{"id":11376,"date":"2023-05-12T10:41:02","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T10:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/2023\/05\/go\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T21:16:18","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T18:16:18","slug":"turkeys-foreign-policy-making-process-gencer-ozcan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/2023\/05\/turkeys-foreign-policy-making-process-gencer-ozcan\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s Foreign Policy-Making Process – Gencer \u00d6zcan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Turkey\u2019s foreign policy-making process consists of a\nnetwork of agencies, such as the President\u2019s Office, the Ministry of Foreign\nAffairs [MFA], the Military, and the National Intelligence Service. The process\ncentered around the President’s Office during the Single Party rule\n(1923-1946), and the president made decisions after deliberations with his\nclose aides. In this framework, the duties of diplomats were confined to\ndiplomatic activities. A senior diplomat had warned young diplomats in the 1940s\nthat they should not dream of being an ambassador since such positions were\nreserved only for politicians. The parliament merely rubber-stamped the\ndecisions coming from the president\u2019s office only if parliament ratification is\nrequired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Cold War years, Turkey\u2019s foreign policy-making\nprocess underwent a substantial transformation due to several factors: Some of\nthe factors originated from changing power relations within the country, and others\nwere contingent upon ebbs and flows in relations between the superpowers. After\nthe introduction of multi-party politics in 1946, MFA and the Military gained\nsupremacy over the President. The presence of opposition parties in the\nparliament and their mouthpieces in the media led to the enlargement of the social\nbase of politics. It, therefore, increased the politicization of foreign policy\nissues. After Democrat Party [DP] came to power in 1950, politicization gained traction.\nIn the early years of its rule, the DP\u2019s foreign policy decisions resonated\nwith its strategies to hold on to power. To meet strong opposition at home, the\nDP administration aimed to gather support abroad, cultivating close relations\nwith the U.S.  Seeing it as a window of\nopportunity to improve its image in Washington, D.C., the DP administration did\nnot hesitate to join the Korean War. In doing so, the DP leaders declined to inform\nthe opposition and ignored the constitutional conditions required to deploy\ntroops abroad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the launch of the economic\nassistance schemes with the U.S. during the 1950s, economic issues came to the\nfore and became one of the central preoccupations of the ministry. Beyond its\nconventional duties, the ministry assumed new powers to deal with economic cooperation\nprograms with other countries and gained the position of primus inter pares<\/em> among ministries. For instance, the Organization\nfor International Economic Cooperation, founded in 1949 to coordinate the\nMarshall Aid and functioning within the Prime Minister\u2019s Office, was\ntransferred to the MFA in 1952. The ministry was involved in decision-making on\nforeign exchange rates or negotiations to prepare development plans in early\n1960.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an influential\ndiplomat and Foreign Minister after 1957, Fatin R\u00fc\u015ft\u00fc Zorlu played a vital role\nin the empowerment of the Ministry. However, the MFA received a heavy blow after\nthe military coup in 1960, losing its status as the leading institution of the\nDP administration. The MFA\u2019s powers to negotiate economic issues with other\ncountries were transferred to the Ministry of Finance almost immediately after\nthe coup through \u201cThe Law on the Regulation of International Economic and\nFinancial Relations\u201d. Furthermore, Foreign Minister Zorlu was among the three\nleading politicians the Junta executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Ministry\nnever recuperated the powers it lost, it began to regain its former position\nwhen the crisis broke out in Cyprus in 1964. During the perpetual crises on the\nisland ending with Turkey\u2019s eventual military intervention in 1974, the MFA gradually\nrecovered its position as the leading ministry. In these crises, the military\nand the MFA had to work in tandem and eventually forged an alignment. To\ndepoliticize the foreign policy-making process, juntas preferred to appoint\nseasoned diplomats -Selim Sarper, Feridun Cemal Erkin, Osman Olcay, Hal\u00fbk\nBay\u00fclken, \u0130lter T\u00fcrkmen- as foreign ministers during the years (1960-1965,\n1971-1973, 1980-1983) each time military seized power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For four decades after the coup in 1960, the military continuously\nincreased its influence over the foreign policy-making process through legal\nand institutional arrangements and interferences in daily politics. The military\nempowered itself through the installation of the National Security Council as a\nconstitutional organ to oversee the