Approaches to Turkish Foreign Policy: A Critical Realist Analysis

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Approaches to Turkish Foreign Policy: A Critical Realist Analysis a

Faruk Yalvaç a

Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey Published online: 14 Mar 2014.

To cite this article: Faruk Yalvaç (2014) Approaches to Turkish Foreign Policy: A Critical Realist Analysis, Turkish Studies, 15:1, 117-138, DOI: 10.1080/14683849.2014.892238 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2014.892238

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Turkish Studies, 2014 Vol. 15, No. 1, 117 –138, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14683849.2014.892238

Approaches to Turkish Foreign Policy: A Critical Realist Analysis Downloaded by [Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi] at 00:10 05 May 2014

FARUK YALVAÇ Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

A BSTRACT This article analyses different approaches to Turkish foreign policy (TFP) from a critical realist perspective. It seeks to criticize positivist and post-positivist approaches to TFP, arguing for a non-reductionist, historical materialist approach based on the principles of critical realism. It argues that historical materialist approaches are missing both from the analysis of TFP and from the mainstream foreign-policy analysis in general. In emphasizing the importance of a historical materialist approach, the paper also underlines the importance of acknowledging the structural context of foreign policy-making as a complement to the agent-centric, micro-level analyses that dominate the mainstream TFP analysis. Finally, it advocates a research agenda that focuses on the development of a historical materialist approach to TFP.

Introduction The aim of this article is to critically assess different approaches to Turkish foreign policy (TFP). Although TFP has long been dominated by different positivist approaches such as (neo)realism and (neo)liberalism, recent years have witnessed the very welcome development of post-positivist and recently critical realist alternatives to studying TFP. The main argument of this paper is that despite the constructivist and post-structuralist turn in TFP analysis (TFPA), there are still unresolved problems in these approaches that can be more adequately addressed by critical realism. It is argued that the metatheoretical perspective provided by critical realism supports a structural, emergent, complex and ontological approach to the analysis of TFP that is conspicuously missing in the analysis of TFP. This article accordingly is organized in four parts. The first part outlines the changing context of TFP. The second part sets out to assess, respectively, different positivist and post-positivist (especially constructivist and post-structuralist) approaches to TFP. The third part introduces critical realism and discusses the compatibility of historical materialism with critical realism. It is argued that a historical materialist approach to TFPA is missing and a historical materialist perspective using the Correspondence Address: Faruk Yalvac¸, Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, ˙Ino¨nu¨ Bulvarı, 06531 Ankara, Turkey. Email: [email protected] # 2014 Taylor & Francis

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insights of critical realism offers a very promising alternative to the rational actor model of conventional FPA by providing an analysis of the social origins and determinants of foreign policy and the way state – society complex effects foreign policymaking. The paper concludes by summarizing and discussing the implications of the arguments presented in the paper.

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Changing Context of TFP Recent years have witnessed different interpretations of the changing dynamics of TFP. The pace of change occurring in the international system after the end of the Cold War naturally affected the dynamics and directions of TFP. For instance, it is generally argued that transformations of the world system after the end of the Cold War and in the post-September-11 period coupled with domestic social and economic changes within Turkey brought an end to Turkey’s geopolitically grounded “buffer state” identity and led to new forms of foreign-policy behavior based on the country’s “soft power.”1 The end of the Cold War and the accompanying geopolitical changes are said to have facilitated the formation of a “new geographic imagination,”2 known as Neo-Ottomanism, based on Turkey’s “strategic depth”3 as well as its “civilizational depth.”4 Turkey is also seen as a good example of a form of modernity where “Islam, democracy and free market values”5 meet, providing a model for the future modernization of a currently unstable Middle East. The characterization of Turkey as a “post-Cold-War warrior” or a “regional coercive power” has been transformed to that of a “benign power”6 and “key and pivotal actor”7 with strong soft power capabilities in both the region and the world.8 In line with this characterization, current TFP has been described as “more independent, assertive”9 or “more active, multidimensional and integrated.”10 Some scholars have demonstrated a more critical attitude in analyzing these changes in TFP. Go¨zen, for instance, argues that the recent changes observed in TFP are largely in form rather than leading to substantial changes in the traditional foreign-policy commitments of Turkey.11 He suggests that changes observed in TFP are not an “alternative to US-NATO-Western centered foreign policy” but conform to Turkey’s traditional policy practices. There is, he suggests, no contradiction between US imperial ambitions in the region and Turkey’s neo-liberal/identity-based foreign policy.12 Similarly, Mustafa Aydın argues that it is wrong to interpret the turn in TFP as one in the direction of Islamism, as is commonly believed. Rather, he suggests that “Islamism” has been used mainly as a tool for legitimizing foreign-policy preferences.13 Og˘uzlu argues that Turkey’s approach to the West has “evolved into” what he calls “Turkey-centric westernism” denoting a change in the “idea that membership in Western Institutions, most notably the European Union, is a must for this to happen.”14 Finally, Uzgel15 criticizes the idea that Turkey is gaining strategic depth, arguing instead that what is crucial is not Turkey’s becoming a “central power or regional power” but its new mode of articulation with the global system via a new coalition of class forces. This, says Uzgel, indicates a change from Turkey’s security- and geography-based integration into the world system to a form

