Turkish Studies

ISSN: 1468-3849 (Print) 1743-9663 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftur20

Populism and foreign policy in Turkey under the

AKP rule

Burak Bilgehan Özpek & Nebahat Tanriverdi Yaşar

To cite this article: Burak Bilgehan Özpek & Nebahat Tanriverdi Yaşar (2017):
Populism and foreign policy in Turkey under the AKP rule, Turkish Studies, DOI:
10.1080/14683849.2017.1400912

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2017.1400912

Published online: 26 Nov 2017.

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 TURKISH STUDIES, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2017.1400912

Populism and foreign policy in Turkey under the AKP

rule
Burak Bilgehan Özpeka and Nebahat Tanriverdi Yaşarb
a
Department of Political Science and International Relations, TOBB University of Economics
and Technology, Ankara, Turkey; bDepartment of International Relations, Middle East Technical
University, Ankara, Turkey

ABSTRACT
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A revisionist tone that has created several crisis has become more pronounced
in Turkish foreign policy. This trend has been particularly evident after 2010
when the AKP consolidated its power base, the military’s tutelage over politics
subsequently disappeared and the Arab Spring opened a new window of
opportunity for Turkey in the Middle East. This has been surprising because
de-militarization of political space was envisioned to produce more
cooperative stances in the globalized post-Cold War world. This trend has
occurred alongside what many would argue has been the AKP’s authoritarian
and Islamist agenda. Such an argument suggests that earlier the AKP had
pragmatically used democratic values and integrationist policies to weaken
the military, and then adopted Islamism in foreign policy and authoritarianism
in domestic politics. This study aims to explore the common characteristics of
the AKP in domestic and international realms while the extant paradigm
tends to divide the AKP period into two categories, which are democratic/pro-
western and authoritarian/Islamist. In order to suggest a common
characteristic to identify the AKP’s domestic and foreign policy in a holistic
manner, this article applies the term ‘populism’ to describe a number of AKP
policies and positions.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 3 July 2017; Accepted 22 October 2017

KEYWORDS Populism; AKP; Turkish foreign policy; Islamism; nationalism

Introduction
‘Not only Turkey, today also Islamabad, Arbil, Beirut, Sarajevo, Skopje, Hama,
Homs, Ramallah, Gaza, Jerusalem, have all won,’ boasted Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan when addressing the celebrating crowd in front of the Justice and
Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) headquarters following
his landslide victory in presidential elections in August 2014. This kind of
statement has created difficulties for Turkish foreign policy. For example,

CONTACT Burak Bilgehan Özpek bbozpek@gmail.com; bbozpek@etu.edu.tr Department of Pol-

itical Science and International Relations, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, Sögütözü
Caddesi 43, Sögütözü, Ankara 06560, Turkey
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 2 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

the potential influence of Erdoğan’s presidential victory on Ramallah, Gaza

and Jerusalem strained relations between Turkey and Israel. Similarly, regard-
ing Arbil as the winner of the presidential elections deteriorated relations with
the central government of Iraq. At the same time, however, such a claim
helped the AKP receive popular support at home and maintain its dominant
party position especially after the Arab Spring had reinvigorated the neo-
Ottomanist aspirations of the party’s elite and its conservative supporters.
Such a revisionist tone in foreign policy has become more pronounced,
especially after the AKP received 50% of the total votes in the national elec-
tions of 2011, the military’s tutelage over politics vanished following the
Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases, and the Arab Spring opened a
window of opportunity for Turkey. This has been surprising because de-mili-
tarization of political space and full control of the civilian government over
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the foreign policy-making process had been expected by liberal intellectual

and academic circles to produce more integrationist and cooperative
stances in the globalized world of the post-Cold War period. Such groups,
both within and beyond Turkey, had generally supported the AKP’s struggle
to eliminate the military’s shadow over civilian politics. However, contrary to
the predictions of those who assumed that Turkey would have a more pacific
and integrationist foreign policy if the military’s central role in politics disap-
peared, civilianization of the political space under the AKP, which fought
against elites and maintained it spoke for the majority of Turks, has created
conflicts and complications for Turkish foreign policy.
How does one explain this phenomenon? In recent years, much of the lit-
erature on Turkish foreign policy has focused on the role of two concepts, Isla-
mism and authoritarianism, to explain the AKP’s foreign policy turn.1
According to the conventional wisdom, the AKP abandoned its reformist
approach and initiated an authoritarian and Islamist agenda following the dis-
appearance of the military’s influence over politics. In the domestic realm, the
AKP has centralized power by undermining democratic institutions and silen-
cing alternative voices while it has adopted an Islamist discourse and policy
toward the external world. As a result, the AKP government has implemented
an assertive and threatening foreign policy based on Islamism without being
checked and balanced by democratic institutions and opposition circles.
This argument neglects explanation of two questions. First, why did the
AKP abandon democratic reforms? This question is important because
assuming the AKP’s shift to authoritarianism as a requirement of its idea-
tional commitment to Islamism implies that it pragmatically used democratic
values to eliminate the military. Therefore, this argument suggests that AKP
rule is divided into two periods and it is not possible to examine the AKP’s
ruling style in a consistent manner. Second, in relation to first question, is
it authoritarianism that has encouraged the AKP to pursue an Islamist
foreign policy or is it Islamism that has helped the AKP to establish an
 TURKISH STUDIES 3

