ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 focuses on Turkey. Turkey is considered to be an outsider despite different Turkish dynasties ruled most of the region from thirteenth to the twentieth century. In addition to being an ethnic outsider, Turkey’s secularist reforms of the twentieth century and its elite’s preferred distance to regional affairs created its non-interventionist approach that lasted seven decades. During the 2000s Turkey has engaged on soft power policies in the region. Turkey presented itself as a democratic, pluralist, and liberal economy oriented alternative. A big break with this policy came in 2011, when the Turkish administration became directly involved with the Syrian civil war and the other conflicts in the region. After this point, Turkish policy-makers have conceptualized Turkey’s foreign policy vis-à-vis the region as a ‘regional leader,’ ‘protector of the oppressed’ and ‘defender of peace and stability.’ This has been a major break from the traditional Turkish foreign policy towards the region that was conceptualized as ‘regional subsystem collaborator.’ Turkey’s change of policy towards the MENA has created classic examples of role conflict, role alter casting, and role contestation (horizontal and vertical).