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of integration based on “civil society, speculative capital movements [and] identity politics.”16 One positive outcome of the apparent changes in TFP and the diverse interpretations surrounding these developments has been the accompanying proliferation of new theoretical efforts aiming to understand and analyze TFP as an alternative to the conventional realist-based traditional geopolitical approaches. Indeed, new foreign-policy practices have raised interest in the application of novel approaches to the analysis of TFP ranging from revised neorealist and neo-liberal approaches to constructivist, post-structuralist ones. Rather than focusing on the roots of these changes in TFP17 this paper emphasizes how these changes are explained and the theoretical tools used to explain them. Positivist Approaches to TFP: Realism and Liberalism Turkish International Relations (IR) studies are mostly security-oriented in content, realist and state-centric in form and mostly adopt a positivist ontology and epistemology. This is an outgrowth of IR discipline’s development in Turkey during the Cold War period.18 In Turkey, the discipline of IR is for the most part equated with foreignpolicy analysis, which is “actor oriented” or “actor specific” with foreign policy itself defined narrowly as decision-making, diplomacy and negotiation. Accordingly, FPA is predominantly “actor oriented” or “actor specific”19 and focuses on the decisionmaking process, ignoring the (social) structural context of foreign policy decisionmaking altogether. Structure, if it is referred to at all, is understood in terms of different variables—e.g. internal and external determinants of foreign policy—with no analysis, for instance, of the relationship between social relations and the state or how this relationship affects the decision-making process. It is this narrow definition of foreign policy that explains why foreign-policy papers are written not only by academics, but also by diplomats and journalists. On the whole, as Cox20 would say, these works are ahistorical and problem solving oriented and “runs the greater risk of falling into the trap of unconscious ideology.”21 This is not to say that these approaches do not use history; rather, the conception of history that underlies them is traditional, event-driven and usually positivist in their understanding.22 In Ashley’s words, in positivist IR “the state is regarded as the stuff of theorists’ unexamined assumptions” and “not as a problematic relation whose consensual acceptance needs explanation.”23 Most of the work done on TFP relies on similar positivist assumptions and reproduces its main features,24 a situation that is not very different from mainstream foreign-policy analysis.25 It is certainly not easy to define positivism or to label a theory positivist. One common mistake is to look at positivism as an epistemology based on scientific method of observation and hypothesis testing, whereas, in fact, the ontology of positivism is more crucial than its epistemological outlook. Ontologically, positivism possesses atomistic assumptions about social reality and is represented by realist as well as neorealist and rationalist theories of IR. As Joseph emphasizes, “mainstream IR is underpinned by positivist assumptions about rational

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behavior, taking states as the (atomistic) units of analysis, employing a billiard-ball model of state interaction, focusing on regularities and predictable outcomes, and generally presenting a reified social ontology that excludes underlying structures, causal mechanisms and constitutive processes.”26 In fact, from the perspective of critical realism that will be discussed in the third section, realism in IR is basically unreal, as it denies “complexity,” “favoring the present over the absent and a reduction of reality to the actual” and ignoring the “unobservable social structures, causal processes and generative mechanisms that produce the events.”27 This is particularly important in analyzing the relation between social structures, the historically evolved state structures and decision-makers allowing variation in different foreignpolicy strategies adopted in different periods of Turkey’s history as a result of different configurations of relations of production, social classes and the state. In the analysis of TFP, positivism has different manifestations, the most important of which appears as a theoretically uninformed narrative and chronology of events that has resulted in an analysis of TFP in terms of periods, such as “TFP during WWI” or “Post-2002 TFP.” This form of analysis is generally grounded in realism, with constructivist approaches grafted to a realist framework also seen in recent years. These analyses adopt an empiricist epistemology based on an eventist conception of foreign policy. However, even from a positivist perspective, these works are limited to the “collection of data,” having been unsuccessful in developing inductive-ist generalizations.28 This event-ist, empiricist tradition is best represented by Mehmet Go¨nlu¨bol’s well-known book, Turkish Foreign Policy with Events (Olaylarla Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası), which, as the title suggests, possesses an empiricist understanding of foreign policy.29 Positivists adopt an analytical approach, dividing determinants of foreign policy into domestic and international components without attempting to explain theoretically how these different determinants constitute each other. Rather, the state is considered an ontological given located as the crossroads at which these components meet to produce foreign-policy outcomes30 and no attempt is made to define what a state is, whether it be Weberian, liberal or Marxist. The lack of concern with how these different factors effect state action is not considered problematical. This is particularly evident in approaches that adopt a realist framework that conceives of the state as totally abstracted from society. This abstraction makes it possible to conceptualize foreign policy as an autonomous level of political activity narrowly defined as the decisions of different governmental institutions or different policies pursued by the government at different conjunctures; i.e. conflictual, cooperative, rational.31 Thus, FPA is reduced to a description of events, official visits, negotiations and mediations, leadership style and other observable daily phenomena—i.e. those elements that constitute, in critical realist terms, the actual and the empirical levels of social reality. Apart from neoclassical realism whose specificity is discussed below, an asocial concept of state and an asocial concept of international politics are combined in neorealism to produce an asocial concept of foreign policy. The majority of TFP scholars take for granted that the only way of analyzing foreign policy is with the

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state-centrism of realist as well as liberal approaches. The concept of soft power that has recently come into use to describe Turkey’s new foreign-policy strategy is also problematic, since it is just as state-centric as realism, despite the liberal implications in the references to soft power as an instrument of foreign policy. The concepts of soft and hard power are used as if they reflect substantial theoretical differences. However they are not as different as they appear to be since they refer to different policy instruments rather than to differences of a theoretical nature. Their apparent difference amounts to what in traditional literature refers to realist versus liberal approaches to foreign policy within a state-centric framework. Another state-centered, realist concept used to define Turkey’s recent foreign policy has been Davutog˘lu’s concept of “strategic depth,” used to denote the geographical and historical relations of Turkey in the Middle East that, as the name suggests, prioritizes military-strategic power.32 Despite its claims to the contrary, the concept of strategic depth refers more to geopolitical depth than to social depth as defined here33 in line with critical realism as embedded in and constituted by underlying social relations. Although rare, despite neorealism’s distaste for foreign-policy analysis, one may encounter a few neorealist explanations of TFP. For instance, Tarık Og˘uzlu applies a neorealist structural framework to his analysis of Turkish – Israeli relations.34 Based on the positivist premises underlying his approach, Og˘uzlu is motivated by a desire to “predict the future” of the bilateral relations between Turkey and Israel on the basis of a neorealist logic. Recently, there have also been some attempts to apply neoclassical realism in explaining Turkey’s “New Foreign Policy Activism.”35 In addition to the constraining effects of systemic variables emphasized by neorealism, neoclassical realism attaches importance to a state’s domestic arrangements, particularly decisionmakers’ perceptions and state structures in explaining its foreign policy. By adopting insights from neoclassical realist perspective, ˙Is¸eri and Dilek argue that state structures and their leaders’ perceptions play a significant role in foreign-policy behavior.36 However, the authors do not dwell on what these state structures are and concentrate more on the perceptions variable. Therefore it is not clear from their analysis how structures enable/limit foreign policies and what exactly is meant by state structures. Therefore their conclusion that “as is the case for the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the ruling elites in this region are constrained by their state-structures and perceptions of their policymaking elites, which keep them from leading more rational foreign policy courses” remain unsubstantiated and vague. In addition to the above-mentioned forms of realist analysis, recent years have also seen the expansion of liberal approaches37 in the analysis of TFP. The Justice and Development Part (AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) government’s pursuance of liberal/neoliberal international policies has made liberal analysis of TFP increasingly popular. Where IR theory is concerned, there is more uniting realism and liberalism than there is separating them and most IR scholars would agree that liberal policies are often used in IR as a cover for realist politics. Liberalism, like realism, is also

