On October 29, Türkiye celebrated its centennial year as a republic to much fanfare. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s reforms to establish a modern, secular nation-state modeled after industrialized Western countries have long shaped the country’s identity. But over the past two decades, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his socially conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) have transformed Türkiye’s self-image to one focused on deep-seated religious traditions and its break from the past. The civilizational discourse he has championed views Türkiye more as the leader of the Islamic world on the back of a romanticized narrative of the country’s Ottoman past.
As a result, at the dawn of its second century, the Turkish Republic finds itself at a crossroads. It faces deep societal divisions about major aspects of its identity, with consequences for its future role as an international actor and a regional power—especially in relation to the scope and nature of its engagement with the West. The path it chooses to pursue will have wide-ranging implications, especially in the areas of foreign policy, democratic standards, and economic policy.
A Changing Foreign Policy Mindset
Türkiye has always been a pivotal actor at the intersection of two continents. It emerged from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, shouldering a complex historical legacy with many neighboring nations and laden with challenges and opportunities.
For its first eight decades, the Turkish Republic sought to anchor its foreign policy in the West. It achieved membership in Western-led political-security institutions such as NATO, the Council of Europe, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It sought membership in the EU.
However, these decades were not devoid of friction. The administration of former U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson gave an ultimatum to Ankara at the peak of the Cyprus crisis in 1964, warning Türkiye against potential bilateral and regional consequences of its intervention in Cyprus. Washington then imposed an arms embargo against its NATO ally in the wake of its armed intervention in Cyprus in 1974. The relationship with Europe also was difficult, with Türkiye falling ever distant from the moving goalposts set for its EU accession. Yet despite these obstacles, Turkish foreign policy elites have not questioned this direction of travel. The Kemalist generation firmly believed that Türkiye had to earn its rightful place within the community of Western nations to fulfill Atatürk’s ideal. In his authoritative biography on Atatürk, Andrew Mango stresses that this belief was not about imitating the West but participation in a universal civilization. The relationship with the West also transformed Turkish society with an emphasis on “laicité,” overhauling gender relations and women’s empowerment.
This understanding came under challenge when Erdoğan and the AKP came to power in 2002. They had a different interpretation of the country’s historical mission and believed that blind pursuit of the previous generation to anchor Türkiye in the West had curtailed the country’s progress. They began to conceptualize and implement a new strategic autonomy, with a new framing: that the West would never accept Türkiye as its own, and the country was the proud hereditary of an Islamic and Ottoman past, which dictated a different role for modern Türkiye.
Getty Images
In the past decade, the interaction of foreign and domestic policies pursued by Ankara has tended to reinforce the prospect of a real break. As things stand, Türkiye is under the monitoring procedure at the Council of Europe for failure to implement key rulings of the European Court of Human Rights. In 2017, it became the only NATO country to purchase a strategic weapons system from Russia, triggering U.S. sanctions. Its accession talks with the EU came to a hard stop on account of regional disputes with Greece and Cyprus, as well as the erosion of democratic standards.
The West is also responsible for this strategic and historic failure. The negative impact of the continuing U.S. support to the PKK-affiliated YPG in Syria has greatly undermined the popular perception of Washington as an ally of Ankara. The double standard of the EU to accept Cyprus as a member in 2004 with its ongoing political division has been instrumental in stalling Türkiye-EU relations. The latter situation was compounded when former French president Nicolas Sarkozy openly challenged Türkiye’s eligibility for EU membership, barely two years after Paris had given its assent for this same prospect. The refusal came at a time when political and economic reforms were in full swing in Türkiye, sustained by the ultimate objective of EU accession.
Against this backdrop, the true nature of the future engagement between Türkiye and the West will be determined by three interrelated dynamics: Ankara’s political will to redress its increasingly deep democracy and rule-of-law shortcomings; the success of its economic alignment with its main economic, commercial, and technology partners; and the emergence of a common and lasting vision to jointly address long-term geopolitical challenges.
A Waning Democracy
Türkiye’s democratic norms reached their peak as the country was preparing for its EU accession talks. Back in 2004, Ankara had sufficiently fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria to compel EU capitals to greenlight the accession talks. But as the negotiations faltered, political reform dynamics were gradually undermined.
The democratic backsliding accelerated in 2017, after voters approved a constitutional amendment that created an excessively centralized governance system devoid of real checks and balances. Türkiye’s government apparatus became extensively politicized under the new executive presidential system, debilitating its ability to prioritize professional responsibilities over political loyalty. In parallel, Parliament and independent agencies underwent a significant erosion of their scrutinizing roles.
