The analysis of Turkish foreign policy towards the Palestinian issue in the jdp era within the context of constructivism and post-structuralism

This thesis uses theories of constructivism and post-structuralism to analyze the Turkish foreign policy towards the Palestinian issue. Main assumption of this thesis is that discourse about the Palestinian issue is linked to the changes of identities of Turkish governments and principles of Turkish foreign policy toward the Middle East. At the same time, the discourse is a factor that assigns new identities and reproduces existing identities, in addition to its function in producing shared knowledge, social relations and making other actions possible. It is assumed that in the early years of the Turkish Republic, the discourse about the Palestinian issue was weak, and the dominant discourse or master signifier of the Turkish foreign policy was Westernization linked with negative perceptions about Arabs. However, there has been a radical shift about Turkey's sensitivities and affiliations to the Middle East during JDP era. Accordingly, the discourse about Arabs started to change from negative to positive, with domination of pro-Palestinian discourse. First, nodal points of Turkish foreign policy towards the Middle East in each era will be examined using Laclau and Mouffe's logic of equivalence and difference, then their theory of hegemon discourse and antagonism will be used to show that before JDP era, discourses about Israel and the Palestinian issue collided due to the existence of two opposing identities which are Western identity and Islamic identity. While in JDP era this antagonism in discourses dissolved through hegemonic interventions of pro-Islamic and Middle Eastern identity.