Turkey's relations with the Middle East countries: The rise and fall of the search for normative integration

This thesis examines Turkey's relations with the Middle East countries during the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) governments covering the years 2002-2014. Accordingly, it detects first a developmental progress in the course of relations, and second a failure in the progress. It aims to prove that both progress and failure were the results of acceptance or rejection of the new identity that was attributed to Turkey by the AK Party decision makers, searching for normative integration between Turkey and the countries of the region with the intention of constructing a collective identity, and the interactions established meanwhile. It draws on scientific realist Social Constructivism among international relations theories, process and content analysis techniques, and case study. The thesis firstly reveals that Turkey, in line with its past experiences with Middle East countries, attributed to itself a new identity that recognized the countries of the region as essential others that took into account their opinions on itself and determined its behavior towards them appropriately. Then, the thesis shows that as long as the attribution of identity was accepted by its interlocutors in the region Turkey could carry out an active regional policy towards normative integration, through which it established interactions that activated the causal mechanisms of collective identity construction. However, it demonstrates that Turkey lost the opportunity of normative integration because of failing to keep the acceptance of the new identity. In addition, it brings to light that the process of attribution of a new identity and interactions also affected the culture of Turkey's relations with the regional countries.