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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.

This study examines the contours of Turkish-American foreign relations in the post-Cold War era from 1990 to 2005. While providing an interpretive analysis, the study highlights elements of continuity and change and of convergence and divergence in the relationship between Ankara and Washington. Turkey’s encounter with its Kurdish problem at home intertwined with the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish authority in northern Iraq after the Gulf War that left a political vacuum in the region. The main argument of this dissertation is that the Kurdish question has been the central element in shaping and redefining the nature and scope of Turkish-American relations since 1991. This study finds that systemic factors primarily prevail in the early years of the post-Cold War Turkish-American relations, as had been the case during the Cold War era. However, the Turkish parliament’s rejection of the deployment of the U.S. troops in Turkey for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 could not be explained by the primacy of distribution of capabilities in the system. Instead, the role of identity, ideology, norms, and the socialization of agency through interaction and language must be considered. The Justice and Development Party’s ascension to power in 2002 magnified a wider transformation in domestic and foreign politics and reflected changes in Turkey’s own self-perception and the definition of its core interests towards the United States.

This thesis aims to address a key and understudied element of Turkish foreign-policy under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP): the civil-society factor. It answers the question: How has foreign-policy and diplomacy changed in this era due to the domestic dynamics, exploring how Turkey's image and global standing is dependent on the legitimacy and activism of non-state actors. The central aim being to understand how the interests, identity and practices of civil-society organizations (CSOs) have changed modes and channels of engagement with the Middle East: with Turkey increasingly deploying economic, humanitarian and cultural diplomacy in their relations with the region. The theoretical focus provides an alternative perspective on foreign-policy from a societal and ideational perspective. The empirical focus examines the development of civil-society in Turkey alongside the trajectory of changing foreign relations with the Middle East. This thesis highlights the variation in CSOs in terms of their relationship with the government: the type of interaction based on a number of variables such as autonomy from the government, the democratization process, the security environment and openings in the political space. By analysing the patterns of interaction and influence of CSOs, this dissertation contributes to the literature on civil-society influence and literature on Turkish foreign-policy (TFP). This thesis aims to contribute to growing research on civil-society's role in Turkey, however within the specific and understudied context of Middle East relations. It choses civil-society as the main unit of analysis in what is acknowledged to be a complex and multifaceted policy environment. However, as will be discussed throughout this thesis in relation to strong elements of continuity in TFP, the emergence of normative discourses, social, economic and political ties at the level of civil-society is one of the most distinct changes of the AKP era. Turkey's engagement with the Middle East has been shaped, and channelled through these actors, legitimized to the public and the international community. This renders the behaviour of Turkish CSOs even more significant to international relations, with Turkey's pre-2013 image as a regional mediator, humanitarian diplomat and soft-power contingent on these actors.

This study examined the relationship between the Turkish Islamic movements and the present government of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AK Party). Since the AK Party came to power in 2002 it implemented unparalleled political reforms and pursued to improve Turkey’s relations with the EU. Opponents argued that because of the dominance of the secular military in Turkish politics, the AK Party is forced to secretly advance its Islamic agenda using the language and symbolism of democracy and human rights. This study argued that the ideas of the AK Party show similarities with the “Ottomanist” thought of the late Ottoman era. With special reference to the preservation of the Ottoman State, Ottomanism in an eclectic way was able to incorporate Islamic principles like freedom, justice and consultation into the political arena which was increasingly dominated by the secular European concepts. Literature on Islam and politics in Turkey, however, disregards the Ottoman roots of freedom and pluralism and tends to reduce the relationship between religion and state into exclusively confrontational struggles. This conceptualization of the political process relies on particular non-Turkish Muslim experiences which do not necessarily represent Islam’s venture in Turkey. Contrary to the prevailing scholarship, Islamic movements in Turkey, namely, Naqshbandi, National View and Nur, which are discussed in detail in this study, are not monolithic. They all uphold the same creedal tenets of Islam but they have sharp differences in terms of how they conceptualize the role of religious agency in politics. I argue that this diversity is a result of three distinct methodologies of Islamic religious life which are the Tariqah (Tarikat), Shariah (Şeriat), and Haqiqah (Hakikat). The differences between these three approaches represent a typological hierarchy in the formation of the Muslim/believer as an agent of Islamic identity. Through these different if not conflicting modes, the AK Party reconnected itself with Turkey’s Ottoman heritage in a post-Ottoman, secular setting and was able to develop an eclectic political identity of Neo-Ottomanism that is evident in the flexibility if not inconsistency of its domestic and foreign policy preferences.

Unrestricted Abstract The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War resulted in dramatic changes in the international arena, and the American-led liberal hegemonic order declared its triumph against Warsaw Pact which it had struggled against since the post-World War II era. However, this newly formed unipolar international political system intrinsically contained the nucleus of the transition period to the ascendant multipolar world order. On the contrary to static characteristics of the Cold War period, the post-Cold War atmosphere was more dynamic. Therefore, the United States had been trying to adapt itself to these challenging circumstances at the crack of dawn of a multipolar world order which will be based on power struggle against global and regional rivals like Russia, China, India, the European Union, Iran or Turkey. In this regard, countries such as Turkey, who would like to obtain tangible benefits from these global and regional vacuums of power as a result of power struggle among various countries which is imminently stemming from rivalries in the new global context, review their traditional security alliances and seek new foreign policy alternatives in order to balance these power relations and to adapt themselves to the new international situation. Hence, this thesis focuses on...

