Turkey's Engagement with Its Neighborhood: A "Synthetic" and Multidimensional Look at Turkey's Foreign Policy Transformation

This article argues that a synthetic look at different dimensions of Turkey's engagement of its neighborhood, be it movement of people, civil society interactions and economic exchanges, offers a better understanding of both the broader context within which Turkey's foreign policy is changing and the precise modalities through which this transformation is taking place. This engagement offers a range of opportunities from assisting neighboring countries, including the Arab world, to reform and modernize economically as well as politically to nudging the neighborhood to seek greater interdependence, dialog and cooperation. This would be promising in terms of "win-win" outcomes for Turkey, the European Union (EU) and the region. Such an interdependent and integrated neighborhood around Turkey could unleash economic, social and political processes that may eventually lead to a "democratic peace" in the region even if it might be in the very distant future. However, a number of tough challenges from reinvigorating democratization in Turkey and revitalizing EU-Turkish relations to stubborn regional conflicts would have to be addressed. Governments as well as civil society, academia and the think-tank world ought to start to think about what to do with these challenges.