Consolidating power at home: Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East under the justice and development party

Abstract

This Master’s Essay examines Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East under the Justice and Development Party (JDP) from the years 2002-2011 and how a new assertiveness in the country’s foreign policy is helping it consolidate power at home. The aim of this Essay is to show how an Islamic-oriented party was able to come to and stay in power for the last decade, shifting the domestic and foreign policy of a country that had prided itself in maintaining a political course of westernization and secularization and an approach of neutrality in international affairs for the last eighty years. The objective of the Essay is to prove that due to the rise of new economic classes in the Anatolian plateau supportive of the JDP, the party is conducting an active foreign policy in the Middle East, a neighboring region ridden with political and religious strife, in order to enhance its image as regional power, while gaining economic benefits for its domestic support base.