This thesis aims to contribute to the debates on the Justice and Development Party (JDP) era Turkish foreign policy by putting Turkey into the regional security complex theory and examines changes and continuities of Turkey&rsquo / s traditional cautious, relatively &ldquo / passive&rdquo / role and &ldquo / relative indifference&rdquo / stance towards the Middle East security complex. Hence, the framework of analysis is the regional security complex theory, attributed roles and role changes of Turkey within regional security complexes. This study, with a historical perspective and within the framework of the regional security complex theory, questions continuities and changes in the JDP period Turkish foreign policy, and comes to the conclusion that in the JDP era, Turkey&rsquo / s role is going beyond the insulator state function to the &ldquo / interface logic&rdquo / which adopts a loose form of geographical boundaries.

The objective of this thesis is to analyze the foreign policy of the Justice and Development Party government during the Iraqi Crisis in 2003. In this context, the aim is to find out the answers to the questions of &ldquo / how did the JDP government react to the Iraqi Crisis in 2003 and what were the driving forces pushing the government to act in such a way, how did the JDP government&rsquo / s policies evolved Turkey&rsquo / s relations with the US and the EU, did the JDP government try to evolve the traditional foreign policy orientations of the Turkish Republic?&rdquo / Accordingly the thesis contains four main parts. In the first part of the study, the categorization in the international system in geostrategic and geopolitical terms and general tendencies in Turkish foreign policy are studied. In the second part of the study, the political identity of the JDP and the reasons of categorizing the JDP as a centre-right party are discussed. In the third part, the general attitude of the JDP government in some foreign policy issues and the assumptions of Prof. Dr. Ahmet Davutoglu -the Chief Advisor to the Foreign Minister in foreign policy- are scrutinized. In the forth part, Turkey&rsquo / s relations with the US and the EU during the Iraqi Crisis in 2003 is discussed. Accordingly, this thesis has reached to the following conclusions: First, the JDP has acted in conformity with the traditional concepts of Turkish foreign policy to a major extent, the concerns shaping the Turkish foreign policy toward Iraq since the first Gulf War of 1990-1991 continued to determine the calculations of Turkish actors during the Iraqi Crisis of 2003. Second, the JDP government pursued a two-pronged, dual policy to meet the demands and expectancies of the US, the EU, the Muslim countries and international and internal public opinion.

Since the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) victory and government in 2002, Turkey entered a new phase in its history and witnessed major changes in all social, economic, and political aspects. Turkish foreign policy went through huge transformations and the new AKP government was able to revolutionise Turkey’s international position. In particular, relations with Middle Eastern countries have tremendously improved and Turkish interests and role have been growing ever since. This thesis investigates the sources of change in Turkish foreign policy since 2002 towards the Middle East, focusing on the role of the AKP (Justice and Development Party) as a ruling party in particular on the changes it went through in the first ten years from 2002 to early 2012. The significant changes in Turkish foreign policy appeared under the AKP government became one of the most debated issues in this field and created a puzzle that many scholars attempted to explain. Therefore, the thesis engages in recent debates between the different scholars and analysts in the literature and argues that there is a need for a more inclusive approach that can recognize the complex and multilateral nature of the Turkish case. The aim is to assess and evaluate the plausibility of the available competing explanations in the literature in explaining such foreign policy outcomes. Therefore, the thesis borrows and builds on the works of Alexander George & Andrew Bennet (2005), and Derek Beach & Rasmus Pedersen (2013) by adopting the Process Tracing Methodology, which helps to facilitate a better critical analysis and systematic evaluation of the selected explanations. The results of this thesis demonstrate that single factor based explanations actually drive researchers away from achieving a comprehensive explanation and only help provide a partial picture. Therefore, the best way to go forward is by adopting a much more inclusive and multiple factors based approach recognising the important opportunity that foreign policy theories offer in looking at the Turkish case from different perspectives. The results of this thesis suggest that the best way for understanding Turkish foreign policy change is by recognizing the multiple roles of domestic and international economic, political,and ideational sources, as well as the role of policy makers, particularly that of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ahmet Davutoglu. The contribution of this thesis lies within its analysis bringing the wide range of explanations in the literature together, exploring and summarizing the vast number of data in a more simplified manner, and examining the value and plausibility of the competing explanation to try and arrive at the most comprehensive explanation, all under one piece of work. Therefore, this thesis establishes a useful foundation for researchers to adopt and take forward in future studies.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and describe the effects of the Middle East policies of Turkey and the European Union on mutual relations between the two actors with particular focus on the Arab Spring and its repercussions on regional stability and international relations. The key components of Turkey's foreign policy are analyzed from the perspectives of EU-Turkey relations and political stances of Turkey and the European Union towards the Middle East. Analysis of Turkey's and the EU's responses to the uprisings and their impact on the situation in the region is an important part of the study. The conclusions of this study confirm that the strategic cooperation between the EU and Turkey and the necessity of compensating each other's relative weaknesses in order to achieve similar foreign policy goals in the concerned region after the Arab Spring led to a rapprochement between the two actors. However, a direct influence of this rapprochement on the negotiation process regarding the future Turkish membership in the EU has not yet been observed. Key words Turkey, the European Union, Turkey-EU relations, negotiation process, the Middle East, MENA, foreign politics, the Arab Spring…