When the Shifting International Order Hits the Domestic Agency: The Case of Turkey and Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

Abstract

Turkish foreign policy has been attracting ever-increasing attention in the academic literature as the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has been pursuing proactive, multilateral, and flexible international relations, including many shifting partnerships, fluctuations, and contradictions. Turkey’s attitude towards the recent Russian-Ukrainian conflict presents an important case to deconstruct the main components of the AKP government’s foreign policy under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan towards a flashpoint in the neighbourhood. This article aims to explore Ankara’s approach to the war between Russia and Ukraine based on the interaction of changes in global structure and domestic politics. It argues that the shifting global system, accompanied by the new identity construction of the AKP, has played a determining role in the formulation of Turkish foreign policy towards the conflict based on balancing and pragmatism. The article also concludes that Turkish foreign policy provides an important case study to understand how sui generis middle powers have been responding to global conflicts in a changing global system.

Keywords

• turkish foreign policy
• russia
• ukraine
• sui generis middle powers
• identity
• pragmatism
• global conflicts
• black sea