Birol Başkan & Ömer Taşpınar 
The Nation or the Ummah [EPUB ebook] 
Islamism and Turkish Foreign Policy

Turkey’s enthusiastic embrace of the Arab Spring set in motion a dynamic that fundamentally altered its relations with the United States, Russia, Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran, and transformed Turkey from a soft power to a hard power in the tangled geopolitics of the Middle East. Birol Başkan and Ömer Taşpınar argue that the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Islamist background played a significant role in the country’s decision to embrace the uprisings and the subsequent foreign policy direction the country has pursued. They demonstrate that religious ideology is endogenous to—shaping and in turn being shaped by—Turkey’s various engagements in the Middle East.
The Nation or the Ummah emphasizes that while Islamist religious ideology does not provide specific policy prescriptions, it does shape the way the ruling elite sees and interprets the context and the structural boundaries they operate within.

Tabella dei contenuti

Acknowledgments



Introduction



1. Turkey’s Traditional Kemalist Foreign Policy



2. JDP’s First Decade



3. The Arab Spring



4. Islamism at Work



Conclusion: Reflections on the so-called Turkish Model



Notes

Bibliography

Index

Circa l’autore

Birol Başkan is non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute. He is the author of several books, including
Turkey and Qatar in the Tangled Geopolitics of the Middle East and
From Religious Empires to Secular States: State Secularization in Turkey, Iran, and Russia.
Ömer Taşpınar is Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books, including
What the West is Getting Wrong about the Middle East: Why Islam is Not the Problem.