To understand Turkish foreign policy, one must consider the AKP’s electoral fortunes, its gradual capture of the Turkish state and the persistent influence of its Muslim Brotherhood-oriented Islamism as key explanatory factors. These factors are moreover situated against the backdrop of the modern Turkish state-building project – which is active, unsettled and, hence, dynamic. This report has provided ample evidence for the assertion that Turkey’s foreign policy has, to a significant extent, been the result of its domestic politics over the past 16 years. In this regard, Turkey is like many other countries.
What makes the connection more salient is the depth and extent of the contention that has characterised the development of the Turkish state since 2002, which both triggered and enabled significant ruptures in Turkish foreign policy. In the context of the explosive regional situation the country has found itself in since 2011, Turkey’s foreign policy has become less predictable, more revisionist and more issue-based (in the sense of lacking an overall strategy). This creates risks for both Turkey and Europe, including:
From having been a regional role model and conflict mediator, Turkey has become party to the Syrian conflict and to various dimensions of the Kurdish conflict. For example, its use of proxies in the Syrian civil war contributes to the region’s violence and fragmentation. This prevents Turkey from playing a more positive peace-making role.
Turkey’s policy to overthrow President Assad has been a complete failure and this will sour its relations with the Syrian regime in the near to medium-term.
Turkey has been successful in containing the Syrian, Turkish and Iraqi Kurds through a mix of aggressive securitisation (Syria, Turkey) and creating economic dependence (Iraq), but this will arguably come at the long-term price of having revitalised Kurdish nationalism and militancy within its own borders.
By becoming a partner in the Iran-Qatar ‘camp’ and by acting as Russia’s and Iran’s ‘junior partner’ in Syria (the price Turkey had to pay for being able to conduct its anti-Kurdish operations) the country’s foreign policy has become more partisan and more regional. The US in particular, but European countries as well, interpret this as a move away from the West.
In parallel, Turkey has downgraded its institutionalised partnerships with Europe (the EU, NATO and Council of Europe, especially) through a mix of assertive rhetoric and emphasis on the notion of ‘Eurasianism’. While this development is somewhat rhetorical in nature, the impression is easily conveyed that formal institutional alliances centered on the ‘West’ are being replaced by informal alliances of convenience with the ‘East’.
It is tempting to suggest that the recent Turkish elections will stabilise both the country’s domestic political contestation and its foreign policy, but there are several considerations that militate against such a proposition. These include Turkey’s divided political landscape, the down-but-not-out state of the Gülenist movement, the deteriorating state of the Turkish economy and the desire of President Erdoğan to stay in power at all costs. In short, it is more likely that personalised rule, domestic political contestation and ideological choices will continue to increase the unpredictability and reduce the effectiveness of Turkish foreign policy. At the same time, Turkey has few economic alternatives to Europe. It is for this reason that, despite fiery rhetoric, transactional relations and pragmatism are likely to continue to dominate behind the scenes on this particular front.
A productive approach for European countries is to deal with Turkey as a society between the rock of a prolonged authoritarian domestic crisis and the hard place of regional power competition. One practical element of such an approach is to keep the economic relationship as stable as possible to dampen further shifts towards populism and strong-arm politics. Another practical element is to stimulate Turkish-Kurdish dialogue, along with remaining democratic and liberal elements of Turkish civil society, with the aim of supporting more balanced understandings of democracy than purely majoritarian ones. Through this mix, European countries can strike a balance between good neighbourliness and providing a modest counterweight to Turkey’s growing authoritarianism. In the process, they should expect little change in Turkey’s interests and behaviour in either Syria or Iraq.