Turkey’s ‘New Role’ Creation under AKP Leadership : Relationship between decision-maker’s perceptions and state’s international performance

Abstract: This thesis, in its general framework, explores the recent transformation of Turkey’s role in international sphere under the ruling AKP government. Upon the rise of rise of AKP to power in 2002, the tradition of Turkey’s foreign policy orientations underwent significant transformations and challenges which signified the country’s ambition to adopt a ‘new role’ in the regional and international contexts. The states’ drive to create or recreate a role has been widely discussed among theorists of IR studies, especially the role theorists. According to national role conceptions—a fundamental conceptual framework of role theory—a state’s role is produced within a process of its decision-makers’ self-defined goals, beliefs which shape the state’s performance and role identity at the international level. Using this theoretical framework as an analytical tool, this thesis particularly aims to explore and understand the process Turkey’s ‘new role’ creation. In this regard, since Ahmet Davutoglu is commonly known as the architect of the AKP’s foreign policy decision-makings, this thesis looks at Davutoglu’s speeches and Turkey’s official development assistance as examples of both decision-makers’ perceptions and state’s international performance. This study concludes that Turkey’s aid performance is orientated toward Davutoglu’s perceptions and conceptions, which appear to have been underpinned by the ideology of neo-Ottomanism.