authoritarian regime? This question acquires meaning when the AKP’s need
for majority support to sustain its rule is taken into consideration. This means
that the AKP might have pragmatically exploited Islamism in foreign policy to
enhance its power inside Turkey. In the final analysis, pragmatism, instead of
ideational commitment, might be the guiding factor driving both the AKP’s
domestic and foreign policy since the beginning of its rule in 2002. In other
words, the connection between the AKP’s governing style and Turkish
foreign policy might be analyzed in a more coherent, consistent pattern.
This study aims to explore the common characteristics of the AKP in
both domestic and international realms, making a break with the extant
paradigm which tends to divide the AKP period into two categories: demo-
cratic/pro-western and authoritarian/Islamist. In doing so, it initially exam-
ines the literature that is critical toward the earlier Kemalist period. This
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also helps us to comprehend why the AKP was viewed as a reformist

party by many critics of Kemalism. Next, it deals with the arguments that
emphasize the Islamist character of the AKP. In order to suggest a
common characteristic to identify the AKP’s domestic and foreign policy
in a holistic manner, it invokes the term ‘populism.’ Finally, the article pre-
sents a comprehensive analysis of how the AKP has been driven by popu-
lism since the inception of its government in 2002. It concludes with a
summary and future policy implications.

From Kemalist authoritarianism to Islamist authoritarianism

Past debates on Turkish politics often centered on the democratic deficits of
the Kemalist paradigm and its implications in foreign policy realm. According
to critics of the Kemalist regime, there were two ideational and one methodo-
logical problems that Turkey suffered in the age of globalization.
The first one is the idea of nation-statehood, which refers to the indivisi-
bility of the nation as well as territory.2 For the vast majority of this literature,
Turkish citizenship was described as civic-territorial, passive and duty-based
by the established paradigm of the Republic. Accordingly, the root causes of
problems derived from nation-statehood date back to the early years of the
Turkish republic. Being a legitimate member of the political community
depended on accepting the cultural and political meanings of Turkishness
introduced by Kemalism. Identity-based citizenship was regarded as a
matter of national security.3 For example, Yeğen argues that Kurdish question
was identified with reactionary movements and Kurdish identity was
excluded from new ideational boundaries as it posed a security threat to the
nation.4
The second is the idea of secularism, which aimed to clear public space of
religious ideology.5 This literature criticizes the Kemalist ideology for being
exclusionary and authoritarian by addressing links between security,
 4 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

modernity and Westernization in the making of modern Turkey. Keyman, for

example, argues that Kemalist elites formulated the new republic with the core
founding pillars which are a nation state and a secular state, with an aggressive
French style of secularism, aimed to reduce Islam as a personal faith.6 Like-
wise, Göle, positing a dichotomy between authoritarian/secular and demo-
cratic/Islamist actors, explains the issue of secularism by referring to
differences discursive and class power relations between these two groups.7
For Göle, secular policies were adopted and implemented by an authoritarian
state and secularism continued to nourish the political and cultural hegemony
of Western-oriented elites. Hence, secularism in Turkey was not neutral and
power-free. It also determined class status. There was, in this way, an
embedded tension between secularism and democratization in Turkey.
The third problem is related to the methodology that determines the way of
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interpreting the framework of nation-state and secularism. In doing so, the

role of the National Security Council (NSC) was scrutinized and its monopoly
over deciding what was threatening was often criticized. For example, in 2005
Bilgin argued that the military and some sections of the political elite were
reluctant to open up a national security debate. Accordingly, the military’s
central role in shaping the political process stems from its monopoly to
define national security behind the closed doors. Furthermore, she argued
that the military’s role is coupled with the weakness of civil society organiz-
ations, which have not been interested in security issues since the inception
of the Republic.8 Similarly, Cizre opened the Pandora’s Box of national secur-
ity and asserted that the military casts a large shadow the politics and policy-
making room of the political parties due to its monopoly in defining national
security. Accordingly, the by the military toward both political Islam and the
Kurdish question restricted the political inclusion of the Kurds and more con-
servative groups. This made Turkey diverge from global trends and values of
the European Union (EU) such as democracy, civilianization and human
rights.9
Therefore, the literature that was critical toward the Kemalist paradigm
suggested that withdrawal of the military from the political space would
increase the democratic quality by including the hitherto excluded social iden-
tity groups into the political system and help Turkey integrate into global
trends and values. In other words, it was assumed that domestic tensions
would disappear and foreign policy would be conducted in a peaceful way
if the civilian politicians fully controlled the decision-making process. Never-
theless, Turkey has been identified as neither democratic nor pacifist although
there has been a withdrawal by the military from political space, which in turn
has enabled civilian politicians to dominate governmental decisions. Contrary
to the expected democratization and integrationist foreign policy, the AKP’s
authoritarian and revisionist policies have characterized the post-Kemalist
period, which started most clearly after the Ergenekon–Sledgehammer cases
 TURKISH STUDIES 5

in 2008 and 2010 and was consolidated by the AKP’s landslide victory in 2011
national elections.10

