Turkey

This chapter conceptualizes Turkey as a hybrid regional power: a multidimensional actor whose military, economic, and symbolic reach has expanded considerably, but whose aspirations remain constrained by domestic and regional vulnerabilities.

About the Chapter

This chapter reconsiders Turkey’s place in contemporary regional politics through the volume’s post-sovereignty framework. It traces the country’s transformation from a cautious, Western-oriented, status quo actor into an assertive regional power capable of mobilizing military force, economic instruments, development initiatives, energy diplomacy, and civilizational narratives across multiple arenas. Rather than locating Turkey within the conventional binary between great powers and small states, the chapter conceptualizes it as a hybrid regional power: fully sovereign and capable of projecting sustained influence, yet unable to convert visibility and activism into consolidated regional leadership. Examining military capacity and regional interventions, economic statecraft and strategic access, ideational and cultural influence, and multilateral engagement, the chapter identifies the sources of Turkey’s growing regional reach while foregrounding the constraints imposed by economic vulnerability, democratic erosion, regional rivalry, and geopolitical overextension. Turkey thus emerges as an influential but contested power: present across multiple domains of regional politics, yet hegemonic in none.

Contribution

• Conceptualizing Turkey as a hybrid regional power.
• Providing a multidimensional account of regional influence.
• Explaining the limits of regional leadership.