{"id":808,"date":"2014-10-21T03:45:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-21T00:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fppr.ihsandemiray.com\/index.php\/?p=808"},"modified":"2016-10-22T12:37:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T09:37:59","slug":"dr-ozdamar-professor-of-international-relations-bilkent-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/en\/2014\/10\/dr-ozdamar-professor-of-international-relations-bilkent-university\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. \u00d6zdamar, Professor of International Relations, Bilkent University"},"content":{"rendered":"

TURKEY\u2019S FOREIGN POLICY: A MIDDLE POWER\u2019S QUEST FOR STATUS <\/strong><\/p>\n

On October 21, 2014, Dr. \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zdamar, of the department of International Relations at \u0130hsan Do\u011framac\u0131 Bilkent University, addressed a Bilkent International Security and Strategy Seminar (BISSS) at the Bilkent Hotel. Dr. \u00d6zdamar presented findings from a 1001 TUBITAK Project titled \u201cTurkey\u2019s Foreign Policy Roles: An Empirical Approach,\u201d which draws on role theory literature. The aim of the project is to analyze the roles assigned to Turkish foreign policy over the years, and to explore the attitudes of government leaders and officials, societal elites, as well as public opinion about these roles.<\/p>\n

The first part of the project has been conducted on two levels. For the first level of analysis, Dr. \u00d6zdamar collected data using content analysis of top decision makers\u2019 speeches, in order to reveal leaders\u2019 attitudes towards different foreign policy roles. In this leaders-based approach, the results suggest that between 1997 and 2009, five leaders, despite coming from two ideologically different parties, envisioned similar roles for Turkish foreign policy, i.e. \u2018defender of peace and stability\u2019, \u2018global system collaborator\u2019, and \u2018regional system collaborator\u2019, all of which are typical middle power roles. In the post-2009 era, however, we see evidence of new role conceptions emerging, such as those of \u2018protector of the oppressed\u2019 and \u2018regional leader\u2019.<\/p>\n

The second level of analysis is based on elite interviews with 50 respondents from \u0130stanbul, Ankara, \u0130zmir, Trabzon, Antalya, Erzurum, and Diyarbak\u0131r. Foreign policy elite interviews were conducted with members of the bureaucracy, media, civil society, academia, business world, and so on. According to the findings, there are three roles with which Turkish foreign policy is most commonly associated. These roles, ranging from most to least often used are: \u2018regional power\u2019, \u2018bridge country\u2019, and \u2018model country\u2019. The research also reveals that the least mentioned roles are \u2018isolated\u2019, \u2018Eastern country\u2019, \u2018regional protector\u2019, \u2018Eurasian country\u2019, and \u2018World state\u2019. Dr. \u00d6zdamar has also looked for answers to questions about any role contestation among elites, role altercasting from external actors, and differences between elite and public opinions on foreign policy. His findings suggest, for example, that elites are more likely to prescribe regional and local roles rather than global ones for Turkey.<\/p>\n

With the help of data collected by a professional survey firm, the last part of the project measures the attitudes of Turkish public opinion on Turkey\u2019s different foreign policy roles and whether they are also changing according to ideology, party, identity, and time. The survey includes questions aimed at revealing public opinion about the success of Turkish foreign policy, international organizations, and public attitudes towards other countries. Questions also seek for a better understanding of the public\u2019s general foreign policy attitudes towards issues such as military intervention, East-West preferences, EU membership, isolation, decisions regarding war, etc. In conclusion, Dr. \u00d6zdamar compared the differences and similarities in opinions on foreign policy roles within and between leaders, elites and the public, before responding to participants\u2019 questions.<\/p>\n

About the project<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Dr. \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zdamar <\/h1><\/div><\/div>\n
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<\/h1><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TURKEY\u2019S FOREIGN POLICY: A MIDDLE POWER\u2019S QUEST FOR STATUS On October 21, 2014, Dr. \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zdamar, of the department of International Relations at \u0130hsan Do\u011framac\u0131 Bilkent University, addressed a Bilkent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bisss"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.foreignpolicyandpeace.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}