The last decade has witnessed Turkish foreign policy transform from a status-quo oriented stance to one that aggressively asserts Turkey’s preferences aboard. This structural break in Turkish foreign policy coincided with two significant domestic developments. First, Turkish economy has experienced a sustained period of growth during the first decade of the new millennium. Concomitant with Turkey''s economic growth, the country also took substantial steps towards democratization, an important consequence of which has been the popularization of foreign policy. Turkey has become an important aid donor in Africa, stepped up its ambassadorial presence across the globe, and had a successful bid for a seat in the UN Security Council. Interestingly, Turkey has seldom resorted to the threat and the use of militarized force during this period. The peaceful rise of Turkey as a regional leader highlights the inadequacy of existing conventional theories of international relations. Power-based theories like realism, power transition and hegemonic stability theory foresee an increased use of force when states have revisionist aims. The liberal school, on the other hand, focuses on the pacifying effects of democracy while saying little about when and how states develop and satisfy their need to reposition themselves in the international arena. This paper will highlight the strengths of the Two-Good Theory of foreign policy to explain Turkey’s increasing involvement in world affairs during the last decade. In doing so, it extends Palmer & Morgan’s formal model of foreign policy production to explain how the two aforementioned developments resulted in a multifaceted Turkish foreign policy that (a) puts less emphasis on the use of militarized force, and instead (b) employs a larger portfolio of foreign policy tools. Insights from this analysis can also help scholars to explain the peaceful rise of regional leaders elsewhere around the globe, such as China and Brazil.
