoman past is neither seen as a distant past nor a temporal other; Turkey’s geography and neighbourhood is neither a liability nor a spatial other; and concepts and values such as soft power and the promotion of democratic values is no longer considered as naive nor alien by the Turkish state elite. This thesis suggests that three contested narratives can be found within Turkish strategic culture. Among these narratives, the thesis identifies the emergence of two new narratives which challenge a hitherto dominant master narrative, i.e. the national security state master narrative. These two counter-narratives are i) Turkey as a "great country" that is able to address foreign policy issues with a renewed self-esteem that stems from the nostalgic utilization of its historical and cultural assets; and ii) Turkey as an "internationally active player" that aspires to contribute to the international system by playing a new international role and by aligning itself with universal norms and values. By extending the analysis of Turkish strategic culture to the field of narratives and narrative analysis this study demonstrates that Turkish strategic culture is no longer a strategic culture of a national security state or a flank state or a middle power, it is rather constructed within the narratives of the Turkish state elite, which is primarily built upon the overarching narratives of great country and internationally active player. Contrary to the ideology-centred explanations and paradigm shift arguments about the change in Turkish foreign policy, the approach suggested in this thesis provides rather complex, yet arguably more nuanced and comprehensive explanation than the ones on offer in the literature. Lastly, by taking master narratives and counter narratives as the units of analysis to understand the cultural change, this thesis also contributes to the literature on strategic culture by illustrating the role of agency and their practices of challenging dominant narratives by producing counter-narratives.

In this thesis, I argue that, as a popular text, Valley of the Wolves: Ambush functions as a site for consent production for foreign policies formed by the AKP elites within the last decade, through a process of reproduction of state identities, ideologies, and discourses at the level of narrative. This thesis positions its argument in two fields: Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP) studies and Popular Culture and World Politics (PCWP) within the larger International Relations (IR) context. It is interdisciplinary in nature as it also make use of theories around popular culture. Although scholarship within IR theory and PCWP has done much to explore issues around representations of politics in popular media (Weldes, 1999a; Nexon and Neumann, 2006; Van Veeren, 2009; Kiersey and Neumann, 2013), this has frequently focused on Western examples and narratives such as 24, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, Harry Potter, and so on. In this regard this thesis advances these theories by focusing on a particular national context and offer an original analysis on Turkey. While doing so, it employs discourse analysis. It also teases out some of the complexities of the nature and implications of representation of the TFP by using critical reception. Thisis because thisthesisregards critical debates around the television series as tools to explore discourses around consent production. Together with an analysis of the critical reception of the television series, political discourses around foreign policy are examined in line with the ways in which these policies are depicted and reproduced by the series. This leads to an intertextual reading of Turkish state identity and security imaginary and a critical examination of the TFP in the last decade from a constructivist perspective.

The objective of this study is to examine Turkey's foreign policy towards the Turkic republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia and evaluate its adjustment in the post-Cold War era. We have argued that due to the changes in the external and domestic environment Turkish foreign policy has altered. The independence of the Turkic republics was the most important external event which affected post-Cold War Turkish foreign policy. The independence of 'lost cousins', Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan created great excitement in Turkey. All segments of the Turkish elite supported close relations with the Turkic republics. However, there were differences among the elite in terms of strategy and attitude towards pan-Turkism because rapid changes in the post-Cold War world had challenged traditional Turkish foreign policy. Inevitably, conflict arose between the supporters of change and the supporters of the status quo. We argued that the change in Turkey's foreign policy was not a restructuring. Turkey continued to follow a pro-Western foreign policy, which is the backbone of Turkish foreign policy. In its foreign policy, Turkey aimed to increase its strategic importance for the West, which would ensure Turkey's acceptance by the West. Turkish foreign policy makers also aimed at gaining support from the Turkic republics at the international level and Turkey also had goals relating to the energy sources of the Turkic republics. In the conclusion to this study, we have argued that Turkey's foreign policy towards the Turkic republics has been largely successful, problems arising from incapacities in fully implementing its foreign policy agenda. The persistence of regional instability and authoritarian regimes in the Turkic republics and Russia's role in the region continues to produce a degree of unpredictability in Turkey's relationship with the Turkic republics.

