Trading state or machiavellian state? Re-Evaluating the political economy of Turkish foreign policy under Erdoğan

Abstract

In 2009, Kemal Kirişçi penned one of the most widely cited articles on the interplay between economic factors and Turkish Foreign Policy – at a time when Turkey was still experiencing the early years of the AK Parti (Justice and Development Party) rule. Kirişçi adopted the concept of \"trading state\" – originally developed by Richard Rosecrance – and argued that Turkey’s consolidating democratization, rising trade with neighbors and soft power diplomacy could fully transform Turkey into a trading state that would base its foreign economic policy on a peace-seeking, pro-democratic, and free-trade oriented vision. The main research question I tackle with in this article is that if we prepare a report card on the foreign policy performance of the AK Parti, could we realistically evaluate contemporary Turkey as a trading state? As Turkey moved away from a supposedly democratizing polity in the 2000s to an increasingly illiberal regime with by 2023, the Turkish foreign economic policy strategy has assumed a \"Machiavellian character\". It will be argued that the vision of the AK Parti administration is not shaped by a liberal outlook, but by a nationalist and party based understanding of economic benefits. As the AK Parti’s rule has proved durable over the years, we have seen an economistic understanding of foreign policy making but not in ways envisaged by Liberal scholars such as Rosecrance and Kirişçi, and instead in the Neo-Realist – Machiavellian – ways illiberal polities (e.g. China) commonly formulate foreign economic policy.