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state-centric. Realists and liberals both agree that states rationally pursue a set of goals, and both believe that states possess fixed identities and preferences. Liberals also believe in the importance of international institutional cooperation to overcome anarchy. Another feature of liberal thought is its association of liberal democratic regimes with peaceful policies. Liberals support the “democratic peace” theory, arguing that mature democracies do not go to war against one another. There are different variants of this line of thinking in TFPA. It is best represented by Fuat Keyman,38 who comes closest to the democratic realist view, at least in its defense of democratization and modernization, although it is defended with a more theoretical content compared to the policy-oriented approaches of US democratic realists. Some of the proponents of the ideas associated with Keyman’s position, known in Turkey as the “liberal left,”39 highlight the importance of democratization against the background of traditional statist – Kemalist policies of governance. Keyman analyses the changing nature of foreign policy in Turkey in terms of “the interaction between geopolitics, consolidation of democracy and the achievement of a ‘liberal, plural and multicultural modernity.’” It is suggested that democracies are in a better position to pursue “constructive and multidimensional” policies and to achieve and consolidate a “liberal, plural, multicultural modernity.”40 Other scholars have similarly argued that democratization will lead to an “area of maneuver and flexibility” in foreign policy that Turkey did not previously enjoy.41 This liberal emphasis on democratization rather than nationalism in the formation of foreign policy has led liberals to put great emphasis on Turkish– EU relations, given their belief in Europeanization as a “system-transforming” relationship that will help increase the pace of democratization in Turkey.42 A similar line of analysis which however underlines more the economic basis of “new TFP” is present in Kiris¸c¸i’s analysis of the “trading state”43 and his “synthetic” and “multidimensional look at Turkey’s foreign policy transformation.”44 According to Kiris¸c¸i a process of “desecuritization” has been going on in Turkish attitudes toward its neighborhood. Similar to theorists of complex interdependence, Kiris¸c¸i argues that the “interdependent and integrated neighborhood around Turkey” created by the “movement of people, civil society interactions and economic exchanges” “may eventually lead to a ‘democratic peace’” in the Middle East region.45 The liberal view in summary is based on the one hand implicitly on the democratic peace theory that argues for the peaceful nature of democracies and to a pluralist understanding of the state society relationship. As a result, although the liberal view appears to include a more detailed analysis of the domestic dimension, its understanding of international politics is still state-centric and shares many of the assumptions of realist theory. Post-Positivist Approaches: Constructivism and Post-Structuralism Post-positivist approaches including critical theory (particularly critical security studies), constructivism and post-structuralism have also found their way into TFP analysis. Of these, constructivist approaches have taken the lead, although post-structuralist approaches have also increased over the last decade. Neither constructivism

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nor post-structuralism are unified systems of thought. There are different variants of each. However, this variation in constructivist thinking is not clearly observed in the works on TFP where constructivism is taken in a lump sum manner. Most scholars adopt Wendtian constructivism although some lean toward post-structural interpretative constructivism, which emphasizes the linguistic mediation and construction of social reality and its emphasis of production of meanings. Wendt46 has been the key representative of conventional constructivism in international relations. This form of constructivism has developed as a reaction to what Wendt has termed, somewhat narrowly, the materialism of neorealist theory. The key tenet of constructivism is the idea that the “structure of society is constituted by ideas rather than material forces.”47 Constructivists define structures in terms of inter-subjective understanding and meanings, and their understanding of the material is restricted to powers, resources and material capabilities themselves, rather than the social relations that give rise to them. The material assumes importance only in a social context, which is itself defined idealistically in terms of social rules, shared knowledge and inter-subjective meanings.48 Foreign policy is also a social construct according to constructivists49 who emphasize the way in which identities and interests mutually constitute and effect foreign-policy behavior. In contrast to neo-realists, who see state identities as given and interests as determined by the structure of the system, constructivists see these identities as constructed and as the basis of a state’s interests. Thus, whereas the realists see “defending the national interest” as important, the constructivists see “defining the national interest” as the crucial issue50 given that it is not the material distribution of power but identities that define states’ interests and, therefore, their foreign policy. There are different accounts of constructivist TFP in the literature underlining the issue of how identities effect the formation of foreign policy.51 Constructivist analyses differ slightly in their descriptions of how TFP is affected by changes in the definition of Turkish identity. Some scholars have emphasized differences in identity to develop a constructivist analysis of national security52 which is particularly visible in the literature explaining the conflict between Greece and Turkey53 and Turkey’s relationship with the EU, where each side has a different perception of their respective identities.54 Other constructivist approaches, particularly that of Pınar Bilgin,55 originate from critical security analyses56 with security understood not in the realist sense as some external threat, but as an issue defined by agents through their insecurities. Unlike culturalist analyses which depict foreign policy as a reaction by a “given unchanging and independent identity” to some externally static threat,57 “security” is understood as determined by a constitutive relation between identities and (in)securities, which are considered “dependent variables.”58 Similarly, in a mix of constructivist/post-structuralist analysis, Kıvanc¸ Ços¸ and Pınar Bilgin explore the “conditions of possibility” in Turkey’s turning away from the USSR toward the USA after WWII, complementing the “efficacy of material interest/threat explanations” by demonstrating the importance of the “interpretative labor of policymakers in portraying events as ‘threats’ or mere ‘challenges.’”59 In a similar vein, Balcı and Kardas¸60 make use of the Copenhagen School’s theory of

