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Despite the significance of the subject, studies on the foreign policy preferences of European populist radical right leaders are scarce except for a handful of examples. Are European populist radical right leaders more hostile than other world leaders or comparatively friendly? Do they use cooperative or conflictual strategies to achieve their political goals? What are the leadership types associated with their strategic orientations in international relations? Using the operational code construct in this empirical study, we answer these questions and depict the foreign policy belief systems of seven European populist radical right leaders. We test whether they share a common pattern in their foreign policy beliefs and whether their foreign policy belief systems are significantly different from the norming group of average world leaders. The results indicate that European populist radical right leaders lack a common pattern in terms of their foreign policy belief systems. While the average scores of the analysed European populist radical right leaders suggest that they are more conflictual in their world views, results also show that they employ instrumental approaches relatively similar to the average group of world leaders. This article illuminates the microfoundations of strategic behaviour in international relations and arrives at conclusions about the role of European populist radical right leaders in mainstream International Relations discussions, such as idealism versus realism. In this sense, the cognitivist research school complements and advances structural accounts of international relations by analysing leadership in world affairs.

Avrupa'da son dönemde, popülist radikal sağ, hem akademi hem de siyaset çevrelerinde popüler ve üzerinde çokça tartışılan bir konu olmuştur. Ancak, Avrupalı popülist radikal sağ (APRS) liderlerin ve partilerin artan etkisi ve görünürlüğüne rağmen, dış politika inançları, Uluslararası ilişkiler (Uİ) ve dış politika analizi (DPA) araştırmacıları tarafından yeteri kadar ilgi görmemiştir. Bu doğrultudan, bu çalışma, DPA ve popülist radikal sağ literatürlerini, ampirik ve teorik olarak güçlü bir analizle bir araya getirerek literatürdeki bu boşluğu doldurmayı amaçlamaktadır. Dokuz önemli APRS liderin dış politika inançlarının operasyonel kod analizini yaptığımız bu çalışmada, APRS liderlerinin hem kendi arasında hem de ortalama dünya liderine kıyasla gösterdikleri benzerlik ya da farklılıkları bulmak amaçlanmıştır. Akabinde ise, bu benzerlik ve farklılıkların altında yatan sebepler tartışılmıştır. Bulgular, politik evren hakkındaki inançlar açısından, APRS liderlerin iki gruba ayrılabileceğini gösteriyor: Yerliciliğin popülizme baskın geldiği örneklerde APRS liderler politik evreni daha çatışmacı görürken, aksi durumda daha çatışmacı görmemektedirler. Öte yandan, dış politika enstrümanları açısından ise, sonuçlar APRS liderlerle çatışmacı bir dış politikayı doğrudan ilişkilendirmenin mümkün olmadığını göstermektedir. Bu çalışmanın, APRS liderlerin dış politika inançları ile ilgili sunduğu önemli bulguların yanında, yeterli ilgiyi görmeyen bu alandaki gelecek çalışmalara da temel hazırlayacağına inanıyoruz. Recently, both in scholarly and policy circles, the populist radical right has been a popular and contested topic in Europe. Despite the increasing influence and visibility of European populist radical right (EPRR) parties and leaders, their foreign policy beliefs have not been studied thoroughly by scholars of International Relations (IR) and Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), with a few descriptive exceptions. This study aims at filling this gap by linking the FPA and populist radical right literatures with an empirically and theoretically robust analysis. With an operational code analysis of the foreign policy beliefs of nine prominent EPRR leaders, this dissertation first seeks similarities or differences between EPRR leaders and also compare them to the average world leader, and then discuss the underlying reasons for the presence or lack of these similarities and differences. On the one hand, the results show that, in terms of beliefs about the political universe, the EPRR leaders can be grouped into two categories: Where nativism dominates over populism, the EPRR leaders' beliefs about the political universe are more conflictual and vice versa. On the other hand, in terms of beliefs about foreign policy instruments, the general picture shows that the EPRR leaders are not and will not necessarily be conflictual. This study presents significant findings about the foreign policy beliefs of EPRR leaders and may also provide a basis for future research in this under-studied field. 219

Political Islam and Islamist organizations have broadly gained strength across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the post-Cold War era. Following the Arab uprisings, the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), generally viewed as the world’s largest and most influential Islamist organization, has shaped the wider landscape of MENA politics. This study examines MB leadership by comparing M. Morsi of Egypt, R. Ghannouchi of Tunisia, and K. Meshaal of Gaza as examples of Islamist leaders to explain their political belief systems and predict their foreign-policy behavior. We use the operational code approach, a content-analysis software and statistical tests to conduct the study. Results show that the three leaders’ foreign policy beliefs are analogous to the averages of world leaders. Results also partially support the hypothesis that their foreign-policy propensities are similar to each other. We conclude that despite the conventional portrayal of MB leadership, these leaders use negotiation and cooperation to settle their differences in foreign affairs, and the best way to approach them is to engage in a Rousseauvian assurance game that emphasizes international social cooperation. Results also suggest important implications in terms of mainstream international relations theories.