Explaining the AKP’s shift

With rising authoritarianism in domestic politics as well as revisionism in
foreign policy, many scholars focused on the AKP’s ideological tenets. They
describe the AKP as ‘an Islamist party,’ and argue that the AKP has had a
pan-Islamist agenda since it assumed power. Two studies are particularly
noteworthy for this article. Özkan, after close study of former Foreign and
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s 300 publications, concludes that Davuto-
glu, regarded as the architect of the AKP’s foreign policy vision, had an ambi-
tious pan-Islamist vision, which dismissed the Arab nationalism, secularism
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and socialism. Moreover, Davutoğlu’s foreign policy was expansionist and

revisionist, in particular in establishing Turkey as a major regional power
and re-ordering existing relationships and hierarchies among states. Similarly,
Kıvanç who analyzed Davutoğlu’s Strategic Depth book, describes his vision
as a geopolitical understanding which nourishes both Ottoman romance
and pan-Islamist nationalism. Kıvanç also defines Davutoğlu’s pan-Islamism
as an expansionist ideology aiming to ensure three continents – Asia, Europe
and Africa – with an imperial revival.
On the other hand, some scholars have observed the correlation between
the populism of the AKP and its foreign policy. For example, Öniş argues
that Turkey earned the acclamation of the Arab street not due to Islam per
se but due to its rhetoric against with Israel and support of the Muslim Broth-
erhood in Egypt.11 Building on this argument, Park assesses that Turkey’s
foreign policy agenda reflects the very nature of the AKP of which political
Islamist, majoritarian, populist and authoritarian perspectives have all
become more apparent after the military and bureaucrats have been sidelined.
That is why Park explains Turkey’s foreign policy as a reflection of more the
partisan preferences of a small group of politically powerful individuals rather
than consideration of the state.12
The debate on the motivation of the AKP in domestic and international
realms could be concluded by pinpointing that Islamism and populism are
mutually exclusive. Islamism, or in other terms political Islam, refers to a pol-
itical ideology, one that seeks to give Islam a major role in public and political
life. As noted by Browers on the cases of Yemen and Egypt, and Günalp on
Turkish case, Islamism is one of the potent ideological forces across the twen-
tieth century.13 While it varies across time and places, one consistent reference
for Islamism are the holy texts and examples of early Islamic communities. It
has, in other words, more universal aspirations that can apply across Muslim-
populated countries. Populism, in contrast, is more locally grounded and
context specific. It refers to ‘the people’ for legitimacy; it is rooted in anti-elite
 6 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

feelings; it constructs an ‘us vs. them’ dichotomy with an exclusion strategy; and
it forges mass mobilization.14 Moreover, it is also a communication style, in
other words, a methodology adopted by decision-makers rather than just
an ideology, because even those who define it as an ideology also classify
populism as a thin ideology, attached to other ideologies and then shaped
by them accordingly to historical and socio-economic context.15 Populism
assigns a binary moral dimension to political conflict or/and ideology that
manifest itself generally as ‘us versus them,’ ‘the people versus the elite/
foreign enemies’; and mobilize masses for certain political ends.16 Populism
as a methodology also provides a better explanation for its wide-range adap-
tation by both right and left, liberals and conservatives, nationalist and
Islamist. The last point is key and suggests that Islamism can be, depending
on context and the inclination of political actors, combined with populism,
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the former providing the substance or ideology and the latter providing the
style or manner in which it is delivered.
By the same token, it is safe to argue that the populist discourse of the AKP
did not suddenly appear once it began adopting an Islamist agenda. Even
before pushing the military out of politics, the AKP had efficiently used popu-
lism as a strategy to ensure its political survival. That is to say, the AKP had
advocated universal values such as democracy, civilianization, human rights
and EU membership in order to undermine the secular-establishment’s and
military’s influence over politics and to empower many previously margina-
lized social actors, including both pious Muslims and liberals. Many scholars
and actors of international system had identified this policy as a progressive
move toward the consolidation of democracy. Nevertheless, the rising author-
itarianism of the AKP suggests that its initial policies in the reform period of
the early 2000s were based on pragmatism rather than being ideationally com-
mitted to universal values and the EU membership process. In this account,
the AKP used the conditionality power of the EU to make political reforms
that subordinated the military to civilian leadership and exploited universal
values to delegitimize the army’s intervention in politics. Having considered
the Islamist background of the AKP elite, this view implies that withdrawal
of the military allowed the AKP to (re)turn back to Islamism and such an
ideological turn explains the more recent authoritarian trend in Turkey.
However, change of the ideological discourse (e.g. democratic to Islamist)
does not require change of the methodology used to advance it. Therefore,
one could suggest that the AKP has continuously made use of populism
since its rise to power.

Populism and the AKP

The AKP’s discursive emphases meet the three core elements of populism:
anti-elitism and reference to ‘the people’ for legitimacy; an ‘us vs. them’
 TURKISH STUDIES 7

dichotomy with an exclusion strategy; and efforts to generate mass mobiliz-

ation. Furthermore, as noted by Canovan, populism is characterized by speak-
ing on behalf of the forgotten mass of ordinary people and ‘new populists
explicitly claim to be true democrats, setting out to reclaim power for the
people.’17 It may be illuminating to examine the AKP’s discourse in line
with the premises of Canovan, because the AKP has defined a fault line
between the privileged elite, which disproportionately controls the economic
resources, enjoys political freedoms and dominates the socio-cultural arena
such as media, art and academia, and the masses deprived of opportunities
to get what they deserve. For example, early in the AKP’ reign, corruption
scandals inside the army and army-backed companies were highlighted,18
secular actors were named as ‘white Turks’19 and media, academia and civil
society were defined as castles of Kemalist secularism by pro-government
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intellectuals.20 According to the AKP, this elitist system managed to survive