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securitization to understand the changing dynamics of Turkey’s relations with Israel. They analyze Turkey’s relationship with Israel through the threat perceptions of the main actors involved in foreign-policy decision-making, i.e. the military, the Kemalist elite and the AKP government and criticize rationalist – realist explanations. Umut Uzer argues in his Identity and Turkish Foreign Policy that identities and ideologies as well as national interests are important in determining state behavior.61 Uzer states that the approach which he adopts is an “eclectic” one whose argument falls somewhere between an identity-based constructivist analysis and a realist analysis. However, the argument suffers from trying to combine two diametrically opposed positions, namely, the rationalist epistemology of conventional constructivism (which provides a “framework of prediction for future Turkish behavior”62) and the subjectivist ontology of constructivism. Criticizing Wendt’s model for failing to analyze the actors before interaction, Yu¨cel Bozdag˘lıog˘lu63 offers another constructivist analysis of TFP that emphasizes the importance of the domestic construction of identities in explaining FP preferences and interests. Bozdag˘lıog˘lu stresses that identities are constructed before states interact with each other, explaining different foreign-policy stances by referencing differences in perceptions of Turkish identity among Turkey’s Kemalists, Islamists and Nationalists. He combines his analysis with a liberal – pluralist understanding of society, suggesting that “the state’s identity will emerge as a result of domestic struggles among various groups—each pressing for an identity that would conform to their identity conceptions;” however, he does not elaborate on the nature of these domestic struggles or how they relate to wider social relations. Similar to Uzer’s analysis, a state-centric constructivism is combined with a liberal understanding of the state as the arena where different group conflicts are solved, and foreign policy is explained by the “different cultural backgrounds and identity conceptions” of different groups and institutions.64 However identity formation is defined in culturalist terms, without an explanation of how identities are related to concrete social power relations. One problem that all these constructivist accounts share is that they fail to discuss how identities are translated into state power, nor is it so clear that identity-based foreign policy is based less on geopolitical considerations leading, for instance, to different policies when and if security of a state is at stake. Can Turkey be said to be following a less state-interested policy today due to its changing social identity? On an empirical or actual level, that a change in identity leads to a change in foreign policy is a conjunctural issues that may not be determined in advance. In fact, there are more structural forces to foreign policy that make it impossible to conceptualize identity change as leading directly to policy change, but most constructivist approaches ignore the fact that inter-subjectivity assumes its meaning only within an objective social context when addressing the question of how identities lead to different policies. Similar to constructivists, poststructuralists see the world in terms of inter-subjective praxes and human actions and understandings, rather than objective material social relations. Poststructuralists emphasize the role that language and discourse play in the construction of reality and identity, possessing an inter-subjective

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understanding of discourse, with language considered not as a neutral tool that passively reflects reality, but as something that constructs it as well. Thus, a poststructuralist approach may be said to be based on a subjective epistemology and a subjective (ideational) ontology that aims to deconstruct received truths, discourses, narratives and binary oppositions in order to understand how identities/ differences are formed.65 The poststructuralist discourse in TFP analysis focuses on how different foreignpolicy practices are constructed through different discourses. The emphasis is on the deconstruction of different discursive structures, challenging binary oppositions and demonstrating the instability of meanings attached to the discourses. In one example of a poststructuralist analysis of TFP, Senem Aydın Du¨zgit, in her analysis of European Union (EU) –Turkish relations, defines foreign policy “as a discursive practice,”66 arguing along the lines of Roxanne Doty67 that foreign-policy actors “produce meanings” through discourse and “actively construct the reality on which foreign policy is based.”68 Other scholars have also attempted to use post-structural approaches to understand how the discourses against Turkey’s membership of the EU are constructed.69 In an analysis bringing together post-structural and post-colonial approaches, Bahar Rumelili discusses the construction of “Turkey as a liminal subject” “which eludes the identity categories constituted by discourses on international politics, such as, Western/non-Western, developed/under-developed, democratic/non-democratic.”70 Turkey’s liminal status is described as “being in but not of Europe.” This is meant to demonstrate “how social categories constituted by the discourses of international politics are inevitably negotiated, contested and ultimately transversed by actors positioned in liminal spaces.”71 Similarly, Lerna Yanık analyses the “discursive formation of exceptionalism” in TFP and “illustrate[s] how historical and geographical features of a country are used discursively to construct an exceptional identity that in turn justifies and rationalizes foreign policy actions.”72 Despite its radical claims, this form of analysis is based on an acceptance of the traditional domestic/international distinction, replicating this in a discursive analysis. Thus, Yanık notes a contradiction between the discourse on exceptionalism in foreign policy and the domestic Kemalist nation-building project based on the “idea of purity” of a nation. From the emergent perspective of critical realism, this contradiction between domestic and foreign-policy practices can be traced back to the same social relations and processes without being reduced to them and therefore they stop appearing to be contradictory. Therefore, the contradiction can be resolved if the domestic and the international “levels” can be seen to arise from similar social processes and conditions. This, however, would imply a different ontological starting point, that of social relations rather than the discursive practices that are rooted in those relations. Ali Balcı’s analysis of TFP most closely follows a “poststructuralist line.”73 As is often the case in post-structural writings that criticize modernist approaches to the state and foreign policy, his analysis is based on a criticism of the internal/external divide. Similar to other poststructuralists such as Walker and Weber, he deconstructs this as a myth whereby the state “imposes specific meanings” on who is inside and

