Is Turkey In Search For Regional Hegemony

The concept of hegemony in international relations is generally debated on global scale. In realist theory the concept is deemed as the dominant power which has imposition capacity on other states depending on its material power. In critical international relations theory the concept is defined superiority of a state over the others depending on legitimacy, culture and consent in addition to material capacity through which other states tend to accept the dominant position of the hegemonic power. On the other hand following the end of the Cold War and strengthened hegemonic position of the United States hegemonic rivalry decreased on global scale. On the contrary regional politics started to expose more importance which invited the emergence of regional powers. The rise of regional politics and emergence of regional powers display that the concept of hegemony could be utilized in the analysis of the position of emerging regional powers. The useful concept to define new unit of analysis is 'regional hegemony'. One of the recent examples of regional hegemonic initiatives is the rise of Turkey. Trend of the Turkish foreign policy in the last decade following AK Party rule creates an image that the country is in search for establishing a regional hegemony. Within this framework in this paper firstly the concepts of 'hegemony' and 'regional hegemony' are analyzed within the boundaries of critical international relations theory. Secondly new position of Turkey is discussed with reference to regional hegemony. Main issue is whether Turkey is pursuing hegemonic policies within the region. Consequently it is concluded that some foreign policy initiatives of Turkey represent that Turkey is following hegemonic policies on regional scale. The paper is composed of two main parts. In the first part theoretical approaches to the concept of hegemony is analyzed. In Gramscian interpretation of critical theory the concept refers to the dominant position of a country in international politics. This dominance is not based solely on material capacity as it is got by the realist tradition. In addition to material power the superior position of a country is more importantly based on the consent of others through creation of common culture and common interest. Shared values add a legitimate face to the position of the hegemonic country thereby superiority is not sustained just by physical force rather by voluntary participation of others into the hegemonic system. The existence of