The Theory of National Roles Conception and the Changing Foreign Policy of Turkey 2002 - 2016

The theory of national role conception can be considered as an effective theoretical framework for explaining foreign policy of countries. Analysts in foreign policy assessment of countries have consistently sacrificed theoretical insights of domestic or international domains, with respect to one of them. The dynamics in the domestic, regional and international environment are the most powerful drivers in guiding of foreign policy of the countries, for this reason, in this paper; we use the theory of national role conception and attempt to integrate the determinative elements of Turkish foreign policy from 2002 to 2016 into a more systematic framework. The question of this study is despite the rule of the AKP during this period in Turkish political system, what factors contributed to the development of Turkish foreign policy from 2002 to 2016? The hypothesis that has been tested in this article is that domestic, regional and international dynamics have been the most important drivers of Turkish foreign policy, which have been studied in the framework of the theory of national role conception. The findings of this study indicate that the theory of national role conception can be a more useful framework for evaluating Turkish foreign policy in comparison with other theoretical frameworks.