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Guner, Serdar S . (2011) Religion and Preferences: A Decision-theoretic Explanation of Turkey’s New Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743-8594.2011.00152.x Religious beliefs can affect preferences of decision makers who formulate and guide foreign policy. This article investigates the relationship between preferences affected by Islamic worldview of Turkey’s new leadership and foreign policy the new elite conduct through two simple models. The models are games against nature; thus, Turkey is the only decision maker facing no strategic uncertainty. It is found that the subjective estimates of achieving gains under the new foreign policy (NWP) and the old foreign policy (SQP) are critical and distinct from gains and costs of both policies. The new Turkish foreign policy (NWP) is a reversible move, even though Turkish decision makers evaluate it as generating a higher gain and a lower cost compared with the preservation of the status quo (SQP). The implementation of the NWP does not only depend on its gain but also on how attractive is the SQP.

This paper proposes a simple two-person game of one-sided incomplete information in extensive form to understand strategic choices made in the Turkish-Syrian linkage between water and terrorism. Turkish intelligence established Syrian support of a terrorist group that aims at an independent Kurdish state in eastern Anatolia. Yet, Turkey frequently stipulates the cessation of this support for negotiating with Syria a water agreement over the Euphrates. The game presents Turkey as a player having superior information. Syria is assumed to be uncertain about Turkish preferences with respect to the mutual conflict. This analysis identifies three pooling equilibria indicating that Syrian beliefs do not matter.

Chapter 9 The issues of water and territory dominate relations between Syria and Turkey, upstream and downstream riparians in the Euphrates and Tigris basin. This chapter propose an evolutionary game to explore eventual trajectories of riparian relations. Turkish hawks are defined as those Turkish foreign policies that support no water concessions. Turkish doves can instead support the flow of an increased amount of water to Syria on the basis of an international agreement. Syrian hawks are those Syrian foreign policies that do not recognize Turkish sovereignty over Hatay—also known as the Sandjak of Alexandretta. Syrian doves can in turn accept that the territory belongs now to Turkey. It is found that evolutionary stability does not depend upon the values territory and water represent for the fitness of Syrian and Turkish foreign policies. No evolutionary stability is possible unless doves are cooperative towards hawks. If doves are cooperative towards hawks, the unique evolutionarily stable outcome implies their extinction. Riparian relations will ultimately evolve into mutual intransigence.

Unlike the previous contributions to this section on Models of International Negotiations this chapter deals with a concrete and as yet unsolved international conflict, namely, that between Greece and Turkey over the breadth of territorial waters in the Aegean Sea. Greece claims that it has the freedom to extend its territorial waters to 12 miles, whereas Turkey has indicated that a Greek extension of territorial waters constitutes a casus belli. Currently, both countries apply the six-mile limit; several crises have occurred over this issue in the past, but the status quo has remained unchanged. © 2007 International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

The issues of water and terrorism are often linked to each other in negotiations between Turkey and Syria, the upstream and the midstream riparians in the Euphrates River basin, respectively. This issue linkage and a deep rooted territorial conflict mark these countries’ bilateral relations. This article explains and predicts the riparians’ propensity to end the issue linkage unilaterally. The results demonstrate a multiplicity of conditions for such behavior. The common view asserting that Turkey has a more powerful position follows a specific set of conditions. The conclusions do not preclude a Syrian superiority over Turkey, or an equality between the riparians in terms of resistance to the temptation to concede unilaterally.