Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst ‘soft power’ and ‘de-Europeanisation’

Başak Alpan; Ahmet Erdi Öztürk

doi:10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370

Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst ‘soft power’ and ‘de-Europeanisation’

Başak Alpan, Ahmet Erdi Öztürk

Research Centre for Peace and Security

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

533 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 2000s, extensive academic research has echoed one popular opinion, ‘Turkey is back to the Balkans’. These studies have been scrutinizing the complicated role of Turkey in the Balkans, usually drawing upon the use of soft power by the former. This impact in the region remained intact during the 2010s, although the overall Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s has been highly securitized and de-Europeanized, losing its soft power character that had been its trademark starting from the early 2000s. In this regard, this paper aims to decipher different dimensions of Turkey’s foreign policy in the Balkans through a more general exploration of the de-Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s. Through more than 80 semi-structured interviews, which were conducted between 2016–2020, with political actors, diplomats, religious leaders, scholars and journalists in Turkey and the Balkans, we address the question of whether the divergence of Turkish foreign policy from a soft power perspective and its concomitant de-Europeanization tendency had been crystallized in its policy towards the Balkans within the context of the 2010s.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	45-63
Number of pages	19
Journal	Southeast European and Black Sea Studies
Volume	22
Issue number	1
Early online date	7 Feb 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370
Publication status	Published - 2022

Bibliographical note

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. Alpan, B & Öztürk, AE 2022, 'Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst ‘soft power’ and ‘de-Europeanisation’', Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 45-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370

It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Funder

For this research, Başak Alpan benefited from funding offered by the Jean Monnet Network, ‘Linking the Europe at Periphery (LEAP)’, supported by the European Commission (Project number: 612019-EPP-1-2019-1-TR-EPPJMO-NETWORK).

Funding

For this research, Başak Alpan benefited from funding offered by the Jean Monnet Network, ‘Linking the Europe at Periphery (LEAP)’, supported by the European Commission (Project number: 612019-EPP-1-2019-1-TR-EPPJMO-NETWORK).

Funders	Funder number
European Commission Erasmus+
European Commission	612019-EPP-1-2019-1-TR-EPPJMO-NETWORK
European Commission

Keywords

Turkey
Balkans
de-Europeanization
soft power
Turkish foreign policy

Access to Document

10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370

Post-PrintAccepted author manuscript, 1.25 MBLicence: CC BY-NC

http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/7200/

Cite this

@article{5d7fd97875bb4513898b7943f95c4f27,

title = "Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst {\textquoteleft}soft power{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}de-Europeanisation{\textquoteright}",

abstract = "Since the beginning of the 2000s, extensive academic research has echoed one popular opinion, {\textquoteleft}Turkey is back to the Balkans{\textquoteright}. These studies have been scrutinizing the complicated role of Turkey in the Balkans, usually drawing upon the use of soft power by the former. This impact in the region remained intact during the 2010s, although the overall Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s has been highly securitized and de-Europeanized, losing its soft power character that had been its trademark starting from the early 2000s. In this regard, this paper aims to decipher different dimensions of Turkey{\textquoteright}s foreign policy in the Balkans through a more general exploration of the de-Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s. Through more than 80 semi-structured interviews, which were conducted between 2016–2020, with political actors, diplomats, religious leaders, scholars and journalists in Turkey and the Balkans, we address the question of whether the divergence of Turkish foreign policy from a soft power perspective and its concomitant de-Europeanization tendency had been crystallized in its policy towards the Balkans within the context of the 2010s.",

keywords = "Turkey, Balkans, de-Europeanization, soft power, Turkish foreign policy",

author = "Ba{\c s}ak Alpan and {\"O}zt{\"u}rk, \{Ahmet Erdi\}",

note = "This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. Alpan, B \& {\"O}zt{\"u}rk, AE 2022, 'Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst {\textquoteleft}soft power{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}de-Europeanisation{\textquoteright}', Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 45-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370 It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ",

year = "2022",

doi = "10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370",

language = "English",

volume = "22",

pages = "45--63",

journal = "Southeast European and Black Sea Studies",

issn = "1468-3857",

publisher = "Informa UK Limited",

number = "1",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst ‘soft power’ and ‘de-Europeanisation’

AU - Alpan, Başak

AU - Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi

N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. Alpan, B & Öztürk, AE 2022, 'Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst ‘soft power’ and ‘de-Europeanisation’', Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 45-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370 It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Since the beginning of the 2000s, extensive academic research has echoed one popular opinion, ‘Turkey is back to the Balkans’. These studies have been scrutinizing the complicated role of Turkey in the Balkans, usually drawing upon the use of soft power by the former. This impact in the region remained intact during the 2010s, although the overall Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s has been highly securitized and de-Europeanized, losing its soft power character that had been its trademark starting from the early 2000s. In this regard, this paper aims to decipher different dimensions of Turkey’s foreign policy in the Balkans through a more general exploration of the de-Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s. Through more than 80 semi-structured interviews, which were conducted between 2016–2020, with political actors, diplomats, religious leaders, scholars and journalists in Turkey and the Balkans, we address the question of whether the divergence of Turkish foreign policy from a soft power perspective and its concomitant de-Europeanization tendency had been crystallized in its policy towards the Balkans within the context of the 2010s.

AB - Since the beginning of the 2000s, extensive academic research has echoed one popular opinion, ‘Turkey is back to the Balkans’. These studies have been scrutinizing the complicated role of Turkey in the Balkans, usually drawing upon the use of soft power by the former. This impact in the region remained intact during the 2010s, although the overall Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s has been highly securitized and de-Europeanized, losing its soft power character that had been its trademark starting from the early 2000s. In this regard, this paper aims to decipher different dimensions of Turkey’s foreign policy in the Balkans through a more general exploration of the de-Europeanization of Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s. Through more than 80 semi-structured interviews, which were conducted between 2016–2020, with political actors, diplomats, religious leaders, scholars and journalists in Turkey and the Balkans, we address the question of whether the divergence of Turkish foreign policy from a soft power perspective and its concomitant de-Europeanization tendency had been crystallized in its policy towards the Balkans within the context of the 2010s.

KW - Turkey

KW - Balkans

KW - de-Europeanization

KW - soft power

KW - Turkish foreign policy

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85124820358

U2 - 10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370

DO - 10.1080/14683857.2022.2034370

M3 - Article

SN - 1468-3857

VL - 22

SP - 45

EP - 63

JO - Southeast European and Black Sea Studies

JF - Southeast European and Black Sea Studies

IS - 1

ER -

Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst ‘soft power’ and ‘de-Europeanisation’

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funder

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this