Managing Change and Continuity in Turkish foreign policy: A neoclassical realist assessment (original) (raw)

This paper explores recent scholarship on the connection between domestic level variables and external factors in shaping foreign policy behaviour. Turkey presents itself as an excellent case through which to explore this puzzle given the combination of strong systemic constraints on its strategic policy, combined with a rapidly changing domestic discourse. Here, the shift away from the ideology of Kemalism and towards a 'neo-Ottoman' agenda over the past decade has run parallel to dramatic shifts in regional power. 1 I argue that these systemic factors can be linked to various patterns of behaviour by state elites, and develop a neoclassical realist framework which outlines three specific behaviours that point to this process.