This transition occurred against the background of security challenges that left an indelible mark on Erdoğan and his political cadres: first, the Gezi protests of 2013, and then, the attempted coup of 2016. The existential nature of both experiences triggered heavy-handed changes that diminished the space for dissent and freedom of expression. The critical balance between restrictive policies driven by security concerns and the need to protect fundamental freedoms was determinedly altered in favor of the former.
Yet, in the second century of the republic, other factors may induce Türkiye’s political leadership to reconsider the need for democratic reforms and an enhancement of its rule-of-law practices. This includes the expectations of younger generations, who constitute the majority of the population. Moreover, economic necessities may be an even stronger catalyst. Questions over the independence of the judiciary and the state of the rule of law in the country impede Türkiye’s ability to attract foreign investors. This is a critical deficiency, as the country struggles to manage severe economic hardship.
A Rising Economy
Economic realities could indeed act as a convergence factor. At the end of its first century, Türkiye has become a significant regional industrial and economic powerhouse. The first set of critical reforms that fueled this transformation were adopted in 1980, when it jettisoned its import substitution strategy to adopt an export-oriented growth outlook. The comprehensive IMF-backed reforms of 2001–2 overhauled economic governance and strengthened Türkiye’s sustainable development prospects. This economic success story was supported by a large domestic market marked with a young population (median age thirty-three) and an open-trading regime crowned by a trade integration with the EU.
Getty Images
For the next century, the main challenge facing Turkish policymakers is that of low economic productivity, alternatively called the medium income trap. This conundrum can only be addressed by a comprehensive set of structural reforms, which have been largely missing in the last decade under the Erdoğan rule.
The goal for the next generation of Turkish political leaders should be much broader than just productivity-enhancing economic reforms. Any lasting adjustments can only succeed if the government can address its deep-seated deficiencies related to the rule of law, free and fair competition, a modern education system, and the eradication of corruption. Against this backdrop, the long-term trajectory of the Turkish economy will be determined by whether the country’s leadership can credibly commit itself to these required reforms.
A critical success factor in that respect will be the prospect of a strong engagement of its main economic partners: the liberal OECD economies. Being an open economy, Türkiye displays high economic interdependence with them. Half of its exports go to Europe, which is also the origin of more than 70 percent of its foreign direct investment. These links are crucial for Türkiye’s technology imports, furthering the need for a consolidation of a nonconfrontational and forward-looking political relationship with these states. The ability of the political leadership to draw lessons from its governance failures of the past decade and reformulate Türkiye’s international role in a way that is compatible with its further economic integration with the West will determine the country’s long-term economic track record.
The Prospect of a New Deal
Now, at the centenary of the republic, the core question is whether the Turkish leadership will continue to push its policy autonomy, possibly leading to a collapse of the country’s institutional relations with the West, or whether a lasting rapprochement can be envisaged.
Türkiye’s political and institutional entanglement with the West has been a core legacy of its first hundred years. Now, this relationship is fraying as a result of major divergences on regional and even global challenges ranging from the Israel-Hamas war and the Russia-Ukraine war to climate, the international trading system, migration, and more. The combination of its geography, economic development, accumulated frustrations with Europe and the United States, and the ideological proclivities of its political leadership have aligned Türkiye more with the sensitivities of the Global South. Left unchecked, this trend could indeed herald a structural break in Türkiye’s relations with the West, which in many ways would define the character of its second century.
An increasingly isolated and nonaligned Türkiye will face more complex regional security and economic development challenges, with no real alternatives outside the Western community of nations to sustain its growth model. The economic systems of its Global South partners cannot provide the necessary trade, finance, investment, and technological linkages that Türkiye needs. This predicament may act as a disincentive for a deeper and more lasting alienation of Türkiye from the Western liberal order.
Ultimately, the Turkish polity will be forced to reconceptualize Türkiye’s role in the multipolar world. In so doing, it may support policies designed to adapt viewpoints that may accelerate its non-Western orientation. However, a renewed engagement with the West is also possible, based on the mutual understanding that Türkiye can be a key partner of liberal democracies in their bid to overcome structural geopolitical challenges ranging from the rise of China to prevailing threats to European security.
In its second century, Türkiye’s international orientation can be shaped by the prospect of a “new deal” between Türkiye and the West that could reposition Ankara as a critical pillar of the Western policy response to a shared set of challenges. Its positioning may contribute to the shaping of a Western agenda that is more sensitive to the priorities of the Global South, which could create a revitalized Western alliance that is better equipped to respond to a cornucopia of regional and global challenges.