due to the guardianship role of the military since the foundation of the Repub-
lic in 1923. Thus, for this system to be replaced by a more democratic one, the
military’s influence over politics and bureaucracy would have to be limited.21
With the legitimacy gained through several electoral victories in the follow-
ing years (most crucially in 2007), the backing of liberal circles inside and
outside of Turkey, the EU membership process, and the Ergenekon and Sled-
gehammer Cases, the AKP pushed the military away from political space. This
means that the military no longer plays any role in rotation of the political
elite. Nevertheless, the AKP maintained the illiberal characteristics of the
former regime even after overcoming the military’s tutelage. Instead of dis-
mantling the tutelary institutions constituting a basis for the military’s influ-
ence, the AKP has opted to control them on behalf of the majority. Of the
necessary conditions of liberal democracy, the AKP has rotated the political
elite through elections but has ignored others, including civil liberties and a
free market economy. The optimism about Turkey’s democratization
process has gradually disappeared as the AKP has drifted toward a majoritar-
ian democracy. Özbudun argues that the AKP has consolidated its power by
eliminating the secular guardians in the military and judiciary and started to
pursue a more markedly conservative and majoritarian (even plebiscitarian)
line. According to him, the AKP leader, former Prime Minister and now Pre-
sident Recep T. Erdoğan views ‘the “ballot box” as the only legitimate instru-
ment of democratic accountability and describes anti-government
demonstrations as an attempt by the minority to impose its will on the
majority by unlawful means.’22 Similarly Taşpınar defined the AKP’s under-
standing of democracy as an electoral democracy, which justifies the illiberal
practices of the AKP government and does not provide guarantees for consti-
tutional liberties.23
The AKP’s record on civil liberties sharply declined following the Gezi pro-
tests in June 2013. From this date on, putting the opposition circles on par
 8 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

with a security threat has become a popular strategy for the AKP to justify its
violations of civil liberties.24 For example, the AKP elite and media accused
the Gezi protesters of serving the intelligence services of foreign countries
and held that their demands for good governance were part of a global con-
spiracy against Turkey. Similarly, Kurds suffered the same fate when the peace
talks between the government and the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) ended. As long as the peace talks had lasted, the representatives of
the AKP had seemed to be counting on the support of the Kurdish movement
for the adoption of a presidential system, in return for some form of local
autonomy. However, statements by the co-chairman of the Peoples’ Democ-
racy Party (Halklarin Demokrasi Partisi, HDP), Selahattin Demirtaş, prior to
the June 2015 general election made clear that the AKP’s hopes for such a
bargain were exaggerated. When the clashes between the PKK and the secur-
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ity forces restarted, the line between opposing the AKP and supporting PKK
terrorism had blurred and criminalization of Kurdish civil society started once
again.
On the other hand, regarding the free market economy, the years under the
AKP rule have indicated that its economic model does not constitute a full
deviation from the previous period. The research of Gürakar sums up how
the AKP use the public resources to create a clientelist system. She contends
that public procurement was regulated in 1983 but the procurement processes
were politicized and carried out in a non-transparent way. This produced
illegal and irregular contracts and gave rise to corruption scandals until
Turkey was forced to make institutional reforms by the EU and the IMF in
1999. As a result of these negotiations, Turkey adopted a new Public Procure-
ment Law (PPL) in early 2002. Nevertheless, this law, which was based on
transparency and fair competition, has been amended by AKP governments
over 150 times since it came to power in November 2002.25 According to Gür-
akar’s research, the link between public procurement and political favoritism
becomes more visible when the data indicating how the firms with direct pol-
itical connections and political affiliations with the AKP are awarded by
public procurements contracts are examined. The firms having connections
and affiliations with the AKP receive more than the foreign firms, firms
that are connected to opposition parties and non-partisan business associ-
ations. Furthermore, Gürakar finds that local actors are often relatively new
companies and they have some sort of connections with the AKP government.
Some owners of these firms have previously served as mayors or city council
members while some others’ social media accounts reveal how much they
admire the AKP. Therefore, it is safe to argue that the AKP has not revolutio-
nized the economic paradigm of the Kemalist period in a liberal and transpar-
ent manner. In other words, political favoritism and crony capitalism have
continued to characterize the political economy of Turkey.
 TURKISH STUDIES 9

In sum, the AKP’s struggle against the military’s role over politics had
masked its illiberal practices before its authoritarian tendencies were revealed.
Liberal circles of in and outside of Turkey turned a blind eye for the AKP to
achieve this end. At the same time, the AKP, as a populist party, managed to
create a fault line between deprived ordinary people represented by itself and
privileged elites guarded by the military. In order to win its battle against the
military, the AKP made use of the illiberal institutions and practices inherited
from the previous regime. In other words, making Turkey a democratic
country was never the ideational motivation of the AKP. Instead, democracy
was used to conceal the AKP’s ambitions to centralize power and consolidate
its position as it has used Islamism after eliminating the military by 2011. That
is why the AKP has relied on the arbitrary use of state power and new fault
lines and polarizations such as traitors/enemies of state backed by foreign
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states and local/national people, which are regarded as the genuine owners
of the country. Therefore, populism as a methodology to reach and control
power has remained constant although ideological discourses voiced by the
AKP has shown inconsistencies.

