ABSTRACT

Turkey’s Middle East policy has taken a realist turn in recent years. This article explores this phenomenon in a critical case, i.e., Turkey’s abandonment of a policy of engagement vis-à-vis the Kurdish revisionist actors in Iraq and Syria, and tilt towards a coercive approach including military posturing. In order to explain the drivers of this realist turn, it utilizes a neo-classical realist framework that combines regional and domestic variables. It traces how the fragmentation of the regional order, combined with the rise of new security culture and power bloc domestically, undergirded the reversal in Ankara’s Middle East policy. It concludes with a discussion on the policy implications of this new phase.

摘要

近年来，土耳其的中东政策发生了现实主义的转变。本文在一个关键案例中探讨了这种现象，例如，土耳其放弃了对伊拉克和叙利亚的库尔德修正主义者的交战政策，并倾向于采取包括军事姿态在内的强制性方法。为了解释这种现实主义转折的驱动因素，它利用了一个新古典的现实主义框架，该框架结合了区域和国内变量。它追溯了地区秩序的分裂，再加上国内新的安全文化和权力集团的崛起，如何支撑了安卡拉中东政策的逆转。最后讨论了这一新阶段的政策含义。