The end of the Cold War and globalisation quintessentially characterize the international environment in the 21st century. The replacement of the bipolar international system by a unipolar one, with the United States as the only superpower, upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, many new regional subsystems of bilateral, trilateral and multilateral relationships or ententes came into being. The term entente or axis is defined in this work as an informal alliance based on a constellation of strategic, economic and political shared interests between two or more states. Using a new approach that combines Constructivist theory of international relations and transnationalism, this dissertation explores the entente between Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan as one such new type of relationship. Constructivism emphasizes the role of ideas, norms and state identities in shaping foreign policy, while transnationalism emphasizes the prominence of non-state and sub-state actors (epistemic communities, ethnic lobbies and transnational corporations) in foreign policy formation. A variety of qualitative and quantitative data collected during two years of fieldwork in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Israel and the United States, especially personal interviews, are analysed and informed by interpretive methodology. This dissertation analyses salient features of state identities in Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan. The role of state institutions and transnational levers in the maintenance of this pro-Western axis is explored. The central thesis is that the primacy of security was decisive in forging the respective foreign policies that produced this axis. Lastly, the dissertation demonstrates that domestic challenges to the status-quo state identities in these three countries undermine the continuity of this entente. Due to the fluctuating and dynamic nature of the international environment, 'fluctuating zones of influence' emerge. Importantly, the United States, as political hegemon, forcibly shapes the relationship between Israel, Turkey and Azerbaijan and will likely continue to do so.

This thesis examines the extent to which and the conditions under which Turkish foreign policy is Europeanised. In doing so, it analyses the formal, behavioural and discursive dimensions of Europeanisation in Turkish foreign policy since 1987 to assess the extent to which the European Union (EU) foreign policy principles and norms are institutionalised. The empirical puzzle is derived from the focus of the literature on the Europeanisation of non-members that has concentrated on Central and European Countries (CEECs) before their accession to the EU. Foreign policy is a policy area that remains under-examined within the context of non-member state Europeanisation. This thesis addresses this gap, focusing on the case of Turkey. At the theoretical level, it applies the insights of rational choice and constructivist approaches that inspire two broad models, the External Incentives Model (ElM) and the Social Learning Model (SLM), to the study of 'foreign policy change'. The thesis examines normative and substantive areas of foreign policy and distinguishes a formal, behavioural and discursive dimension of Europeanisation. In the normative area, it analyses the formal dimension of Europeanisation over Turkey's adherence to good neighbourly relations and the behavioural dimension of Turkey's peace-making initiatives through mediation and Official Development Assistance (ODA). In the substantive area, it analyses the formal dimension of Turkey's alignment with the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the behavioural dimension of the geographical direction of high profile official visits. Finally, the discursive dimension of foreign policy statements is analysed with reference to both the normative and the substantive areas. The empirical analysis of the five areas shows that EU rules were initially not institutionalised in Turkish foreign policy. The analysis reveals that Europeanisation in all five areas started in 1987; rather than in 1999 as is commonly believed. Yet Europeanisation before 1999 came in the form of policy adjustment, while the transformation of foreign policy only occurred after 1999 in the substantive areas and after 2002 in the normative areas. Moreover, the thesis finds that in four areas covered, with the notable exception of the behavioural dimension of Europeanisation covered by peace-making initiatives, policy retrenchment occurred after 2005. Furthermore, the thesis argues that different degrees and directions of Europeanisation are better captured by the ElM than the SLM. In particular, the analysis reveals that the Europeanisation of foreign policy in Turkey is triggered by domestic factors. Among them, the degree of compatibility of the position of the governing parties with EU foreign policy principles and norms and the degree of domestic capacity best explain different degrees and directions of Europeanisation. Before 1999, and particularly before 2002, domestic capacity was low and did not allow a transformation type of Europeanisation to occur even at times when the governing parties pursued a strong pro-EU orientation.