Populism at home, populism in the world

As mentioned previously, the NSC’s monopoly over defining national security
was viewed as a factor that prevented Turkey from integrating into the globa-
lized world system. According to scholars who are members of liberal and
critical schools, the military’s approach toward the Kurdish question and pol-
itical Islam could be explained by constructing a security threat in order to
justify its power base in the political system.26 In other words, the military
opted to define the Kurdish question and political Islam as security threats
so that these problems could only be solved by security measures. In this
way, the NSC largely precluded the civilian politicians to make policy rec-
ommendations such as political dialogue and moderation/inclusion in order
to solve the aforementioned problems. In the final analysis, having the mon-
opoly of defining the national security not only helped the NSC to intervene in
the policy-making of the civilian governments, but also enabled the NSC to
preserve its position in domestic politics.
The AKP’s struggle to undermine the military’s position in the political
system was viewed and presented as a struggle for democracy both in the
domestic and international arena. Many scholars and intellectuals argued
that the AKP’s coming to power was an opportunity for Turkey to achieve
deeper democratization.27 Furthermore, the AKP received a significant
support from the bureaucrats and the politicians of the EU. According to
Kubicek, the EU, as the strong advocate of democratization, attempted to con-
vince many states to make reforms regarding the political liberalization and
human rights.28 Turkey was one of the cases of democracy promotion and
 10 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

the EU pursued the strategies of ‘leverage’ and ‘linkage’ to encourage political

reforms. The EU’s conditionality policy became an issue in domestic politics
because, among other items, the reform process required the transformation
of the military’s role in the government system and decision-making pro-
cesses. Despite the resistance of the establishment, what made the condition-
ality strategy work was the start of the accession talks between Turkey and the
EU in 2005. Aydınlı et al. argue that civilian governments would not have
achieved political reforms demanded by the EU without the backing of the
military, which has traditionally been motivated by the pro-Western vision
of Mustafa Kemal and viewed membership in the EU as the ultimate end of
this vision.29 That is why the Turkish military did not prevent the AKP to
make political reforms as long as it complied with the conditions of the EU
membership process.
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Nevertheless, the AKP elite efficiently exploited the EU membership

process to curb the military’s role in a non-institutional way. Defending de-
militarization, which was necessary for the AKP to consolidate its power,
overlapped with its pro-Western foreign policy, but this process was not con-
ducted in coordination with the military. Instead, the AKP presented its
struggle to cleanse the political space from the influence of the military in a
populist way. The military was depicted as the guardian of elitism, bureau-
cratic autonomy, Istanbul business circles and media bodies that often criti-
cized civilian governments in order to keep the military strong. This
implied that there was no room for regular people and the governments
elected by them in the current political system. Therefore, the AKP presented
the civilianization process as a struggle between the current system’s losers,
which are deprived of public resources, and the privileged elite whose interests
are protected by the military. This explains why the popularity of the AKP
gradually increased from 34% to 50% between 2002 and 2011. During this
period, the AKP gradually established its authority over the bureaucracy,
media, academia, civil society and business circles on behalf of the frustrated
people as it consolidated its voter base. While doing so, accession to the EU,
democratization and Westernization were used to justify the AKP’s hegemony
in domestic realm.
It is an undeniable fact that the military’s dominant role in the NSC has
been replaced by civilian politicians under the AKP rule. Nonetheless, the
NSC has continued to monopolize the definition of national security. In
that sense, the AKP, as the representative of the 50% of the voters and
single party government, has had a free hand to determine the framework
of national security. This has also enabled the AKP to criminalize the opposi-
tion groups that could jeopardize its political survival. For example, the PKK
was regarded as a legitimate counterpart during the peace process, which
started in January 2013 and lasted until the HDP’s election success put an
end to single party government of the AKP in June 2015 national elections.
 TURKISH STUDIES 11

It is safe to argue that the HDP had taken advantage of being viewed as a legit-
imate actor by the government. Following the national elections, conflict
between the Turkish Armed Forces and the PKK recommenced and the
AKP turned back to nationalist, anti-Kurdish discourse. As a result of this
policy, the AKP could attract the nationalist voters and re-gain majority in
the parliament in November 2015 snap elections.30 Furthermore, some depu-
ties of the HDP, including co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksek-
dağ, have been jailed for their links with terrorism in advance of the 2017
constitutional referendum which ultimately passed and will expand the
powers of the President.31
In a similar vein, the AKP government had long ignored the NSC’s rec-
ommendation on the potential negative actions of the Gulen Movement,
which was, throughout most of the 2000s, a strong supporter of the AKP.
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The infiltration of the Gulenists into the bureaucracy was tolerated until
the Gulenist prosecutors initiated a graft probe against four ministers of the
AKP government in December 2013.32 According to Erdoğan, this was an
attempt to subvert the government and Gulenists had established a parallel
state.33 In 2015, after the AKP managed to avert the graft probe and
Erdoğan became president, the Gulen Movement was defined as a threat to
national security by the NSC.34
The failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016 and its aftermath set another
example of how the AKP defines national security. Following the coup
attempt, plotted by the Gulenist officers in the army, a state of emergency
has been declared and this has given free hand to the AKP to stigmatize oppo-
sition groups, journalists, academics and civil society organizations that are
critical toward the government.35 Thousands of civil servants, including aca-
demics, army officers, judges and public prosecutors have been fired without
any legal procedure.36 Besides Gulen-backed institutions, media outlets, pub-
lishing houses and civil society organizations linked to liberal, left-wing and
Kurdish circles have also been closed down.37 Although it is an undeniable
fact that the infiltration of members of the Gulenist cult in the bureaucracy
did in fact pose a serious threat to the bureaucratic order, the steps taken to
neutralize this threat have gone beyond the boundaries of legitimate action.38
This picture shows that consolidating the power base by constructing a
security threat has been maintained by the AKP even after the army withdrew
from politics. That is to say, the ideational problems of the Kemalism and its
democratic deficits addressed by the liberal and critical circles have continued
because the methodology of defining the national security has remained con-
stant with one exception. The military members of the NSC had no need for
domestic approval in order to keep their positions while the AKP needs the
popular vote in order to preserve its power base.
Such a difference may explain why Turkish foreign policy has been charac-
terized as more threatening and conflict-prone after the AKP began
 12 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