government\u2019s policies in 1960, the enlargement\nof its legal capacities in the 1971 and 1980 coups, and the instrumentalization\nof national security as a blanket concept to justify limitations on fundamental\npolitical rights and freedoms. Thanks to such legal and institutional\narrangements, the military\u2019s influence over foreign policy continued even after\nthe end of the Cold War, securing the military\u2019s strong position over issues\nsuch as the question of Cyprus, which the military defined as a matter of\nnational security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the post-Cold War era, rapid globalization\nrepositioned the MFA in policymaking. Turkey\u2019s export-oriented development\npolicies led to the empowerment of new agencies and a new institutional\nframework. Coined as a \u201ctrading state\u201d, Turkey\u2019s new priorities required the\nMFA to explore additional export markets. This gradually changed how the\nministry functioned and led to the decline of the relative significance of various\nissues that the military qualified as national security matters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the 2000s, the policy-making\nprocess turned out to be an area of turf fights between the military and the\nAKP governments. In an effort to hold on to power, the first AKP government was\ninvolved in a tug-of-war with the military to exert influence in making decisions\nover issues such as the question or relations with the Kurds of Iraq. The\nstruggle between the two also involved power sharing within the state. The AKP\neagerly implemented legal arrangements in compliance with the EU\u2019s\nharmonization packages, entailing demilitarization of the foreign policy-making\nprocess. This transformation also led to the distorted the alignment between\nthe military and the MFA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the military\u2019s powers were crippled, AKP began\nto shape the foreign policy-making process in line with its strategies to consolidate\nits position of power. With the installation\nof the Presidential Government System in 2018, the Office of the Presidency became\nthe center of gravity in the foreign policy-making process. Sidelining the MFA\nand the military, the new configuration is geared to implement similar\npolitical practices distinctive to the foreign policy-making process of the single-party\nrule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prof. Dr. Gencer \u00d6zcan, \u0130stanbul Bilgi \u00dcniversitesi <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Dr. Gencer \u00d6zcan completed his undergraduate education at Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences, and his graduate education at Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University. He previously worked at Marmara University, Department of International Relations and Y\u0131ld\u0131z Technical University, Department of Political Science and International Relations. He has been working in the Department of International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University since 2009. His fields of study include Political History, Turkish Foreign Policy, Turkey’s relations with the Middle East, national security and decision-making processes in foreign policy in Turkey. His lectures include Political History, Turkish Foreign Policy and Modern Middle East History.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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To cite this work:<\/strong> Gencer \u00d6zcan, \u201cTurkey\u2019s Foreign Policy-Making Process\u201d, Panorama, Online, 12 May 2023, https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/blog\/2023\/05\/12\/go\/ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This article has been prepared with the support provided to the International Relations Council<\/a> and the Global Academy<\/a> by the Heinrich B\u00f6ll Stiftung Association Turkey Representative within the scope of the project titled ‘Foreign Policy for the 21st Century; Peaceful, Equitable, and Dynamic Turkey’.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Copyright@UIKPanorama. All on-line and print rights reserved. Opinions expressed in works published by the Panorama belongs to the authors alone unless otherwise stated, and do not imply endorsement by the IRCT, Global Academy, or the Editors\/Editorial Board of Panorama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkey\u2019s foreign policy-making process consists of a network of agencies, such as the President\u2019s Office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [MFA], the Military, and the National Intelligence Service. The process centered around the President’s Office during the Single Party rule (1923-1946), and the president made decisions after deliberations with his close aides. In this framework, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":10083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[510,486,508],"tags":[656,563,713,650],"class_list":["post-11376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-100-years-of-the-republic","category-opinion","category-turkey","tag-english","tag-foreign-policy-and-diplomacy","tag-heinrich-boll-foundation","tag-turkiye"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}