Changing Foreign Policy Norms, Instruments, Style: The Case of Turkey

Conventional wisdom states that Turkish foreign policy is adopting a peaceful approach since Turkey was granted applicant status in 1999 and therefore, Europeanized. This paper aims to test empirically to what extent the change of Turkish foreign policy in line with the EU foreign policy norms and goals, procedures, instruments can be observed at the level of talk as one critical level for the analysis of foreign policy change.It has been argued that under the leadership of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, and his doctrine of ''strategic depth'', the AKP government changed the content of foreign policy by adopting more normative language. However, no attempt yet has been made in order to measure these assumptions empirically. In order to qualify for a change in language, this paper conducts a content analysis of speeches since 1987 in order allow for a comparison over time and test empirically to what extent the change in foreign policy was justified by referring to EU norms in order to test the existence or absence of EU influence. By using a qualitative content analysis of speeches delivered by Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers since 1987, the paper aims to provide answer to the ongoing debate on foreign policy change.