Contested National Identity and Foreign Policy: The Case of Turkey and Japan.

In this paper I examine the impact of contested national identity on Turkish and Japanese foreign policies. Applying a constructivist theoretical framework, I seek to explore the ways in which the national identities of Turkey and Japan are constructed, internalized and in turn externalized through their foreign policies. My principal research question is why Turkey and Japan remain ambivalent to any idea of regionalization in their non-Western neighborhood. The answer to this question lies in their historically shaped and domestically contested national identities, which imposes constraints and ambiguity for their current foreign policy choices. The lack of a national consensus in both countries as regards their sense of belonging to a geographic location has been caused by an incomplete shift of civilizational identity and ongoing debates over this shift at the domestic level. The shift was incomplete in two senses: (1) the Westernizing elites never internalized the West itself, while detaching themselves from a sense of belonging to the East; (2) such a shift of identity never became a national consensus, as rival claims to national identity remained dormant and occasionally rose to the level of power. This duality of national identities has paved the way for a contested foreign policy orientation, which continues to influence their European (Turkey) and Asian (Japan) regional integration processes today.Theoretically I further two claims. First, against realism and in line with constructivism, I argue that foreign policy decisions are informed by ideational factors such as identity and historical memory. History matters for a country?s foreign policy, both as a constraint and as an opportunity. It may limit or expand foreign policy options. Secondly, disputing the validity of structural constructivism that takes the notion of national identity as a monolithic entity formed through interaction of state actors, I argue that in both case national identity is fragmented and contested by various sub-national identities with distinct readings of national interests and security and distinct perceptions of Others of national identity. Foreign policy decisions emerge in the context of this contestation among opposing identities. Accordingly, my research demands a modification within constructivist paradigm to account for these divergent perceptions as domestic informants of foreign policy decision-making processes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]