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who is outside. Foreign policy “does not have an a priori reality, but is a constructed myth;” it is a “strategy” that involves “internal power relations.”74 As with Yu¨cel, Balcı takes the construction of identities as dependent upon different power relations inside; however, what these power relations are and how they are constructed is not clearly analyzed. Despite their different starting points, both Balcı and Yu¨cel possess a liberal – pluralist understanding of the state as an arena of power struggle without relating power relations to a structural context of state – society relations. If foreign policy is a myth, then the circumstances that “produce” this myth need to be understood. Moreover, although Balcı underlines the importance of power relations in the formation of identities, he ignores more concrete social relations such as the relations of property and production out of which these power relations emerge and how they are translated into state policies. Thus, as Joseph might argue, Balcı’s “critique is deconstructive but not ontological,”75 ignoring how power relations emerge and are formed within a structural context and as an outcome of social processes. In contrast, Balcı’s analysis reduces power to a performative strategy76 or to its exercise. This argument lacks “an adequate notion of social stratification and hierarchy,” and assumes “a flat ontology that remains at the level of the surface play of power relations.”77 Critical Realism and Historical Materialist Approaches to TFPA Despite its radical implications and its insights into a substantial reorientation of foreign-policy analysis, critical realism has not yet substantively found its way into IR theory and its implications for IR in general and for FPA in particular are in its initial stages of development.78 Critical realism should not be confused with classical or structural realism in IR. Critical realism is not a social theory, but a philosophy of science associated primarily with the views of Roy Bhaskar.79 It is a Meta theory under-laboring the arguments of existing theories or criticizing their fundamental assumptions. Its main assumption is the existence of an objective world independent of ideas, beliefs and worldviews. Therefore, it differs from other philosophies of science in its emphasis on realist ontology and the structural context of human action. The differences between constructivists, post-structuralists and critical realists can be summarized as follows: Unlike traditional constructivists, who have a positivist epistemology and an inter-subjective ontology, and poststructuralists, who have a subjectivist epistemology and ontology, critical realists have a realist ontology and a subjectivist fallibilist epistemology.80 According to critical realism, “social reality is ordered and structured before we impose our cognitive categories on it.”81 Critical realists make a distinction between the transitive dimension of knowledge referring to the thought objects (concepts) and the apparent phenomena identified by our concepts and the intransitive dimension referring to the real things this knowledge is about, the underlying social structures and generative mechanisms that make the apparent phenomenon possible. It questions not only the empirical realism of positivist approaches which reduce reality to the level of the empirical, but idealist philosophical positions such

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as constructivism and post-structuralism, which reduce reality to rules, norms, ideas or to theories, texts, discourses and linguistic constructs. As Joseph indicates, both the constructivist belief in the social construction of reality and the poststructuralist emphasis on discourse and language “conflate the ontological status of reality with the epistemological issue of the knowledge we have of that reality.”82 Critical realism accordingly argues for depth ontology of social relations and a differentiated, stratified and structured reality. A distinction is made between three levels of reality: the empirical (that which is experienced), the actual (for example, foreignpolicy events) and the real (underlying powers and mechanisms that produce foreignpolicy events).83 The relation between these different levels of reality is explained by the concept of emergence, which locates political processes within a “stratified and differentiated totality of social relations”84 without reducing them to any one level of social reality. Therefore, in contrast to mainstream IR and foreign-policy analyses which focus on and prioritize the level of events or the level of actual, critical realism takes a structural but non-reductionist approach to the different strata of social reality. In its essence, critical realism provides an alternative starting point for thinking about TFP within the context of underlying social structures. Although discussed more in metatheoretical terms, critical realism is known in TFPA through its view on the agent-structure problem, proposing a structural approach without ignoring foreign-policy agency.85 Critical realist arguments thus address the much oftencited need to integrate the micro focus of foreign-policy theory with the more macro-focus of IR.86 However what is noticed in these discussions is that structures are more thought of as institutions (as in the discussions of Carlsnaes) rather than real social relations that are the foci of a critical realist-inspired historical materialist approach outlined in this section. A historical materialist alternative fares better in the discussion of the relation between social structures and foreign-policy strategies. The space here does not allow for an extensive discussion of the relation between critical realism and historical materialist approaches87 However, critical realism under-labors Marxism promising to provide an alternative reading that is neither naturalist, reductionist nor teleological.88 Indeed, Marxism’s realist ontology contrasts with both the constructivist and post-structuralist conceptions of an inter-subjectively determined reality and the positivist conception of reality as limited to observable phenomena which is the dominant way of theorizing in foreign-policy analysis. Those who are in the post-positivist camp and who adopt constructivist and poststructuralist positions toward TFP consider themselves critical in rejecting realist and neorealist approaches to the analysis of TFP. They base this claim on their adopting a social understanding of state behavior but they fail to relate state power to social power. When they refer to the “social” constructivists emphasize the role of ideas and identities in the shaping of foreign-policy behavior whereas the poststructuralists underline the importance of different discourses and emphasize the linguistic determination of reality. However, as argued above both of these approaches are united in adopting anti-realist positions philosophically and this differs from what is implied in the term “critical” in the philosophy of critical realism. The concept of

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critical used in this paper is different and refers to an explanatory critique of dominant social structures and mechanisms and the way they are “maintained and reproduced” through different social practices.89 The concept of the social in the constructivist or poststructuralist positions is used very loosely and in a limited manner. Therefore, although these approaches claim to be critical, most of the time they remain within the same ideological terrain that they attempt to criticize. Compared to the constructivist or poststructuralist stances, historical materialist approaches offer the most promise for a critical explanation of TFP in their attempt to identify social sources of foreign-policy strategies and projects. The main thrust of historical materialist arguments is that the social relations of production and property relations in a social formation are internally related with political, economic and ideological relations to form a contradictory totality.90 From a historical materialist perspective the essential elements relevant to foreign-policy analysis are the institutional separation of the political and economic spheres in social formations dominated by capitalist mode of production91 and the abstraction of political power from civil society that gives the political sphere an appearance of autonomy. This separation further explains why capital interests may not always be served by the (foreign policy) actions of the state agency as well as the reason why the state apparatus does not need to be directly run by the capitalist classes, to serve the interests of capital accumulation. In line with this perspective, a historical materialist approach developed using the insights of critical realism would shift the emphasis from state agency (or agency of governmental elites, bureaucrats or interest groups) to class agency as affecting the formation of FP92 and emphasizes the importance of the structural context of foreign policy-making, defined in terms of the state– society relationship in which foreign policy takes place, and how foreign-policy decisions reproduce or transform this structural complex.93 This does not refer to the “anarchy vs. hierarchy” dichotomy of neo-realists or to the “conflict between interest groups” put forth by the liberals, but to the structure of social relations formed around a dominant mode of production where different class interests materialize. The crucial issue here is a criticism of the way in which state – society relations are abstracted in the conventional foreign-policy analysis. The argument is that with its focus on class and class conflict, an analysis of the dominant social forces and their relation to the state is crucial in understanding foreign-policy practices. The precise nature of the relation between social classes and the state apparatus and in the Turkish case with the civil and the military bureaucracy and how class interests are translated into and reflected in foreign policy is a controversial theoretical issue that cannot be addressed in detail in this context. The differences between the processes of state formation in the core and the periphery of world capitalism also need to be taken into account in analyzing how class interests are mediated and translated into state policies. In addition, the way in which the territorial logic of power is intertwined with capitalist logics of power and the way this relation affects domestic class structures and in turn foreign policies and projects of the state is a further complicating factor and has been the focus of discussions in recent years.94

