The Century of Türkiye

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Insight Turkey has included in this issue valuable research that both reflects on Turkish foreign policy from historical perspectives and looks ahead to the future. This exploration is part of our third special issue of the year, commemorating the Centennial of the Republic of Türkiye and unveiling the vision of the Century of Türkiye. We are confident that the thought-provoking and enlightening discussions within this issue will greatly benefit our esteemed readers.

This review article is based on three books: Starting with Alaranta, a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, Finland, who has already published extensively on Türkiye, Kemalism, Turkish transformation, Türkiye-West relations, and the TFP. Thus, Alaranta’s Turkey’s Foreign Policy Narratives could be depicted as the summary of his typical research interests. Alaranta indicates this book is –to some extent– a continuation of his earlier book titled as National and State Identity in Turkey: The Transformation of the Republic’s Status in the International System (2015).” However, this book could be depicted as analyzing the TFP narratives in an era of global power shifts, reference to Kuhnian paradigm shift makes sense in this context, as well as international and national historical processes of the ever-changing international system. Alaranta’s book encompasses two main parts: the first composed of the second and third chapters, goes through narratives shaping and being shaped by some major events in Turkish history and the concomitant international system of the corresponding era. The second part, composed of chapters four to seven, scrutinizes the preceding ten years covering the relationship between the current global power shift and Türkiye’s role in global politics with reference to the context of the new presidential regime and TFP’s rising activism.