There is a discrepancy and even contradiction between Turkey's foreign policy activism and the polarization of its domestic politics. While the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) keeps surprising everyone with its bold and decisive foreign policy moves, it is losing its grip on the domestic pulse.
While the criticisms of the AK Party government are not new, the disconnect between its foreign and domestic policies is deepening. One can cite a number of reasons for this. One may say that Turks like zero-sum games. Gray areas are too soft to make everyone happy. Either you have it all or nothing. One may say that the stakes in domestic politics are too high and that this invites a torrent of passion and emotion. Compared to foreign policy, domestic issues are more immediate and interconnected. There is also more ownership of daily political issues than foreign policy planning. One may also say that Turkey's domestic issues are more difficult and present bigger challenges. Solving the Kurdish issue or writing a new constitution is much more difficult than improving bilateral relations with Syria or pursuing EU membership.
One may add more to this list, and there is truth to all of them. But one cannot fail to notice the impact of globalization in all of these areas. We have come a long way from a state-regulated and top-down modernization to a process of globalization created, owned and sustained by multiple actors. Modernization was unidirectional, predictable and a privilege of the elite. Globalization is multi-directional, moves in multiple and often contradictory directions, evades predictability and cannot be claimed by a single group of people or nation. With all of its failures and anxieties, it is open to contributions from all kinds of actors, small and big, Eastern and Western, religious and secular, Muslim and non-Muslim, Turkish and non-Turkish. Modernization was a state-regulated program. Globalization invites a serious questioning of such authority claims.
The Turkish people are responding to the new realities of globalization in different ways, and the diversity of those responses leads to conflicting positions. Increasingly globalized world politics forces Turkey to pursue a more active and multi-dimensional foreign policy. Geo-political imperatives call for engagement in all directions and with all actors. Turkey's unique geographic location requires policies of balance. Given the fact that a good part of world politics is run in and over areas to which Turkey is closely linked, Turkey cannot pretend that no such imperatives exist.
In short, the response to globalization in the area of foreign policy is more engagement, more activism, more opening. The impact on domestic politics is just the reverse. More globalization means reforming the system and shaking up the establishment. This, in turn, leads to reactionary politics and a defense of the status quo. The Turkish establishment loves to frame the current struggle in Turkey as one between Islam and secularism or between Atatürk's republic and everything else: religious fundamentalism, Kurdish nationalism, pro-Americanism, liberal pragmatism, globalism, betrayal of the nation and so on.
But this is not only false but also a deflection from the real issues. Reforming the Turkish political and legal system makes Turkey stronger, not weaker. Opening up the state to the people makes people own their state, not betray it. Opening up Turkey to the world makes it more secure, not more threatened. Shaking up the establishment makes the Turkish people more united, not disunited.
Despite the AK Party's recent blunders on both domestic and international issues, the choice is clear: If Turkey is to move ahead in the 21st century, it ought to move beyond the status quo. This is what brought the AK Party to where it is now, and this is what will secure Turkey's future.
