Türk dış politikasının 1990'lardaki bölgeselleşme ikilemi: Orta büyüklükte güç teorisinde sistemik etki bakış açısı

This dissertation aims to explain the compelling impact of the rising regional issues in the post-1990s on Turkey's middle power status through the lenses of the systemic impact approach in middle power theory and the regionalization concept. The Systemic Impact Approach takes systemic influence as the essential indicator of the middle power status and provides an outcome-oriented perspective on middle powers. This thesis first explains Turkey's rise to middle power status as it adopted its foreign policy to the Cold War dynamics and its role at the system level and underlines the limitations of the regional-global nexus in the Cold War context. In 1990, Turkey joined the Gulf Crisis process with the hope of maximizing its impact on the post-Cold War international system as a staunch ally of the US. However, Turkey faced difficulties in influencing the systemic elements and using diplomatic channels effectively with accelerating regionalization and diverging interests of various actors in the region. With the end of bipolarity and sharply accelerating regional security network, Turkey encountered a compelling puzzle in the domestic-regional-global nexus. This thesis will analyze this complex security network and examine how it turned into a challenge against Turkey's middle power status in the 1990s by preventing Turkey from influencing the international system it encountered.