Understanding Turkish Foreign Poli̇cy Through Commercial Peace Dynamics

Abstract

Theoretical approaches to understand foreign policy contribute to both academics and decision-makers. Theories such as the Balance of Power and the Democratic Peace Theory are influential contexts to understand Foreign Policy. An often assumed proposition is that economic relations, trade and commerce are critical for sustained peaceful relations. The logic of trade and economic interdependence extending to sustained peaceful relations have been often identified with the Schuman Plan and the emergence of the EU. Studies on other regions are relatively limited. This study aims to analyze the case of Turkish Foreign Policy (TFP) through dynamics of trade, economics and commerce contributing to sustained cordial and ameliorating peaceful relations. The study will analyze 4 recent cases of bilateral relations in TFP over the last decade. Tensions with Russia, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have improved partly due to the role of the business sector. Businesses played certain roles in contributing to the easing of tensions in the bilateral relations. Incidentally, trade volume with Russia, UAE and Israel had endured in spite of icy political relations. These three cases of TFP will be understood through conceptual commercial peace (capitalist peace) and trade oriented approaches of scholars such as Gartzke, Mousseau and Copland, and analyzed as instances of how sustained trade and commerce contribute to ameliorating relations. This study particularly aims to understand the role of trade and commercial relations in TFP influencing the re-normalization relations with these 3 case countries. By contrast the lack of interdependent nature and complexity in the trade with Iran is a counter argument case evaluated in this study. Although the sustained peace with Iran for hundreds of years is an important element of TFP, the economic relations with Iran have not developed in a comparable manner to those with UAE, Israel and Russia.