Regional Development and Critical Junctures: A Study of the Achievements and Failures of Iran and Turkey (1990-2020)

The present study seeks to answer the following question: 'why Turkey and Iran have been failed to use the critical junctures of recent decades as a starting point for national development and shaping regional development?' To answer the research question, new institutionalism was used as a theoretical approach to understand regional development. Acemoglu and Robinson's theory of Critical Junctures was also used to explain the reasons for the failure or success of countries in achieving development. In terms of research method, the present study is a case-oriented historical comparative study. The unit of analysis of this research is the country and global, international, regional and national events and conditions are selected and analyzed in relation to it. According to the study, Iran and Turkey have experienced two critical junctures since the 1990s, one as a result of internal processes and national elections and the other as a transnational event such as the military occupation of Iraq or the Arab Spring. It seems that Iran and Turkey have chosen the path of national development in the first critical juncture, but in the second critical juncture, both countries have entered into internal and regional tensions and conflicts and the process of national development have been encountered with several obstacles. In addition, the two countries have not been able to move institutionally and sustainably toward economic convergence over the past two decades. This inability has prevented the emergence of a developed region in the Middle East. The Middle East identity -based conflicts, exacerbated by foreign interventions and confrontational politics, have shifted the region's environment to militarization and security, making the space conducive to economic growth and prosperity leaving the region in poor economic growth and prosperity.