This thesis is about Western foreign policy analysis on Turkey as a second-order representation that is narratively constructed. The thesis argues that the scholarly field contains ideological antagonisms related to the West and is influenced by narrative traditions that offer apt metaphors and cultural resources to turn random foreign policy events into meaningful narratives. The thesis examines how Turkey is narrated in Western foreign policy analysis and how these narratives impact on debates over the idea of the West with the use of three theoretical approaches: the aesthetic approach is about representation, the narrative approach about the method of representation, and the interpretative approach about the relationship between representation and reality. There are two methodological foundations upon which the thesis is built: Hayden White’s tropology and the interpretative approach of Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes that focuses on beliefs, traditions, and dilemmas. The thesis also employs Kenneth Burke’s rhetorical tools as well as George Lakoff’s seminal work on foreign policy metaphors. In the thesis, White’s four master tropes are teased out with the use of three organising metaphors – the ‘losing Turkey’ metaphor, the ‘Turkey at a crossroads’ metaphor, and the ‘Erdogan-for-Turkey’ metaphor – that have been deduced from the data set using qualititative text analysis. Employing a paradigmatic method, the thesis identifies manifestations of the debate on the West in the data set, which includes over one hundred foreign policy analysis articles especially in Foreign Affairs, The National Interest and Foreign Policy but also in other journals, blogs, and books. The thesis follows the debate on Turkey to wherever it is taking place with the condition that the narrator speaks from a Western perspective, is familiar with the scholarly tradition of studying Turkey, and puts forward interpretations that resonate so widely that they have turned foreign policy imagination into facts and common sense.

This research explores the impact of Eurasianism on Turkish foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. It investigates the discourses of Eurasianism and the way they are interpreted by the polity and consequently implemented in the foreign policy making in Turkey. In this sense, this research was carried out using literature reviews and interviews in order to respond to the following question: Considering that Turkey has increasingly been pursuing an active and multidimensional foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, how have the discourses of Eurasianism been influencing the contemporary Turkish foreign policy making? The research unpacks the dynamics of contemporary Turkish foreign policy and responds to the debate on whether or not Turkey’s international relations axis is shifting eastwards. Having questioned if such a foreign policy shift exists, the thesis then questions to what extent the process has been informed and channelled by Eurasianism by focussing on three periods since the early 1990s: Özal era (1983-1993), Cem era (1997-2002), Davutoğlu era (2003-2011). Finally, the research presents a set of conclusions on how Eurasianism has been a strong influence on foreign policy making in Turkey and what internal and external socio-economic and political factors have played a critical role in this process.

The main topic of this thesis is the influence of the Kurdish Question on Turkey’s relations with Europe and the USA. Aiming to develop a triplex framework of (1) the Kurdish Question in Turkey, (2) Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy, and (3) Turkey’s Relations with Western Society, this thesis specifically studies the international dimension of the Kurdish Question. It has two basic arguments: first, the Kurdish issue is the major cause of the deterioration in the relationship between Turkey and the West, in spite of alliances that go back over half a century. Second, Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy is the main catalyst of that long-lasting troublesome relationship. The Kurdish Question is evaluated using empirical data that examines its impact on the relationship between Turkey and the West in the period 1989-2007. Within this the problem is examined by applying a normative approach and analyses that are carried out within a theoretical framework provided by a constructivist approach. In order to present research questions by empirical evidence, discourse analysis is used that goes in hand with the theoretical approach. Three Foreign and Security Policy norms are examined, namely “Sèvres Syndrome”- the suspicion of influence of external powers and interests on Turkey, the principle of “Status Quo” applicable in FSP and internal security arrangements, and finally, the “Westernism” that foresees being pro-Western in foreign policies and internal socio-political field. Findings suggest that those three norms played significant roles in shaping Turkey’s Foreign and Security Policy for decades, while important changes occurred within the recent years.

