Effect of culture phenomena in the formation of Turkey's foreign policy decisions: Northern Iraq issue and Syria civil war case studies (2005-2012)

With the end of the Cold War period, the changes in global politics created the necessary ground for the emergence of new studies on the subject of culture in international relations literature. Culture as a relatively new field of study, the relationship between culture and foreign policy provides the necessary perspective for understanding some events or problems that cannot be understood from a rational point of view. In this study, the influence of Culture on the shaping of Turkish Foreign Policy behavior is examined in the context of Constructivist theory. As a theoretical basis, Onuf's theory of construction and the "speech acts" motto constitute the acceptance that reality is constructed socially. In this respect, two independent case studies were conducted to understand and make sense of the impact of Culture on Turkish Foreign Policy behavior. Accordingly, Turkish foreign policy decision makers' discourses on the Northern Iraq issue between 2005 and 2008 and their discourses on the Syrian Civil War between 2009 and 2012 have been included in the research scope. The researcher used Turkish Culture and AK Party civilization concept together with the elements of common culture (ethnic identity, historical heritage and responsibility, world order and religion) in the analysis of discourses. According to the results of the analysis conducted on independent examples of the Northern Iraq issue and the Syrian Civil Wars; i) culture influences Turkish foreign policy behavior. ii) in the case of the Northern Iraq issue, the same cultural elements are effective both in times of conflict and cooperation. iii) in the case of the Northern Iraq issue, the influence of cultural elements changes during times of conflict and cooperation. iv) in the case of the Syrian Civil War, the cultural elements that are effective differ according to periods of conflict and cooperation. v) in the case of the Syrian Civil War, the influence of cultural elements in times of conflict and cooperation does not change.