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This paper aims to shed light on Turkey's conflict management role after the Cold War using a three-layered framework consisting of the layers of actorness, approaches and tools. In doing so, it seeks to profile Turkey's international conflict management since the Cold War years with a special focus on the nature of its participation in conflict management as an active or passive actor, the perspectives from which it approaches conflict management, and the conflict management instruments it utilises. First, the paper will provide a conceptual framework of international conflict management based on the above-mentioned triad of actorness, approaches and tools as derived from the existing literature. Second, it will apply the selected three-layered analytical framework to Turkey to decipher its strengths and limitations in managing international conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey has thus far been generally neglected in most IR studies on power categorisations, such as middle or middle-range power, regional power or rising/emerging power, despite its rising regional power status in the past decade. This paper attempts to understand Turkey’s regional power together with its rising power status using an integral approach. In doing so, it empirically tests whether or not Turkey fits Daniel Flemes’s ‘regional power’ category, which seems to be proposing a more complete and integral framework through the fulfilment of four basic preconditions: claim to leadership; possession of necessary power resources (material and ideational); employment of material, institutional and discursive foreign policy instruments; and acceptance of leadership by third parties. Based upon these analytical tools, the article will discuss Turkey’s performance in creating a regional impact in its neighbouring regions of the Middle East, the Balkans and the Black Sea and Caucasus. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rise of brics presents a major challenge to the existing global order. A second category of emerging powers, which may be labelled near-brics, have also displayed increasing pro-activism in recent years in terms of influencing the regional balance of power politics, in addition to their growing presence in international organisations and global affairs. It is in this context that we aim to examine Turkey as a striking example of a ‘near-bric’ power, a country that has adopted an increasingly assertive and independent style of foreign policy with aspirations to establish itself as a major regional actor. Using the Turkish experience as a reference point, this paper aims to understand the extent to which near-bric countries possess the economic capacity, sustainable growth performance and soft-power capabilities needed to establish themselves as significant regional and global actors. The recent Turkish experience clearly highlights both the potential and the limits of regional power activism on the part of emerging powers from the ‘global South’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are undergoing rapid change, many domestic, regional and international actors are vying for space and influence as systems and customs evolve and adopt new forms. This paper characterises and compares the evolving foreign policy strategies of two such regional actors, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It further assesses the motivations and activities of and challenges to Turkish and Saudi involvement throughout the region since the Arab uprisings. Ultimately these cases provide intriguing insight into the foreign policy purpose and methods of emerging states under conditions of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conventional literature on the role of middle powers emphasises the importance of soft power, niche diplomacy and coalition building. This article explores a case of unusual middle power activism with a focus on recent Turkish foreign policy behaviour. It demonstrates how the interaction of domestic politics and external dynamics produced an unusual degree of foreign policy activism, going well beyond conventional middle power behaviour, with the government increasingly employing coercive diplomacy and militaristic methods. We demonstrate that unusual middle power activism in a shifting international order yielded 'populist dividends' to the ruling elite in the short run but led to a 'triple governance crisis' in the economy, politics and foreign policy, with each element feeding into the others in a path-dependent fashion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turkey's humanitarian and development intervention in Somalia is unusually illuminating as a case study to investigate the relations between emerging and conventional interveners in conflict zones since, in this case, Turkey's intervention carries adequate impetus to resist assimilation with conventional North/Western counterparts. Our starting point is the observation that Turkish and conventional humanitarian and development interveners have struggled to coordinate or cooperate in Somalia. This article investigates what this uncooperative and uncoordinated organisational behaviour means, and we root our investigation in 21 face-to-face interviews with officials working inside the Turkish and conventional intervention in Mogadishu and Nairobi to inquire about how they understand and theorise this discordant behaviour. We use a parsimonious analytical framework of trustworthiness that questions the 'ability' and 'integrity' of counterpart organisations to explore the intentions behind organisational behaviours. Our analysis of interview narratives evidences challenges to conventional methods of intervention by Turkish organisations and the protection of the same by North/Western organisations. Our concluding discussion interprets these findings in relation to consequences for the status quo hierarchy of global governance and its promotion of liberal intervention norms, and for the utilisation of securitised and remote-control intervention methodologies in conflict zones such as Somalia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European officials veer towards exceptionalism in their policy communications concerning the EU’s global role, particularly in terms of African development. This article poses a rejoinder to such tendencies through examination of the rise of ‘virtuous power Turkey’ in Africa. It examines how Turkish elites constructed a moralised ‘neo-Ottoman’ foreign policy in wake of stalled EU accession. It then underscores how elites framed humanitarian interventions in sub-Saharan Africa in contrast to the perceived neo-colonialism of an EU ‘other’. In this vein, the article explores the meaning of normative ‘neo-Ottomanism’ for ostensible beneficiaries in Africa, for the EU, and for Turkey itself. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The rise and subsequent erosion of friendly relations between Iran and Turkey was a result of their regional ambitions. While Turkey had long seen its secular system as presenting an alternative to Iran's Islamic ideology, the alignment of their regional interests facilitated a rapport between the two states in the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, the Arab Spring proved divisive for this relationship as each state sought to advocate its model of government and secure a leadership role in the Arab world. The war in Syria widened the divide, as Iran's long-standing support for the Bashar al-Assad regime could not be reconciled with Turkey's desire to see President Assad out of office. Using a close reading of Persian and Turkish sources, the authors will analyse the Iran-Turkey divide, focusing specifically on how the Iranians have portrayed it as a clash of civilisations, citing Turkey's so-called 'neo-Ottoman' ambitions as the primary cause. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]