The formulation and implementation of populist foreign policy: Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean

Abstract

Although populism does not dictate a coherent ideological or programmatic agenda, some of its elements still leave distinct marks on the formulation and implementation of foreign policy. This paper argues for the study of populism in its tangible policy impacts and scrutinizes the nexus of populism and foreign policy in contemporary Turkey under President Erdoğan's rule. Despite the abundant references to the 'people' in the populist rhetoric, it identifies personalization in foreign policy decision-making, nationalization in foreign policy implementation, and civilizationalization in the foreign policy discourse. Having established the patterns of populist foreign policy from a wider reading, this study then examines, generally, how populism has informed Turkish foreign policy and, specifically, Turkey's approach to the recent border disputes over the gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean.KEYWORDS Populism; populist foreign policy; the Eastern Mediterranean; Turkey; personalization Based on the steady dismantling of democratic norms and rising support for authoritarian alternatives, some scholars alarmingly associate this gloomy picture of democratic de-consolidation with the meteoric rise of populist movements (Norris & Inglehart, 2018;Pappas, 2019). Similarly, the 2017 Munich Security Report identified the populist trend as a prime danger to both the international security order and the liberal-democratic status quo (Munich Security Conference, 2017). Contrary to this understanding of populism as the ultimate driver behind the current wave of de-democratization, others consider populism much less central to contemporary politics. They either consider the populist threat to be overstated, or they challenge the analytical value of the term and suggest avoiding its use at all (Akkerman, 2017;Herkman, 2017;Mickey, 2017). In between the problem-solving approach of the first line of thinking, and the negating attitude of the second, this paper calls for a more nuanced consideration of populism.

Populism and the politicisation of foreign policy

“…Adopting a most similar systems design, we empirically explore and compare two cases of populist leaders from socalled emerging powers in the Global South: Erdoğan in Turkey and Modi in India. Both politicians are widely referred to as populists following the ideational understanding of populism adopted in this article (Destradi and Plagemann, 2019;Göksel, 2019;McDonnell and Cabrera, 2019;Öniş and Kutlay, 2020;Taş, 2020aTaş, , 2020b. Both endorse thick ideologies of the religious right: Muslim nationalism in the case of Erdoğan and Hindu nationalism in that of Modi (Jaffrelot, 2021;White, 2013).…”

“…This includes the impact of populist-government formation on individual countries’ foreign and security policies (e.g. Chryssogelos, 2017; Destradi and Plagemann, 2019; Taş, 2020a; Verbeek and Zaslove, 2017; Wehner and Thies, 2020). While some studies have started theorising under what conditions populism impacts foreign policy or what constitutes a genuinely ‘populist’ foreign policy, the links between populism’s domestic and international dimensions remain unspecified.…”

The populist way out: Why contemporary populist leaders seek transnational legitimation

“…An example of a contemporary populism enacting transparent and altruistic behaviours is Chavismo’s use of national oil resources to finance social programmes throughout Latin America, which they claimed to be regional sharing of Venezuela’s ‘petrodollars’ (Sagarzazu and Thies, 2019: 206; Wajner and Roniger, 2019). Erdoğan historically attempted to adopt a similar attitude with reference to the support of Muslim Brotherhood groups throughout the Middle East (Taş, 2020: 5–12). By projecting abroad a sense of persecution on one hand and sacrifice on the other hand, the populists’ ‘way out’ seeks to gain both national and international legitimation for their implementation of government policies and their personal conduct as rulers (see Albertazzi and McDonnell, 2008: 3; Chatterje-Doody and Crilley, 2019: 88–89).…”

Rethinking Populism Geopolitically: Authoritarian Populism and Migration Politics in Britain and Turkey

“…Foreign policy is undoubtedly one of the crucial elements of the geopolitics. There are several studies published recently that incorporates populism within foreign policy analysis (Chryssogelos, 2017;Verbeek &Zaslove, 2017;Destradi and Plagemann, 2019;Plagemann and Destradi, 2018;Taş, 2020;Löfflmann 2019;Wehner and Thies, 2020;Wajner, 2021a). Verbeek and Zaslove point out a puzzling question that although the populist parties share a common distinction between the pure people and the corrupt elite, they do not have an identical 'populist 'foreign policy.…”