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Kinship and Diasporas in Turkish Foreign Policy: Examples from Europe, the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean
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From the moment it came to power in 2002, Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) began to change the direction of Turkish foreign policy (TFP), making it more dynamic and multileveled and giving it a wider geographical scope and a more focused ideological drive. As the country's regional influence grew, the Turkish state began successfully to emphasize its historical and cultural links to countries or minorities throughout Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East. One of the main ways in which the country achieves this influence is by courting its diaspora and playing 'big brother' to ethnic or religious groups that it perceives as kin communities – i.e. akraba topluluklar. Against this background, the papers of this collective report investigate the dynamics of perceived kinship in TFP. The authors examine: the roots of this foreign policy approach and its particularities under the AKP; the ways in which Turkey demonstrates and builds power for akraba topluluklar; the extent to and ways in which this policy regarding diaspora and perceived kin communities increases Turkey's influence; the effects that the policy has on the politics, economy and social life of the diaspora communities and their relationship with host countries; and the kind of fractures or divisions that are created within the communities due to Turkey's attempts to maximize its presence and influence over them.
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Whether there is a trade-off between ‘here’ (country of settlement) and ‘there’ (the country of origin) is one of the key political questions and concerns regarding political attitudes and behaviors of immigrant minorities. We take this issue by the horns and study three components of political attitudes and behavior within a transnational framework among Dutch-Turkish citizens in the Netherlands: turnout, political trust and interest, and party choice. The empirical data draws on original exit polls held during the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections at a polling station in 2014 (n = 791) and in 2015 (n = 456). We find that that gender and country of birth influence electoral participation; social class (working class background as labor migrants) influences voting behavior. While there is a trade-off for political trust and voting behavior, there is no trade-off for political interest. These findings call for a more nuanced approach to transnational political behavior that is attentive to processes of convergence between ‘here’ and ‘there’ and the diversity within migrant groups.
Dış politikayı bütüncül bir perspektifle değerlendirmek, her zaman çeşitli zorluklara sahiptir. Bu uluslararası sistemin ve aktörlerin çok katmanlı ve karmaşık yapısından kaynaklanmaktadır. Dış politikanın bu yapısı, araştırmacıları tutarlı ve ölçülebilir analizler yapmak için bu politikalara yön veren ilkeler bütününü tespit etmeye sevk etmiştir. Bu makalede, Türkiye'nin izlemiş olduğu dış politika ilkelerinden önemli görülen çok yönlü/boyutlu diplomasi, proaktif dış politika, komşu ülkelerle 'Sıfır Sorun', 'Model' ülkeden 'Merkez' ülkeye geçiş, yumuşak güç (soft power), ekonomi merkezli dış politika ve güvenlik-özgürlük dengesi politikalarına değinilecektir. Türk dış politikası (TDP)'na bütüncül bir bakış açısıyla bakabilmek ve bu politikalara yön veren ilkeleri değerlendirmek hedeflenmektedir. Türkiye'nin 2000 sonrası dış politikasına yön verdiği söylenen ilkeler ışığında, izlenen stratejiler incelenecektir. Çalışmanın ikinci kısmında, bu ilkelerin ne kadar uygulamaya geçirilebildiği ve doğru tespit edilebildiği sorgulanacaktır. Bu sebeple, tüm bu ilkelerin pratikte uygulanma biçimini ve uygulanabilirliğini test etmek için, Türkiye'nin Orta Doğu'da yürüttüğü dış politika uygulama alanı olarak seçilmiştir.
Voting rights are an essential feature of democratic citizenship. Turkey enfranchised its expatriate citizens in 1995, but they were first granted the right to vote from overseas in the 2014 presidential election. We examine turnout and vote choice among expatriates in Turkish elections from 2014 to 2018. We find that turnout among expatriates is low and that they tend to vote in the same direction as domestic voters. Furthermore, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) tend to do better among expatriates compared to their domestic counterparts. Our analyses also suggest that expatriate voting is linked to the strength of voters’ ties to their country of origin. Moreover, expatriate vote choice appears to vary with geographic and political variables associated with the host countries.