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It should first be underscored that despite some critically oriented attempts, a theoretically informed foreign-policy analysis along historical materialist lines as defined above is hard to find in TFPA. An initial effort in this direction can be seen in Baskın Oran95 and Uzgel’s96 analyses of TFP as a relatively autonomous level of activity trying to link foreign-policy formation to domestic social (class interest) determinants. Their emphasis is on the effects of class interests on the formation of national interest, and the way this effects foreign policy. However, their use of the concept of the relative autonomy of the state has familiar theoretical problems that need to be resolved, the main issue being how the level of politics is simultaneously determined by and autonomous of social forces. For instance, according to Uzgel, states pursue foreign economic policies in line with and as constrained by the interests of the dominant classes, but can act against their interests when security and defense of the state are at stake. This makes it easier to resort to the idea of a national interest, a line of analysis Uzgel takes from the Weberian state conception of Skocpol and her understanding of the “potential autonomy of the state,”97 a position incompatible with a historical materialist analysis. As Pozo98 notes in a different context, this common formulation “cannot explain how state managers come to articulate and implement a foreign policy that responds, efficiently or not, to capitalism’s needs” and fails to “clarify in any systematic way the relation between the economic national interest and other interests specific to the state.” This “incomplete articulation of the statecapitalist link,”99 he argues, renders the putative relation between the economic and political interests vague and under-theorized. The emergent argument of critical realism fares better in this conceptualization by showing how “relatively autonomous” strata are in fact constituted by underlying layers without which they could not exist. Against determinist structural explanations, these strata are not reducible to these underlying layers; however against the relative autonomy thesis, they influence them. From the critical realist perspective, foreign policy represents a higher-order level of reality, where different configurations of power are conjuncturally manifested and where “counteracting processes and tendencies” come into play.100 This does not imply the relative autonomy of foreign policy, but a distinct level of social reality that emerges from other underlying social strata. Jessop’s non-essentialist definition of the state as “an institutional ensemble of different social relations”101 and Patoma¨ki’s102 definition as “complex layered assemblies of social relations” can be noted as examples of an emergent understanding of critical realism whereby foreign policy can be analyzed. Within the context of a stratified and structured social reality and the way in which these are connected to state institutions, it is important to avoid a purely structural or agential approach to the analysis of structures and agents.103 The link between structures and agents can be conceptualized through a critical-realist interpretation of the Gramscian concept of hegemony104 and how hegemony is formed, maintained and reproduced through different hegemonic projects. The concept of hegemonic project is particularly important in linking class agents and their interests with different foreign-policy projects. Hegemonic projects are “national-popular programs of political, intellectual and moral leadership that advance the long-term accumulation

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strategy while granting concessions to the masses in return for their support.”105 Accordingly, the structural basis of TFP can be defined as the struggle of different classes to control the state apparatus in line with specific “hegemonic projects” pursued both nationally and increasingly transnationally. TFP thus will be viewed in light of the changing dynamics of the domestic class struggles for hegemony that occurs at the economic, political and ideological levels and through their links to the global social formation. The trajectory of TFP can then be analyzed in terms of different hegemonic projects such as the transition from a Kemalist hegemony based on state classes106—the civil – military bureaucracy—to a predominantly class cum identity-based hegemony facilitated by the neo-liberal transformation of Turkey. The policy of strategic depth advocated by Ahmet Davutog˘lu and the idea of Neo-Ottomanism associated with this policy can accordingly be seen as a hegemonic project of an emerging bourgeoisie class for reproducing and consolidating its rule107 Particularly significant here would be to link this new mode of foreignpolicy strategy to the conditions of capitalist accumulation and reproduction spatially and demonstrate how foreign-policy strategies are related to the way the new Islamic bourgeoisie defines and articulates its interests nationally as well as transnationally. The preceding argument in summary emphasizes the need to incorporate a socially defined structural dimension to FPA that has so far been mostly dominated by agentcentric analyses adopted from micro-economic theories of rational behavior. An historical materialist approach supported by critical realism allows a more sociologically oriented foreign-policy analysis that incorporates the real social context (underlying social relations) of foreign policy-making, a form of analysis that is markedly absent in the analysis of TFP. In the words of Rupert a foreign-policy analysis compatible with critical realism would then look like a “dialectical layer cake” attempting to explain FP as part of the dynamics of social relations and structures of capitalist modernity and how these relations create and limit “particular kinds of world politics” without falling into a Weberian “multi-causal cul de sac.”108 Conclusion This article has attempted to analyze different approaches to TFP.109 The argument of the paper is that TFP analysis overall has been dominated by state-centric, decisionmaking approaches adopting a positivist ontology and epistemology. There has been a recent upsurge of post-positivist analyses in TFP, most of them being constructivist and poststructuralist. As mentioned above, although the introduction of these new approaches has enriched and developed TFP analysis to a great extent, these new approaches have contained problematic assumptions in their analytical frameworks. One obvious shortcoming of these approaches is the lack of a critical consideration of the meaning of the terms that are used and the lack of a meta-theoretical discussion of the different approaches that have been uncritically adopted. As Wight and Joseph argue, the least critical realism can offer to IR “is a critique of the assumptions of dominant theories . . . which prevent [in] depth enquiry and hide the real nature of things.”110 What is most evident is the absence of a historical materialist approach

