Prospects for Turkey’s Role in International Politics at the Beginning of the 21st Century

The purpose of this working paper is to discuss Turkey’s new role in international politics at the beginning of the 21st Century and to analyse the main political and economic challenges for the country to become a regional power of medium size. The paper has three main parts. The first provides a brief overview of the main characteristics of Turkey’s international relations during the Cold War period. Then it examines Turkey’s present economic and political development in order to identify its basic handicaps and the pre-conditions necessary for becoming a regional power. The final section focuses on the future prospects of Turkey’s place in the international order. Turkey’s international relations after the Second World War were mainly determined by three interdependent factors: (1) national security; (2) economic cooperation; and (3) the country’s full integration into ‘Western civilisation’ through the so-called ‘Europeanisation process’.