dominating decision-making mechanisms. As argued previously, the AKP

had adopted a populist discourse and policy ever since its inception. In
addition to exploiting the dichotomy between privileged elite and ordinary
people, the EU membership process and universal democratic values served
as useful instruments to avert the military’s pressure. Therefore, it can be
argued that populism and its pro-Western and peaceful foreign policy over-
lapped. In this period, the AKP government was attentive to avoid any con-
frontation in the international realm. For example, Balcı argues that the AKP
was reluctant to initiate a cross-border operation into Northern Iraq in 2007
because such a conflict might help the military to gain ground and exert its
influence over political space.39 Although the AKP’s stance was evaluated as
a peaceful, democratic and cooperative by many scholars, it also aimed to dis-
tance the military, which was defined as the guardian of privileged and secular
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elitism, away from decision-making process with pragmatic reasons.

This argument seems persuasive because populism has continued even
after the military’s tutelary role disappeared. Although it was a result of a
pragmatic approach, the AKP presented its foreign policy by highlighting
the dichotomy between its Western, European-style of governance and a
more Eurasian backed by its ostensible opponents. During operations target-
ing the military, several media outlets attached to the government argued that
there was an anti-US, anti-Western and pro-Russian clique in Turkish mili-
tary, who wanted to shift the Turkish Army and Turkey to the axis of
Russian-Chinese-and-Iranian base. This ‘Eurasian clique’ was removed
from the army with the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases in 2008 and
2010, in order to ‘save’ Turkey’s Western stance and democratic transform-
ation agenda.40
However, the AKP’s enthusiasm to make democratic reforms and its need
to survive have gradually diverged. Islamism and glorification of the Ottoman
Empire, which is regarded as the symbol of the caliphate and unity of ummah,
have been the next ideological framework that the AKP has used to consoli-
date its voters. According to Hinnebusch, the outbreak of the Arab Spring
opened a window of opportunity for Turkey to secure regional leadership
role in the region. In doing so, the AKP’s abandoned the ‘zero-problem
with neighbors’ policy and sought to make use of its intimacy with the
Muslim Brotherhood (MB) backed political parties, which came to power
in Tunisia and Egypt following the fall of dictators. When the Arab Spring
reached Syria, it has been apparent that the Sunni-Islamic identity became
the frame of the AKP’s bid for regional ambitions. The AKP sponsored a
friendly opposition and MB-backed groups to replace the Assad regime.41
Such a policy turn has also shaped the AKP’s discourse in domestic politics.
The dichotomy that had been defined between the privileged white Turks
guarded by the military and ordinary people has shifted to the polarization
between those who support the ideas of Neo-Ottomanism, Islamic revival,
 TURKISH STUDIES 13

national values and those who advocate for Western and secular institutions,
Kurds, and Alevis. Therefore, the AKP could easily represent its opponents as
collaborators of the Western states by using its gigantic media machine. In
doing so, the AKP has both exploited the post-imperial inferiority complex of
the Turks and easily demonized the opposition circles by employing a banal
anti-imperialist discourse.42 One could easily argue that the AKP has secured
its government from the popular Gezi Protests in June 2013 and graft probe
in December 2013 by designating itself as the spokesperson of the Turks
owning the local and national values against the extensions of the Western
states and international lobbies. Furthermore, the AKP has presented itself as
the ‘hope for ummah’ and aimed to attract conservative voters by highlighting
Erdoğan’s leadership role over the Muslim communities around the world.
As a result of the AKP’s populist and pragmatist turns to secure its pos-
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ition, Turkey has experienced strained relations with foreign states from
Russia to Israel, from the Netherlands to Egypt, from Iran to Germany.
That is why rising domestic opposition – especially after Gezi Movement in
2013 – affected the AKP’s foreign policy in a dramatic way. For instance,
the Egyptian coup against its MB government was regarded both as a survival
and domestic issue by AKP leaders, and their responses escalated the crisis to
the point of stalemate. Similarly, a 2017 Dutch–Turkish diplomatic incident
was triggered by the AKP’s domestic needs for political support from
Turkish citizens living in the Netherlands for a ‘yes’ vote in the Turkish con-
stitutional referendum. To put it simply, unlike the predictions of those who
were critical toward the NSC’s monopoly over the definition of national
security, the withdrawal of the military has not led Turkey to be better inte-
grated into global system. Constructed security problems have continued to
help the AKP to preserve its power base while it was also a useful instrument
in the hands of the military. Nevertheless, in contrast to the Kemalist period,
such a monopoly has been justified by the popular support and parliamentar-
ian majority. Thus, the populist policies and the discourse that the AKP has
applied to obtain the majority have produced transnational implications
and caused crises and challenges for Turkey.

What went wrong and what should be done?

