Internal Driving Forces for Turkey’s Middle East Policy
Internal Driving Forces for Turkey’s Middle East Policy

Summary/Abstract: The moaning about Turkey’s purported “shift of axis” has given way to the complacent assessment that Turkey is “again in the Western fold”. As Turkey has closed ranks not only with the U.S. but also with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, it is seen as the mere member of a Sunni-Muslim coalition in the region today. Ankara is deprived of its nimbus of being a uniting power in the Middle East, able to bridge the sectarian divide – the main threat for all states in the region. Reasons for this development, the article argues, are not only the effects of the “Arab Spring” but also Turkey’s limited understanding of democratization that, for a great deal, until now exhausted in the integration of conservative Sunni-Muslim actors in the realms of politics, economy and education.

• Details
• Contents