ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Turkey’s high-profile foreign visits (at the level of head of state, head of government and foreign minister) through a basic quantitative assessment in order to study the behavioural dimension of change in the substantive area. In order to understand the extent to which Turkey seeks to consult its European partners in coordinating its foreign policy, this chapter analyses the reductions and increases in Turkey’s interactions with Europe in general and with EU member states in particular, vis-à-vis the other countries and regions of the world. The aim is to examine the extent to which the Europeanisation observed in Turkey’s alignment with the CFSP is reflected in high-profile visits, as an indication of its general behaviour. The data for this chapter include nearly 2,547 bilateral and 1,274 multilateral visits at the high level that were officially requested, which were confirmed through triangulation. Data were coded according to the nature of the visits (bilateral or multilateral), in terms of membership of the OIC or the EU, and by region. Hence, this chapter offers innovative data which has been neglected in the literature, despite the fact that Turkey’s geographical orientation is periodically subject to heated debate.