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to TFPA. This paper has argued that within the realm of social theory, historical materialist approaches under-labored by critical realism pose important challenges both to current TFPA as well as to mainstream FPA which, as defined by historical materialism, lacks a socially understood structural dimension. The social ontology of a historical materialist approach to TFPA would thus give priority to the historically evolved social relations of production and the connection between these relations and the state as a political form thus providing a social account of foreign-policy practices. The insights of critical realism concerning the relationship between different levels of social reality makes it possible to conceive of foreign policy in terms other than agent- or actor-centric (without ignoring the dialectical relation between structure and agency) as well as allowing for the possibility of a sociological approach that is missing in conventional FPA. The arguments of historical materialism also help to unite foreign-policy analysis with the systemic focus of IR theory by conceptualizing FP as part of a structured totality of social relations that include both the domestic and the international. The overall implication of this argument is to open the black box of the state in TFPA by emphasizing the importance of both the domestic and the international structural context of foreign policy-making. Together with critical realism, a non-reductionist historical materialist approach can help provide fresh insights into TFP by bringing into focus the power struggle among social classes as the basis of the different hegemonic projects that lie at the basis of the politics of Turkish foreign policy-making. This will allow the development of a social theory of TFP and facilitate the rejection of the naturalizing and universalizing social and historical categories with which it is customary to analyze and explain foreign policy. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their supportive comments and suggestions. My special thanks to Jonathan Joseph who has read and commented on an earlier version of this article. Notes 1. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” 2; Altunıs¸ık, “The Possibilities and Limits of Turkey’s Soft Power”; Og˘uzlu, “Soft power,” 81– 97. 2. Aras and Fidan, “Turkey and Eurasia,” 193–214. 3. Davutog˘lu, Stratejik Derinlik. 4. Duran, “Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasının ˙Ic¸ Siyaset Boyutu,” 20. 5. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” 12; also Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: In Search of a Viable Domestic Polity,” 22. 6. Kiris¸c¸i, “The transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy,” 52. 7. Larrabee and Lesser, Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, 3. See also Fuller, The New Turkish Republic. 8. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” 3. ¨ nis¸, “Multiple Faces of the ‘New’ Turkish Foreign Policy,” 48. 9. O 10. Go¨zen, “Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasında Deg˘is¸im Var mı?,” 31.

132 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

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18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

F. Yalvac¸ Ibid., 31. Ibid., 32. Aydın, “Twenty Years Before, Twenty Years After,” 13. Og˘uzlu, “Turkey and the West,” 981. Uzgel, “Dıs¸ Politikada AKP,” 379. Ibid. See Kiris¸c¸i, “ Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy,” 34–41 for a summary of different causes of the transformation in Turkish foreign policy. See the Special Issue of Uluslararası ˙Ilis¸kiler (International Relations) 2, no. 6 (2005) for a discussion of the state of IR discipline in Turkey. Hudson, “Foreign Policy Analysis,” 1 –30. Cox, “Social Forces, States and World Orders,” 209. Ibid., 247. See Hobson and Lawson, “What is History in International Relations,” 415–35. Ashley, “The Poverty of Neorealism,” 268, 270. ¨ zdemir, Yo¨ntem, Kuram, Komplo, 126, 135 although correctly observe the domAydınlı, Kurubas¸, O inance of positivism in Turkish IR studies, nevertheless very narrowly define what positivism is. Houghton, “Reinvigorating the Study of Foreign Policy Decision-Making,” 24– 45. Joseph, “Philosophy in International Relations,” 349. Ibid., 355, ftn. 34, 348. ¨ zdemir, Yo¨ntem, Kuram, Komplo, 125. Aydınlı, Kurubas¸, O Go¨nlu¨bol, Olaylarla Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası; Oran, Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası. ¨ lman and Sander, “Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasına Yo¨n Veren Etkenler.” For example, U Bayram Sinkaya, “Rationalization of Turkey-Iran Relations: Prospects and Limits,” 137–56. Go¨zen, “Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasında Deg˘is¸im Varmı?” 29. Yalvac¸, “Strategic Depth or Hegemonic Depth,” 165– 80. Og˘uzlu, “The Changing Dynamics of Turkey-Isreal Relations,” 273–88. I˙s¸eri and Dilek, “The Limitations of Turkey’s New Foreign Policy Activism,” 41–54, particulary 43– 5. Ibid., 44. See Doyle, “Liberalism and Foreign Policy,” 50– 70. References to Keyman are from “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy,” and “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: In Search of a Viable Domestic Polity for a Sustainable Turkish Foreign Policy.” See Gu¨rpınar, “The Trajectory of Left Liberalism in Turkey,” 147– 68 for a discussion of left liberalism. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: Turkish Foreign Policy 2009 and Beyond,” 12– 14. Duran, “Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasının ˙Ic¸ Siyaset Boyutu: 2010,” 53; Bu¨lent Aras, “I˙c¸ Politika, Dıs¸ Politika,” Sabah, 27 Ocak 2010. Keyman, “Globalization, Modernity and Democracy: Turkish Foreign Policy 2009 and Beyond,” 17. Kiris¸c¸i, “The transformation of Turkish foreign policy,” 29–57: see also and Kaptanog˘lu, “The Politics of Trade and Turkish Foreign Policy,” 705–24. See Kiris¸c¸i, “Turkey’s Engagement with its Neighborhood,” 319– 41. Ibid., 320, 321. Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics. Ibid., 1, 20, 25; Joseph, “Philosophy in International Relations,” 351. Carlsnaes, “Actors, Structures and Foreign Policy Analysis,” 93. See Doty, “Foreign Policy as a Social Construction,” 297– 320. Checkel, “Constructivism and Foreign Policy,” 75. See Aksoy and Çemrek, “Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikasında Kimlik Sorunu,” 151–69.

