Turkish Foreign Policy in the Interplay between Securitization and Populism

Panel: Political culture and understandings of democracy Populism in Turkish politics has been on the rise with an authoritarian turn of the AKP government since 2013. This phenomenon has impacted not only on Turkey’s domestic politics but also on its foreign policy. This article examines Turkish foreign policy since 2013 by trying to decipher the in-terplay between securitization and populism. It argues that the foreign policy conducted during the AKP period is based on the securitization of some themes and actors along with populist politics and the security framings in domestic politics shape the content of the category of “enemy” in for-eign policy. To this end, this study reveals how securitization moves that have been instrumentalized by the AKP to attain legitimacy and consolidate power in domestic politics lead to unstable rela-tions in its foreign policy. In this context, it focuses on Turkish foreign policy through engaging in a discourse analysis of Twitter posts of the prominent figures from the AKP government in a way to identify how they construct the concept of “enemy” in accordance with their changing concerns in domestic politics.