Domestic-Foreign Policy Nexus and Foreign Policy as Kulturkampf – Evren Balta

---

How should we conceptualize the last two decades of Turkish
foreign policy? How a Western oriented foreign policy transformed into
anti-Westernism? How did it move from a zero-problem-with-neighbors approach to
an expansionist foreign policy that produces tensions with almost all its
neighbors? What were the basic parameters of the transformation from a trading
state model to an ideology-spreading state model?

If one way of answering all these questions is to look at significant
upheavals and changes in the global system and the accompanying regional developments,
the other is to look at changes at the domestic level. Indeed, neither the
structure of the international system nor systemic factors are sufficient to
explain the specific choices of the Turkish political elites. Domestic factors
largely determined which options were chosen and which path was taken. These domestic
factors undoubtedly contained many variables ranging from institutional structue
to decision-making styles, from leadership to regime type.

For example, the relationship with Russia was not just a
response to the changing balance of power in the region. It was also the result
of similar leadership styles and survival aspirations of the incumbent regimes. The
hawkish rhetoric of foreign policy was not only a response to regional
developments but also a strategy to win the elections and a reflection of
Turkey’s domestic problems, such as the Kurdish question. Increasing militarism
was not just an imposition or necessity; it was also a model of economic development.
The mistakes made were not only the result of uncertainty in the system but an
also outcome of also foreign policy deinstitutionalisation parallel to deinstitutionalization
happening everywhere in the country.

In short, almost all the decisions taken by Turkey in foreign
policy have been shaped by the country’s institutions, economy, and politics.
But undoubtedly, the critical transformation that will help us understand the
last 20 years is also about analyzing foreign policy as a battleground where
different political constructs and cultural identities compete with each other. Specifically, in the last decade, foreign policy has become the site where the battle for more
representation, both inside and outside, has been going on.

Foreign Policy as the Battleground of the Crisis of
Representation

Transforming foreign policy to a site in which the battle for
representation takes place has not only happened  in Turkey. Populist movements that gave color
to the first quarter of the 21st-century have challenged the established power
relations and political hierarchies both at domestic and global levels. On the
one hand, these movements tried to bring voters to the center, who are alleged
to be excluded from the existing political, economic, and/or cultural power at
the domestic level and therefore deprived of “authentic” political
representation. On the other hand, they demanded more status in the world for
their nation (and its newly formed identity) in the name of the power of the
masses they bring to the center. They objected not only to the established
national institutions but also to how international politics are done. In this
way, they transformed foreign policy from a vertical conflict area where
international actors compete to a horizontal conflict area where internal
tensions are carried out.

In other words, at the beginning of the 21^st century,
foreign policy ceased to be an area practiced only by different governments,
based on the idea of a “national interest” that the nation (more or
less) shared no matter what conflicts broke out inside. The foreign policy
arena has become a battlefield where international alliances are built based on
national identity imaginations, and these alliances, in return, fortify
national identity imaginations.

Conservative vs. Secular Foreign Policy

Lisel
Hintz, in her work on the relationship between
national identity and foreign policy points out that we need to understand
foreign policy as a space for internal tension to move outward. Accordingly,
foreign policy is neither a factor that constructs national identity nor is it
a result of definitions of national identity alone. It is an area where
different national identity imaginations are imported and collide. Just like
inside, the outside is a political rivalry area where different identities compete,
and the political and emotional polarization of the country is directly
reflected.

The secular-conservative cleavage and the different national
imaginations of this cleavage  shapes not
only Turkey’s identity but also its geography. Turkey is either thought to be deprived
of the Middle East or is seen as being too Middle Eastern; it is either too
close to the Western alliance or too far from the Western alliance. Even in the
debate on whom Turkey should open its borders too, this divergence determines
attitudes and thus shapes Turkey’s immigration policy.

On this level, foreign policy is at least as daily here as the
alcohol debate. It is an essential component of kulturkampf with all its
practices. The internal polarization dynamics and the transfer of
cultural/political distinctions to foreign policy in this way inevitably makes
foreign policy one of the main arteries in which hegemony is established and
maintained.

Is it a New Era?

There is now a consensus among experts in the field that domestic
politics shape foreign policy and that we cannot understand foreign policy
without understanding domestic factors. It has become almost part of our
everyday political language, where opportunistic leaders use (or create)
foreign policy crises to win elections and consolidate their power at home. The
most recent example we have discussed is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where
institutional disintegration and the personalization of the regime have led to
adventures abroad, keeping leaders from (genuine) sources of information.

But as I pointed out in this piece, foreign policy is not simply
an outcome of domestic factors (intentended or uninetnded). It is a
battleground where national values and institutions are built and cultural
differences are reflected. It is another founding area where the crisis of
representation and the internal struggle for legitimacy is debated and
sometimes resolved.

The Covid-19 outbreak and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have
further increased the effects of this culture clash (both centrifugal and
centripetal) and strengthened the global rift. Moreover, economic and political
competition was inextricably linked with the moral and cultural competition. In
these new forms of competition, “new” elements such as the family, the place of
women in society, sovereignty, nationalism, the relationship established with
nature, and nativism took the distinctive position that democratic values had
in the past. These values have replaced globalization with global culture war
that unites political parties of the right with a common agenda.

We are at a new breaking point in this cultural conflict. It may
color the ongoing kulturkampf of Turkey.

---

---

To cite this work: Evren Balta, “Domestic-Foreign Policy Nexus and Foreign Policy as Kulturkampf” Panorama, Online, 2 August 2023, https://www.uikpanorama.com/blog/2023/08/02/eb-2/

---

Copyright@UIKPanorama. All on-line and print rights reserved. Opinions expressed in works published by the Panorama belongs to the authors alone unless otherwise stated, and do not imply endorsement by the IRCT, Global Academy, or the Editors/Editorial Board of Panorama.