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52. Cizre, “Demythologizing the National Security Concept,” 213–30; Bilgin, “Turkey’s Changing Security Discurse,” 175– 201. 53. Gu¨ndog˘du, “Identities in Question,” 106–17; Rumelili, “Impacting the Greek-Turkish Conflicts”; “Transforming Conflicts on EU Borders,” 105– 26. 54. See Ko¨sebalaban, “The Permanent ‘Other’,” 87–111. 55. Bilgin, “Securing Turkey Through Western-oriented Foreign Policy,” 105– 25; also “Tu¨rkiye’nin Gu¨venlig˘inde Batı Yo¨nelimli Dıs¸ Politikaların Rolu¨ Anlamak,” 1–20. 56. Booth, Critical Security Studies and World Politics; Booth, Theory of World Security. 57. Ko¨sebalaban, “The Permanent ‘Other’,” 110. 58. Bilgin, “Tu¨rkiye’nin Gu¨venlig˘inde Batı Yo¨nelimli Dıs¸ Politikaların Rolu¨ Anlamak,” 7. See also Rumelili, “Constructing Identity and Relating to Difference,” 27– 47; “Turkey,” 135–249; “Negotiating Europe,” 97–100. 59. Cos¸ and Bilgin, “Stalin’s Demands,” 43– 60. 60. Balcı and Kardas¸, “The Changing Dynamics of Turkey’s Relations with Israel,” 99– 120. 61. Uzer, Identity and Turkish Foreign Policy, 9. 62. Ibid., 184, 186. 63. Bozdag˘lıog˘lu, Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkish Identity. 64. Ibid., 7, 27, 25. 65. Rivas, “Realism. For Real this Time,” 203. 66. Du¨zgit, “Avrupa Birlig˘i- Tu¨rkiye ˙Ilis¸kilerine Postyapısalcı Yaklas¸ım,” 49–70. 67. Doty, “Foreign Policy as Social Construction”; Mark Laffey, “Locating Identity,” 429–44. 68. Ibid., 52. 69. See Tekin, “The Construction of Turkey’s Possible EU Membership in French Political Discourse,” 727– 63. Also Yılmaz, “Turkish Identity on the Road to the EU,” 293 –305. 70. Rumelili, “Liminal Identities,” 496. 71. Ibid., 500. 72. Yanık, “Constructing Turkish ‘Exceptionalism,’” 82, 87. ¨ zerine Bazı Notlar,” 87–99. 73. Balcı, “1990 Sonrası Tu¨rk Dıs¸ Politikası U 74. Ibid., 87, 88, 89, 91, 89. 75. Joseph, “Foucoult and Reality,” 150, 158. 76. Ashley, “Foreign Policy as Political Performance,” 51. 77. Joseph, “Foucoult and Reality,” 159, 154. 78. See Joseph and Wight, Scientific Realism and International Relations for different aspects of the relation between IR theory and critical realism. 79. Bhaskar, A Realist Theory of Science; The Possibility of Naturalism; “Philosophy and Scientific Realism.” 80. Rivas, “Realism: For Real this Time,” 203–27. 81. Teschke and Smith, “The Dialectics of Globalization,” 171 –2. 82. Joseph, “Philosophy in International Relations,” 345, 346, 347. 83. Bhaskar, “Philosophy and Scientific Realism,” 41. 84. Wight and Joseph, “Scientific Realism and International Relations,” 19. 85. See Carlsnaes, “The Agency-Structure Problem in Foreign Policy Analysis,” 245– 70. See also Altunıs¸ık and Martin, “Making Sense of Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East under AKP,” 575–81. 86. Hudson, “Actor-Specific Theory and the Ground of International Relations,” Chp. 6. 87. See Yalvac¸, “Strategic Depth or Hegemonic Depth,” 167– 87. 88. For a discussion of the relation between critical realism and Marxism, see, Yalvac¸, “Critical Realism, International Relations Theory and Marxism,” 167–85. 89. Wight and Joseph, “Scientific Realism and International Relations,” 21–3. 90. For the concept of totality and its significance for international relations theory see Yalvac¸, “Critical Realism, International Relations Theory and Marxim,” 177–84. 91. Wood, “The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism,” 66–95; Teschke and Smith, “The Dialectics of Globalization, 177.

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92. Apeldoorn, “Theorizing the transnational,” 142–76. 93. See Bhaskar, The Possibility of Naturalism. 94. Callinicos, “Does capitalism need the state system?” 162– 75; Teschke, The Myth of 1648. Teschke’s “property relations approach” linking geopolitical orders with social structures of property relations is particularly relevant. In Teschke’s view, “property relations define the ruling-class strategies that explain international conduct,” 220. 95. Oran, Turkish Foreign Policy, 15 and passim. 96. Uzgel, Ulusal Çıkar ve Dıs¸ Politika, 89– 104. 97. Ibid., 90, 96– 7, 101. 98. Pozo-Martin, “Autonomous or Materialist Geopolitics?” 551–63. 99. Ibid., 552– 3. 100. Joseph “The International as Emergent,” 63. 101. Jessop, State Theory, s. 61. 102. Patoma¨ki, After International Relations, 81. See also Joseph, “The International as Emergent,” 64. 103. Carlsnaes, “The Agency-Structure Problem in Foreign Policy Analysis.” 104. Joseph, “A Realist Theory of Hegemony,” 179–202. 105. Bob Jessop, State Theory, 162. 106. For a discussion of the concept of state classes see van der Pijl, Transnational Classes and International Relations, 79–83. Pijl argues that state classes dominated social formations in what he calls the Hobbesian contender states (including Turkey) to the liberal Lockean heardland. The implications of this concept need to be separately analyzed and discussed in the context of Turkey. 107. SeeYalvac¸, “Strategic Depth or Hegemonic Depth.” 108. Rupert, “Marxism and Critical Theory,” 170. 109. This article does not directly deal with the implications of different approaches in terms of specific foreign policy strategies. Its focus is on the alternative approaches to TFP analysis. I would like to thank one of the referees for pointing this out. My current work explicitly deals with what a critical realist and historical materialist TFP entails. 110. Wight and Joseph, “Scientific Realism annd International Relations,” 24.

Notes on Contributor Faruk Yalvac¸ is Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations of the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics and an MA from Tufts University, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he was on a Fulbright Scholarship. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics in International Relations. His main interests are international relations theory, critical realism, historical sociology, Marxism, international political theory, Turkish foreign policy and political economy of Turkey.

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