Mavi Boncuk | Article | The Rise And Fall Of The “Turkish Model” In The Arab World by Jean-Loup Samaan[1]
After the AKP gained power in 2002, Turkey’s newly assertive “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy strategy sparked debate in the Arab Middle East. This grand strategy revealed Ankara’s ambitions as not only a regional player, but also as a democratic “model” for a liberal political system able to incorporate a strong Islamic party. Arab fascination for Turkey reached its peak between 2009 and 2010 after Prime Minister Erdoğan’s condemnation of Israel’s military operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. This, along with the Mavi Marmara incident, sparked admiration across the Arab world. Over the last few months however, Arab fascination has been severely tested and now support for the “Turkish model” appears to be waning. This is the result of apprehension over Turkey’s strategic choices in different areas such as the Syrian crisis and the events in Egypt.
Read Article
[1] Jean-Loup Samaan is a researcher at the Middle East Department of the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy.
He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Project on Nuclear Issues of the Center for Strategic and International Affairs. His areas of expertise include Middle East strategic balance and Gulf security diplomacies, as well as cyber defense. He was a policy advisor at the French Ministry of Defense from 2008 to 2011 where he was responsible for several net assessment studies covering transatlantic military affairs. While working for the French Ministry of Defense (MoD), he participated in various French-American strategic foresight exercises with the National Intelligence Council as well as with the U.S. Air Force. From 2009 to 2011, he was also an adjunct lecturer in international security at the French Institute for Political Studies, Sciences Program, and gave lectures to civilian and military audiences in various countries. In 2006, he was a visiting scholar at Duke University, and from 2007 to 2008, he was a researcher at the RAND Corporation in Washington, DC. Dr. Samaan has authored three books and several academic articles for various international journals such as Survival, Orbis, Comparative Strategy, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Politique Etrangère, and Internationale Politik. He is a regular columnist for the E-magazine, Al Monitor. Dr. Samaan is a former student of Arabic at the French Institute of Oriental Languages and the French Institute for Near East in Beirut, Lebanon. He graduated from the Institute for Political Studies in Grenoble, and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Paris La Sorbonne.
After the AKP gained power in 2002, Turkey’s newly assertive “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy strategy sparked debate in the Arab Middle East. This grand strategy revealed Ankara’s ambitions as not only a regional player, but also as a democratic “model” for a liberal political system able to incorporate a strong Islamic party. Arab fascination for Turkey reached its peak between 2009 and 2010 after Prime Minister Erdoğan’s condemnation of Israel’s military operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. This, along with the Mavi Marmara incident, sparked admiration across the Arab world. Over the last few months however, Arab fascination has been severely tested and now support for the “Turkish model” appears to be waning. This is the result of apprehension over Turkey’s strategic choices in different areas such as the Syrian crisis and the events in Egypt.
Read Article
[1] Jean-Loup Samaan is a researcher at the Middle East Department of the NATO Defense College in Rome, Italy.
He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Project on Nuclear Issues of the Center for Strategic and International Affairs. His areas of expertise include Middle East strategic balance and Gulf security diplomacies, as well as cyber defense. He was a policy advisor at the French Ministry of Defense from 2008 to 2011 where he was responsible for several net assessment studies covering transatlantic military affairs. While working for the French Ministry of Defense (MoD), he participated in various French-American strategic foresight exercises with the National Intelligence Council as well as with the U.S. Air Force. From 2009 to 2011, he was also an adjunct lecturer in international security at the French Institute for Political Studies, Sciences Program, and gave lectures to civilian and military audiences in various countries. In 2006, he was a visiting scholar at Duke University, and from 2007 to 2008, he was a researcher at the RAND Corporation in Washington, DC. Dr. Samaan has authored three books and several academic articles for various international journals such as Survival, Orbis, Comparative Strategy, Turkish Policy Quarterly, Politique Etrangère, and Internationale Politik. He is a regular columnist for the E-magazine, Al Monitor. Dr. Samaan is a former student of Arabic at the French Institute of Oriental Languages and the French Institute for Near East in Beirut, Lebanon. He graduated from the Institute for Political Studies in Grenoble, and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Paris La Sorbonne.