ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that an analysis of the role of democracy in the foreign policy of Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) or AK Party toward the Middle East, reveals that it is neither a cynical state attempt to cloak state interests in universal normative garbs, nor is it driven by ideological zeal to ‘make the world safe for democracy’, as Woodrow Wilson famously put it. Turkish foreign policy toward the Middle East in the AK Party era can be divided roughly into two periods: The first starts with the party’s election to power in November 2002 and continues up until the Arab Spring in December 2010; and the second one comprises the post-Arab Spring period. Before the Arab Spring, Turkey followed a policy of engagement with the rulers of the region. The AK Party’s principled commitment to democracy derives not from considerations of outcome, but from its trust in the democratic process itself.