There are seminal studies that deal with the interaction between a govern-
ment’s survival stress and its foreign policy. For example, Putnam argues
that policy-makers look to domestic constituents when they engage in inter-
national negotiations.43 This implies that a tentative agreement at the inter-
national level is more likely if larger win-set can be achieved in domestic
politics. Ratification of international agreements by the domestic actors is
determined by two factors. On the one hand, distribution of power, preferences
and possible coalitions matter. On the other hand, political institutions that
 14 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

determine the legal process of ratification in domestic level also affect the possi-
bility of international agreements. According to Putnam, the negotiator, as a
bridge between domestic constituents and other negotiators, tries out possible
agreements to gain the endorsement of domestic constituents. Nevertheless,
this might be a complicated process. Ratification at the domestic level could
affect international bargaining or concluding an international agreement
could change the position of the domestic groups. Similarly, ‘diversionary
theory of war’ also underlines how foreign policy is instrumentalized by the
governments to shape the public opinion at home. According to Levy,
decision-makers might embark on aggressive foreign policies and assertive
national policies, which are believed to enhance the power and prestige of
state, as a means of averting domestic criticisms and increasing support. In
other words, aggressive foreign policy is the product of internal stability and
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elite insecurity.44 As Rosecrance posits, political leaders often aim to solve

their internal problems through a diplomatic or military victory abroad.45
This literature seems to explain how the AKP consolidated its power base
in the political system by using its foreign policy orientation and discourse.
Nevertheless, there are novel phenomena that the AKP and similar populist
parties have introduced to the literature. First, the AKP has managed to
make foreign policy choices without suffering from the restraints of domestic
groups and institutions due to its capability to mobilize the majority through
populist policies. What makes this situation interesting is that the AKP has
opted for disparate foreign policy initiatives since 2002 in a democratic
system, which requires regular elections. According to Putnam, such auton-
omy of government is seen in non-democratic regimes. That is to say, auton-
omy of decision-makers from legal procedures makes them to conclude
international agreements more likely than those who have to convince parlia-
mentarians and other domestic groups. Nevertheless, the AKP has not had
difficulties in shaping the public opinion while embarking on a pro-EU and
pro-democratic agenda until 2011 and then adopted Islamist and authoritar-
ian stance from that date on. By the help of its popularity, the AKP has been
able to undermine the domestic institutions and silence alternative voices and
reinforced its autonomy on behalf of the majority. Thus, unlike the assump-
tion of Putnam, a strong and autonomous government has emerged in Turkey
as a result of populist policies
On the other hand, the second novel phenomenon is the instrumentaliza-
tion of peace and democracy in building an authoritarian government. Diver-
sionary theory attempts to explain why governments that experience internal
problems prefer to initiate war or pursue aggressive foreign policy. The AKP
case shows that it had a pragmatic relationship with the EU and democratic
values. In doing so, the AKP aimed to push the military out of political space
and break the influence of Kemalism in the judiciary, academia, business and
media. The AKP represented itself as the flagship of the campaign that is
 TURKISH STUDIES 15

critical toward militarism, nationalism and securitarized secularism. Follow-

ing the elimination of the Kemalist establishment and institutions, it has
been clear that the AKP has no ideational commitment to universal demo-
cratic values. To maintain its popularity and consolidate its power, Islamism
and assertive foreign policy have been exploited by the AKP elite. Therefore,
what diversionary theory of war could explain is the period after the AKP left
its integrationist and pacifist policies.
In line with these points, one could argue that Turkey, as a populist and
assertive state, represents a unique case regarding the interaction between dom-
estic conditions and foreign policy behavior. This brings us to ask what went
wrong and why Turkey failed to establish a democratic regime and pursue a
democratic foreign policy. In this study we argue that the absence of the insti-
tutions to check and balance the executive body has coupled with the populist
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strategy of the AKP since it took over the government in 2002. In other words,
populism has become the main method of the AKP both when it was regarded
as the champion of democracy and effective diplomacy during the initial years
of its power, and when it has adopted Islamist and Neo-Ottomanist discourse
after eliminating the military from political space. One can explain the populist
strategy of the AKP by the ‘need for domestic approval’ to sustain its power and
argue that the Turkish foreign policy has experienced crises because the AKP
has used populism to materialize its domestic political calculations.
On the other hand, the NSC was a tutelary institution and it had no need
for domestic support, approval and popularity. For this reason, the illiberal
and undemocratic character of the Kemalist paradigm did not drag Turkey
into turmoil in the foreign policy realm. As Aydın argues, the foundation
of the Republic in 1923 did not change the governmental system but also
implied a turning point in the political philosophy of Turks. Accordingly,
the republican elite’s policy to create a secular and modern country within
the borders of Turkey was the main pillar of this paradigm shift. Republican-
ism became a doctrinal barrier against the utopian ideas such as pan-Turkism
and pan-Islamism, which have revisionist foreign policy goals. Instead of
expending the country’s energy for unobtainable dreams, the Kemalist doc-
trine that was regarded as the ideological framework of the military aimed
to preserve the status quo in the making of foreign policy.46
The withdrawal of the military has paved the way to populism instead of
democratization. Thus, the idea that anticipated civilianization would help
Turkey to integrate into globalization and establish peaceful relations in the
foreign policy arena empirically collapsed in recent years. The period under
the AKP rule has indicated that Turkey’s domestic and international difficul-
ties could not be solved just by changing the methodology of how political
elites are selected. For Turkey to achieve democratic standards which are sup-
posed to settle the problems inside and outside, the illiberal heritage of the
Republic should also be criticized and solutions based on structural and
 16 B. B. ÖZPEK AND N. YAŞAR

institutional reforms should be discussed. That seems the single viable way of
preventing populism to infect the policy-making process.

