Description
Turkey's ascendance and the changes that have taken place under the leadership of Turkey's Muslim conservative government have prompted its policymakers to craft a new vision of their role in twenty-first-century society. This developing worldview animates Turkey's desire to sometimes take the lead with its co-religionists and occasionally challenge its partners in the West, while showing no inclination to become an irresponsible rising power. If it can consolidate liberal democracy at home, Turkey could also assume the role of serving as an example for the newly emerging governments brought about by the Arab Spring.
The cornerstone of Turkey's rise has been the government's ability to foster stable political conditions for economic growth, alongside a foreign policy that balances Turkey's Muslim identity with its Western overlay, including its strong ties to the United States. Accordingly, policies that could tarnish Turkey's reputation as a bastion of stability risk undermining its position between Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. This realization has been the catalyst for Ankara's careful management of Eastern and Western desires and expectations. The result is a new Turkey: a twenty-first-century Muslim power that promotes stability without the confines of a regional, European rubric.
About the Author
Soner Cagaptay is the Beyer Family fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute. A historian by training, Dr. Cagaptay has written extensively on U.S.-Turkey relations, Turkish domestic politics, and Turkish nationalism. He has taught courses at Yale University, Princeton University, Georgetown University, and Smith College on the Middle East, Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe. From 2006 to 2007 he was Ertegun Professor at Princeton University's Department of Near Eastern Studies. Dr. Cagaptay's work has been published regularly in scholarly journals and in major international print media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. He has been a regular columnist for CNN-GPS and Hrriyet Daily News, Turkey's oldest and most influential English-language paper, and he appears frequently on radio and television in the United States and abroad.
Book Information
ISBN 9781612346502
Author Soner Cagaptay
Format Hardback
Page Count 192
Imprint Potomac Books Inc
Publisher Potomac Books Inc