Decision-making process in Turkish foreign policy crises : the role of state institutions during Süleyman Demirel administrations

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2019
Kürkçü, Burak
This study searches for the role of state institutions on political decision-making mechanism and leadership of Süleyman Demirel in Turkish foreign policy crises. Having been entrusted as the political decision-maker for forty years of Turkish political history, Demirel has been selected as a unique case because he served as prime minister in both Cold War and Post-Cold War periods, both in single-party government and coalition governments and also both as prime minister and president. By utilizing American archival documents, Turkish Grand National Assembly parliamentary minutes, memoirs of retired diplomats and top political and bureaucratic figures that have eye-witnessed the foreign policy crises in Demirel’s period, as a result, it is concluded that Demirel adopted his leadership in attaching great importance to policy recommendations of state institutions but at the same time filtering those recommendations within the scope of his own political understanding by considering the expectations of citizens. Having identified that National Security Council and Ministry of Foreign Affairs bureaucracy had great role in Demirel’s decision-making process who had been very delicate in conducting foreign policy due to his conformity with traditional foreign policy priorities of Turkey and prioritizing institutions and institutionalisation, this research aims to contribute to the literature by opening up the black-box of Turkish foreign policymaking mechanism thanks to archival documents of the United States and evaluation of witnesses of those crises.

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Citation Formats
B. Kürkçü, “Decision-making process in Turkish foreign policy crises : the role of state institutions during Süleyman Demirel administrations,” Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Graduate School of Social Sciences. International Relations., Middle East Technical University, 2019.