Cultural Variables in Foreign Policy: İsmail Cem and Ahmet Davutoğlu

Abstract

İsmail Cem and Ahmet Davutoğlu are two important ministers of foreign affairs who have played important roles in shaping Post-Cold War era Turkish foreign policy. This study aims to analyze the theoretical perspectives through which these two politically and personally different ministers understood foreign affairs, and in particular aims to tackle the different importance they accord to cultural variables in foreign policy making. This study claims that in a scale ranging from the pure realist to the pure utopian as depicted by E. H. Carr, İsmail Cem should be posited closer to the realist end while Ahmet Davutoğlu should be posited closer to the utopian one.

Keywords

İsmail Cem, Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkish Foreign Policy, E. H. Carr, Realism.

Citation

Tuğtan, Mehmet Ali, “Cultural Variables in Foreign Policy: İsmail Cem and Ahmet Davutoğlu”, International Relations, Volume 13, Issue 49, 2016, pp. 3- 24.

Affiliations

• Mehmet Ali TUĞTAN, Assoc. Prof. Dr., Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of International Relations