Understanding Turkish Foreign Policy Studies: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Employing a rigorous bibliometric framework, this study undertakes a comprehensive exploration of scholarly inquiries into Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP) by utilizing an extensive dataset extracted from the reputable SCOPUS database. TFP publications in various languages were scrutinized over nearly a century, from 1939 to 2022, with bibliometric analysis methodically traversing titles, keywords, abstracts, word frequencies, references, authorships, citations, and geographic diffusion. To comprehensively unravel the scholarly landscape, we employed three bibliometric methodologies: descriptive statistics, network analysis, and textual analysis. The overarching goals included delineating the contours of the TFP scholarly community, charting the evolution of influential factors across temporal horizons, and gauging the extent of collaborative interactions among TFP researchers. Our findings reveal the absence of a cohesive TFP research community within the Turkish academic landscape, which unequivocally underscores the fragility of Turkish International Relations (IR) academia in terms of scientific collaboration, academic networking, and research productivity. Our findings distinctly underscore the fragmentary nature of the TFP research community in terms of thematic breadth and practical manifestations. The conspicuous dearth of cross-referencing among Turkish IR scholars, limited joint scientific ventures, and scholarly output collectively underpin inherent vulnerabilities and constraints within the TFP community.

IR and the Global South: Revising Obstacles to a Global Discipline

“…Exclusionary practices also dominate the Turkish IR community. By adopting a bibliometric analysis of Turkish foreign policy studies between 1939 and 2022, Parlar Dal points to the scarcity of interactions and collaborative efforts within the IR community in Turkiye and the reluctance of scholars in reading and citing each other's papers(Mehmetcik, Dal, & Hakses, 2024). Taken all together, homogenization of knowledge in IR creates a path dependency that is carried over to subsequent generations of IR scholars.Linguistic and Education-relatedBarriersLinguistic and education-related barriers present major obstacles for Global South scholars in their attempts to globalize the discipline.…”