This thesis is about foreign policy analysis and what it could learn from an examination of Turkey's Outside Turks policy. More specifically, the thesis explores the implications of the post-Kemalist changes in Turkey on Outside Turks communities in the case of Kosovar Turks and offers a norm-based analysis of the constitutive relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy formation and conduct. Throughout the thesis, accordingly, the domestic norms guiding the way Turkey approaches Outside Turks, the conduct of domestic norms-guided Outside Turks policy and, finally, the implications of such policy for the Kosovar Turks are explored. Based on this, the study establishes firstly that the traditional policy of transforming the religiously defined Turkish speaking Muslim communities in the surrounding countries to nationally thinking and acting ethnic Turkish communities has changed after 1980s, but particularly during the Justice and Development Party rule. The aspiration shifted towards imagining Outside Turks in cultural and religious lines, other than in purely ethnic sense. Thus invoking and safeguarding the practice of Muslim identity, history and culture became a priority concern in the Outside Turks policy agenda. The thesis secondly establishes that this shift in approach has been generated by four post-Kemalist norms, namely Ottomania, de-ethnicized nationhood, Turkish Islam, and Islamic Internationalism. These post-Kemalist norms have manifested themselves as practices of transforming the ethnically mobilized and behaving Turkish community in Kosovo as religiously and historico-culturally thinking and acting community. The thesis thirdly establishes that the post-Kemalist approach to the Outside Turk community in Kosovo has been constitutive for the community. Accordingly, Turkey’s anti-nationalist practices and activities of restoring inter-ethnic relations in Ottoman lines have partly relieved the relations between Turks and Albanians, facilitated the transcending of ethnicity as a bases for organizing relations, and increased the scope for collaboration between Muslim communities in the country. However, such post-Kemalist policies could not deconstruct the dominant nationalist framings, it has rather been counter-productive. Therefore, due to the post-Kemalist approach, the ethnic Turkish identity has been sharpened, Ottomans have been ethnicized as a Turkish emperorship, the nationalism gained a reactionary character, and people now believe that their ethnic survival is jeopardized by Turkey’s anti-nationalism or ‘anti-Turkism’ as the community calls it. This in return has led the community to further embrace Kemalist frames and discourses to resist Turkey’s post-Kemalist approach and norms. The thesis, consequently, introduced a norm-based foreign policy analysis model for examining the overseas implications and influences of domestic norms and norm changes.

Cette thèse examine la « politique arabe » de la Turquie sous le règne du parti de la Justice et du Développement (AKP). Alors que pendant la majeure partie du XXème siècle la Turquie était désengagée du Moyen-Orient, les années 2000 voient une implication croissante d’Ankara dans son environnement régional arabe. Ainsi, cette thèse analyse le changement d’orientation qui a eu lieu en Turquie en matière de politique étrangère et de diplomatie à l’égard du Moyen-Orient. L’argument principal est que l’ouverture de la Turquie sur son environnement moyen-oriental est liée au phénomène de l’émergence : étant une puissance moyenne émergente en quête de statut, la Turquie de l’AKP trouve en le Moyen-Orient un champ de manœuvre indispensable pour son affirmation à l’échelle internationale. Nous avons examiné les outils et méthodes employés par la puissance moyenne émergente pour s’ériger en puissance régionale de son hinterland moyen-oriental, en particulier : le nouveau discours civilisationnel employé par l’élite au pouvoir, l’invention de «niches diplomatiques » comme la médiation et la diplomatie de la paix, le soft power comme outil de conquête des cœurs et des esprits, et la tentative de règlement de la question kurde. Toutefois, nous avons démontré que malgré le caractère «novateur » de ces instruments, le statut de la Turquie au Moyen-Orient reste fragile : d’une part, l’instabilité qui caractérise la région menace les acquis et les intérêts d’Ankara ; d’autre part, la Turquie souffre d’un « overachievement » ou d’un décalage entre ses ambitions de puissance et ses capacités et ressources réelles. Plus généralement, l’ « émergence» turque se heurte aux blocages du système international : la structure « oligarchique » de celui-ci empêche l’intégration des puissances moyennes en quête de statut et limite leur capacité d’influence dans le jeu de gouvernance mondiale. / This thesis examines the "Arab policy" of Turkey under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (JDP). While for most of the 20th century Turkey was disengaged from the Middle East, the beginning of the 21st century witnessed a growing involvement of Ankara in its Arab regional environment. Thus, this thesis analyzes the shift that took place in Turkey's foreign policy and diplomacy towards the Middle East. The main argument is that Turkey’s embrace of its Middle Eastern environment is linked to the phenomenon of “rising powers”: being a rising middle power in quest for status, Turkey has found in the Middle East a field maneuver necessary for its assertion on the international stage. The thesis examines the tools and methods used by Turkey to emerge as a regional power in its Middle Eastern hinterland, in particular: the use of a new civilizational discourse by the ruling elite, the recourse to "niche diplomacy" such as mediation and peace diplomacy, the use of soft power to win hearts and minds, and the attempts to solve the Kurdish question. However, it shows that despite the "innovative" character of these instruments, the status of Turkey in the Middle East remains fragile: on the one hand, the instability that characterizes the region jeopardizes the achievements and interests of Ankara; on the other hand, Turkey suffers from an "overachievement" or a gap between its ambitions and its power capabilities and real resources. More generally, Turkey’s quest for status is undermined by the structure of the international system: the "oligarchic" nature of the latter prevents the integration of middle powers and limits their capacity to play an effective role in global governance.