Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood: an Outside-in Approach to Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Hakkı Taş
Erdoğan and the Muslim Brotherhood: an Outside-in Approach to Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Turkish Studies | 2022
Abstract
Amidst multiple foreign policy flip-flops of the Turkish government, the Middle East is where observers agree most about the explanatory priority of ideational factors over realpolitik calculations. The assertive foreign policy activism to extend the country’s role in the region has largely been linked to the Islamist leanings of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). This study revisits Turkey’s Middle East policy with a particular focus on the AKP’s relations with the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al Muslimin), which marked Turkish foreign policy formulation and implementation in multiple theatres from Yemen to Egypt to Libya. Using a neoclassical realist approach, it argues that the AKP’s ideological ties to the Ikhwan are significant for the availability of new resources but Turkish foreign policy behavior in the Middle East, including relations with the Ikhwan, reflects a grand strategy to respond to systemic and sub-systemic stimuli.
While the mutual dependency between AKP and the Brotherhood helped them save the day in the region, the current outcome harmed both in terms of their international standing. The trajectory laid out here shows that nothing should be taken for granted.
Die VAE und die Türkei einten zudem die militärischen Ernüchterungen der vergangenen Jahre. "Beide zeigten sich außenpolitisch äußerst selbstbewusst", sagt der Politwissenschaftler Hakki Tas vom Hamburger Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien (GIGA).
