ABSTRACT
Turkey’s foreign policy since the founding of the Turkish Republic has been characterized by stability. This is not to say that it has not changed but that change has been infrequent, slow, deliberate if not always predictable. In this context, the intense activity and shifts of direction witnessed recently has produced bafflement and questions regarding the new directions of Turkish foreign policy. Is Turkish foreign policy undergoing major shifts; if so, in what direction and why? What results has the change produced? In attempting to offer responses to these questions, we will begin by reviewing the historical evolution of Turkish foreign policy and then turn to an examination of changes. In doing so, we will focus not only on structural changes in the international environment and in the domestic scene in Turkey, but also on agency, in other words the persons who have been involved in the making of foreign policy, and the mutual interaction of structure and agency in policy making and implementation.