Notes
1. Behlül, “Turkey, Davutoğlu”; Kıvanç, Pan-İslamcının; Kuru and Stepan,
Democracy; Cornell, “What Drives”; Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads.”
2. Yeğen, “Kemalizm ve Hegemonya,” and Ersanlı, İktidar ve Tarih.
3. İçduyu and Kaygusuz, “The Politics of Citizenship.”
4. Yeğen, “Turkish State Discourse.”
5. Göle, “Secularism and Islamism,” and Kuru, Secularism and State Policies.
6. Keyman, “Introduction.”
7. Göle, “Authoritarian Secularism.”
8. Bilgin, “Turkey’s Changing Security.”
9. Cizre, “Demythologizing.”
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10. Özkan, “Turkey, Davutoğlu” and Kıvanç, Pan-İslamcının.

11. Öniş, “Turkey and the Arab revolutions.”
12. Park, “Turkey’s ‘New’ Foreign Policy.”
13. Gülalp, “Using Islam,” and Browers, Political Ideology in the Arab World.
14. Wejnert and Woods, The Many Faces of Populism.
15. Mudde and Kaltwasser, “Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism”; Stanley,
“The Thin Ideology of Populism”; Albertazzi and McDonnell, Twenty-First
Century Populism; Levitsky and Loxton, “Populism and Competitive Authori-
tarianism”; Madrid, “The Rise of Ethnopopulism in Latin America”; Canovan,
“Taking Politics to the People”; and Taggart, Populism.
16. Wejnert and Woods, The Many Faces of Populism, 15
17. Canovan, “Populism for Political Theorists?,” 244.
18. Taşgetiren, “bravo, bravo, ama … .”
19. The term ‘White Turks’ was developed by Nilufer Göle for identifiying priviled
secular urban segment in Turkish society. The term was also used by Erdoğan
and several AKP supporters in relations with ‘Black Turks’. See Ferguson,
“White Turks, Black Turks, and Negroes.”
20. Akyol, “Kemalist Elitler,” and “AKP’li Fırat: Atatürk devrimleri travma yarattı.”
Radikal, June 22, 2006.
21. “Erdoğan: TSK sivil iradenin dışına çıkamaz,” Hürriyet, October 2, 2006.
22. Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads.”
23. Taspinar, “The End of the Turkish Model.”
24. “Gezi’nin PKK’lı teröristini anmaya CHP ve HDP’li vekiller birlikte katıldı,”
Sabah, June 1, 2017; Tan, “Ana muhalefet mi … ?”; Babaoğlu, “En zehirli
terör desteği … ”; and Tuna, “Yargı sizin emir eriniz mi?”
25. Gürakar, Politics of Favoritism, 5.
26. Bilgin, “Turkey’s Changing Security”; Cizre, “Demythologizing”; Yeğen,
“Turkish State Discourse”; Göle, “Secularism and Islamism”; and Kuru, Secu-
larism and State Policies.
27. Efegil, “Analysis”; Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government”;
İnsel, “The AKP and Normalizing Democracy”; Çınar, “Turkey’s Transform-
ation” and Dağı, “Turkey’s AKP in Power.”
28. Kubicek, “Political Conditionality.”
29. Aydınlı, Özcan, and Akyaz, “The Turkish Military’s March.”
30. “MHP’nin oyları Ak Parti’ye kaydı.” Milliyet, November 2, 2015.
 TURKISH STUDIES 17

31. “Turkey detains HDP leaders Demirtas and Yuksekdag,” Al Jazeera, November
4, 2016.
32. “İstanbul’da yolsuzluk ve rüşvet operasyonu.” Hürriyet, December 17, 2013.
33. Ergin, “Erdoğan’ın,” and “Bu oyunu bozup inlerine gireceğiz.” Sabah, Decem-
ber 22, 2013.
34. “MGK: Paralel yapı ulusal güvenliğe tehdit.” BBC Turkçe, February 26, 2014.
35. “15 Temmuz darbe girişimi: Türkiye’de 3 ay süreyle olağanüstü hâl ilan edildi.”
BBC Turkçe, July 20, 2016.
36. “Devlette on Binlerce Tasfiye.” Milliyet, July 20, 2016.
37. “New York Times’dan kapsamlı haber: Türkiye’deki tasfiyelerin iç yüzü.”
Diken, April 16, 2017.
38. As of 22 June 2017, 91,927 staff have been sacked from their positions, and 61
health-care centers, 1043 private education institutions, 140 foundations, 1611
associations, 19 syndicates, 15 universities, 140 media outlets and 29 publishers
have been closed by statutory decrees. In addition there are 156 journalists in
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prisons.
39. Balcı, “Dış Politikada Hesaplaşmak.”
40. Çandar, “Avrasyacılık”; Cemal, “Ergenekon”; and Dağı, “Rus Yanlısı Darbe.”
41. Hinnebusch, “Back to Enmity.”
42. Akyol, “What Turned Erdogan.”
43. Putnam, “Diplomacy.”
44. Levy, “Domestic Politics.”
45. Rosecrance, Action and Reaction.
46. Aydın, “Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy.”

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Burak Bilgehan Özpek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political
Science and International Relations at TOBB University of Economics and Technol-
ogy. His main research interests include failed states, conflict studies, contemporary
politics of the Middle East and Turkish foreign policy. He has published articles in
Journal of International Relations and Development, International Journal, Near
East Quarterly, Iran and the Caucasus, Turkish Studies, Israel Affairs, Global Govern-
ance and Birikim.
Nebahat Yaşar is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of International Relations at
Middle East Technical University. Her main research interests are on contemporary
politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

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