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The Arab Spring truly caught Turkey by surprise. In interpreting what was happening in the region, Turkey’s foreign policy-makers relied on a particular view, which helped steer Turkey’s foreign policy in the ensuing regional earthquake. This article seeks to dissect that view and deconstructs its main components mainly through the speeches of Ahmet Davutoğlu, who served as Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs during the heyday of the Arab Spring. The paper also illustrates how Davutoğlu’s interpretation heavily borrows from the Islamist interpretive frame of modern Turkish history. That frame, this article claims, originated in the late Ottoman period and has since evolved in contestation with alternative readings, both official and non-official. The article suggests that Davutoğlu’s view of the Arab Spring helps explain why Turkey welcomed the Arab Spring and advised Arab regimes to implement political reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International relations theories have sometimes been criticized as being focused on a narrow set of ideas and values. This article provides a means by which this problem can be addressed by examining the theories of former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who, prior to joining the government, was an international relations scholar. The article argues that gaining a greater understanding of Davutoğlu’s academic and professional publications is valuable not only to scholars interested in studying Turkey, but also to the study of international relations. Distinguishing him from other thinkers, Davutoğlu’s models are a combination of Islamic values, civilizational theories, and constructivism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]