The Transformation of the Geopolitical Vision in Turkish Foreign Policy

Abstract

By problematizing the relationship between geopolitics and foreign policy, this paper investigates the discursive assumptions of two different geopolitical visions of Turkish foreign policy. It seeks to explain how different political actors spatialize Turkey's geography and represent it as having a different, exceptional, and unique geopolitical position in the international system in order to justify foreign policy. By investigating how geopolitical representations produced in each of the different geopolitical vision serve to enable, restrict, and rationalize a different set of role choices for Turkey in the international system, the article is aiming to provide a critical geopolitical perspective in order to understand the discursive transformation of the geopolitical vision in the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi) period.