Center for Foreign Policy and Peace Research
\nPeacetalk: Young Scholar Series<\/p>\n
\u201cTurkey\u2019s Foreign Policy Roles and Events Dataset (TFPRED): Quantifying the parallelism between role conceptions and role performance\u201d<\/p>\n
Ismail Erkam Sula, Department of International Relations<\/p>\n
13 April Thursday at 12:30
\nMain Campus, G Building, Room: 160<\/p>\n
\u201cAs James N. Rosenau (1966:37) once observed \u201cwe have many histories of American foreign policy but very few theories of American foreign policy.\u201d Five decades have passed since this observation, yet the argument still holds for the state of the art in Turkey. We have many histories of Turkey\u2019s foreign policy (TFP) but very few (if any) theories of it. Even the applications of existing FPA tools to the analysis of TFP remain limited. Observing this gap, the study at hand generates a \u2018sui generis\u2019 method out of a compound of two tools in the FPA literature: \u2018Role Theory\u2019 and \u2018Event Data.\u2019 Proponents of role theory claim that state foreign policies are conducted with an attempt to fulfill the role conceptions that the foreign-policy makers formulate in their minds. These role conceptions are usually identified in decision makers\u2019 foreign policy speeches (words). Event data, on the other hand, provides the researcher with a systematic focus on the actual foreign policy conduct (deeds) of states. While combining these two tools, this study observes the parallelism between TFP \u2018words\u2019 and \u2018deeds\u2019. The study focuses on a quantitative comparison of Turkey\u2019s foreign policy role conceptions and practices directed at five surrounding regions (Balkans, Southern Caucasus, Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Euro-Atlantic Region). The study also builds the Turkey\u2019s Foreign Policy Roles and Events Dataset (TFPRED). TFPRED combines qualitative and quantitative analysis and contains large amount of data that the author collected with the use of two methods: hand-coded content analysis and computer-assisted event data analysis. The data is collected in four years, out of 36.000 news reports, and 87 foreign policy speeches (approximately 238.000 words) of Turkish decision makers. TFPRED enables researchers to observe the dynamics of the relationship between TFP decision-makers\u2019 vision (reflected in their speeches) and the actual conduct of foreign policy (foreign policy events) of Turkey. Such dynamics provide insights on how the foreign policy machinery works in Turkey, so as to contribute to the emergence of a theory of TFP. \u201d<\/p>\n