The Rise and Fall of an Emerging Power: Agency in Turkey’s Identity‑Based Regionalism

Abstract

This chapter explores Turkey’s regional agency based on the idea of regions as specific formulation of identities to discern one specific project of regionalism with a different notion of “region”, and a particular interpretation of the international order. It inquiries about Turkey’s claim to leadership and agency in its “imagined region” comprising various geographies of the world identified with the faith of Islam, in the emerging post-hegemonic global order. It demonstrates how Turkey’s objectives based on its changed self-conception under the AKP rule have given way to a different form of regionalism rooted in its claim to the leadership of the Islamic world and interrogates whether Turkey has been an agent of change in the global and regional normative order. Within this framework, the chapter traces Turkey’s emerging power trajectory and examines how Turkey has moved from pursuing a humanitarian diplomacy in seeking regional leadership and increased agency in the global affairs, to reconstituting the regional order through militarized policies and the use of force utilizing its material capabilities. The chapter mainly argues that the capacity of Turkey for agency and its ability to be a stability-provider, effective reform-seeker, rule-maker and norm-contributor are heavily constrained by its very notion of “region”.