Foreign Policy Formation and the Interaction between Domestic and International Environments: A Study of Change in Turkish Foreign Policy (1980-1991).

Motivated by both increased international interest in Turkey and concerns over its future and the directions its foreign policy is taking in the face of the systemic changes that have swept through world politics since 1979 onwards, this thesis attempts to study contemporary Turkish foreign policy from a dynamic-analytical perspective by concentrating on the dynamics of change, instead of stability. In this context, this study sets out to assess the argument that, although a high level of continuity in Turkish foreign policy had followed on both from the basic features of the country's situation, and from the attitudes entrenched in the foreign policy making elite, shifts in emphasis - which had hitherto occurred within this pattern of continuity - came to a point during the 1980s when a different set of attitudes, patterns and directions became discernible, and as such demanded new explanations as to what determines and affects the basic directions of Turkish foreign policy. In explaining this "change", the foundations of Turkey's foreign policy-making in the 1980s are analyzed from both the theoretical and practical aspects, and two sets of variables are identified as being instrumental in stimulating change: domestic sociopolitical and economic developments, and environmental circumstances. Moreover, it is shown that these variables, in the Turkish context, function in such a way as to remain interactive and to continually reinforce each other and also induce changes in foreign policy, which in turn excite reactions in the former. Therefore linkage patterns are used in this study both to show the interaction between different variables, and to emphasize connections between these variables and the changes that occurred in Turkey's foreign policy setting. When applied to a case study of the period 1980-1991, these variables corroborate the view that a certain set of changes occurred in the fundamental principles and directions of Turkish foreign policy, without upsetting its pro-western orientation as yet, because of: - changes in the nature of the political regime and the reactions received from abroad, especially from Europe where Turkey's linkage patterns are most strong; changes in the economic nature of the country and the necessities of the new development strategy; - changes within the policy-making system which came to operate in such a way as to incorporate and uphold those who favour change because of their ideological inclinations or cultural values; - and changes in the international environment which affected the country's perceptions of itself as well as others. As a result, this study concludes that Turkey entered the decade of the 1990s with diversified external connections, more active and balanced pursuits in international relations, and a purposeful and multi-dimensional foreign policy with a certain emphasis on Turkey's immediate neighbourhood, that is the Middle East, the Balkans, and the Caucasus