13 aggressive stance and readiness for military action incident, many Muslim and Arab audiences in in multiple spheres. addition to his domestic supporters referred to E a a Da , a increasingly viewed him as both a powerful I T rke mili ari ic foreign polic regional leader and a protector of the Muslim sustainable? world.18
A a a Individual leaders have played an outsized role in prompted by the coup attempt, which not only Turkish politics. From the founding fathers like provided justification for the necessity of an presidents Kemal Ataturk and Ismet Inonu to increased militarism beyond national borders, but military general Kenan Evren to modern Islamist also placed foreign policy choices in the hands of leaders such as Ahmet Davutoglu and Erdogan, narrow interests. A full understanding of these Turkish politics is dominated by high-profile choices would, however, be incomplete without personalities. As powerful as individual-level taking into account the changes in the defense factors can be, my research demonstrates that industry since 1980s. The sustainability of they are conditioned by audience effects. In my T a a a -to- research, I focus on how foreign policy rhetoric by long term is highly questionable, however, given Turk I a a the limitations that domestic factors also can audience type: domestic vs. international. Such pose. The rapid weakening of state institutions bifurcation allows a specification of the effects of since the coup attempt, Erdo a owing audience on rhetoric, while providing insight into legitimacy crisis in the aftermath of the 2019 otherwise puzzling divergences in positions municipal elections, the fragility of intra-state articulated by Justice and Development Party alliances, and last, but not least, a growing (AKP) leaders.19 economic crisis one that COVID-19 is already exacerbating risk a clash between aspirations and realities. This short essay draws on an at-a-distance analysis of the speeches Erdogan and former Sinem Adar, Associate, Center for Applied Turkey prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu gave in Turkey Studies at the German Institute for International (in Turkish) and abroad (in English), I and Security Affairs, [email protected] demonstrate that 1) leaders alter their foreign policy profile and political beliefs depending on the type of their audience; and 2) idiosyncrasies
of individual leaders make more difference than
any overarching Islamist political ideology. While UNDERSTANDING POLITICAL I LA I a a a a FOREIGN POLICY RHETORIC IN THEIR NATIVE addressed many challenges associated with the LANGUAGE: A TURKISH OPERATIONAL CODE study of political leaders from a distance, such as ANALYSIS APPROACH the paucity and low quality of text corpora as data,20 automated at-a-distance analysis of verbal
statements of political leaders to create leadership By Sercan Canbolat profiles has remained largely confined to English- language texts.21 To overcome this limitation, I In January 2009, then-Turkish Prime Minister employ a novel Turkish operational code analysis Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of a panel at (TOCA) scheme, which is compatible with the the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Profiler Plus software and operational code I a Da a , analysis research program in the field of Foreign uttered in protest after sparring with Israeli Policy Analysis (FPA). President Shimon Peres. He kept his promise: Erdogan has not partaken in the forum since The remainder of this essay consists of three 2009. As Lisel Hintz notes, after the Davos parts. First, I explain TOCA and underscore its
______APSA MENA Politics Section: MENA Politics Newsletter | Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2020 14 added value in the study of leaders and foreign cost of high-quality human translation exorbitant. policy decision-making in MENA. Second, I account for the need for, and significance of, My colleagues and I recently developed a novel factoring leader psychology in our understanding Turkish coding scheme for leadership analysis, of Turkish politics and foreign policy. Lastly, I called TOCA, to contribute to efforts in addressing a TOCA a T I a the afore-mentioned void in Turkish studies.27 sometimes confoundingly contradictory foreign TOCA allows future researchers to address novel policy rhetoric is contextually dependent on the empirical questions and to revisit established nature of their audiences. insights using a more rigorous and contextualized
methodology. The TOCA provides a handy and Profiling Leaders in Turkish: Introducing a pertinent tool to address the following research New Tool questions, which prove perennial in scholarly T : 1) H T a Since the introduction of automated coding idiosyncratic political beliefs influence their schemes for leadership profiling in 1998, FPA decision- a ? 2) H T research using leadership trait analysis (LTA) and secular leaders differ from those of political operational code analysis (OCA) has made great Islamists? 3) How do political beliefs of key advances with an increasing volume of research decision-makers influence certain high-stakes from seven publications in 199822 to ninety-nine Turkish foreign policy decisions such as the publications in 2019.23 The diminished coding Cyprus issue, the second Gulf war, Syrian civil costs of using automated coding schemes for LTA war, and the Kurdish issue? and OCA which run on Profiler Plus24 and profilerplus.org and advancements in the There are three main utilities of TOCA and non- reliability and comparability of speech data played English coding schemes in general:28 1) TOCA a major role in the development of leadership augments the size of Turkish text as data on which studies within the field of FPA.25 Nevertheless, leadership profiles can be constructed; 2) TOCA is this automatization process, which rests on the instrumental in generating more precise and analysis of verbal statements of leaders to create contextualized profiles of Turkish leaders because leadership profiles, has remained largely a a a constrained in terms of language of text as data native tongue; and 3) non-English coding schemes because the coding schemes can only process expand the scholarship on political leadership English-language texts. By confining both the beyond the Anglo-North American core and quality and quantity of available data, language- contribute to the efforts in decentering the FPA boundedness of the automatization efforts has and, by extension, the International Relations hampered the application of automated leadership (IR) field. profiling techniques beyond the Anglosphere.
Contributions of Leader Psychology in Such limitations also militate against the scope of Understanding Turkish Politics FPA research because most people in the world do not speak English as their first language. Since the establishment of the Turkish republic in A E , 378 1923, most Turkish political leaders have come to million of approximately 7.5 billion people speak power with a lofty vision. For instance, while English as their first language making up only five Bulent Ecevit wanted to see a Turkey "where percent of the world population.26 The problem for humanistic values had preeminence," Suleyman automated leadership assessment tools and FPA in D a a G a T ." general is that many texts are not available in Personalized tug-of-war between certain Turkish English. Neither machine translation applications, leaders, such as the Bulent Ecevit-Suleyman e.g., Google Translate, nor human translation Demirel and Tansu Ciller Mesut Yilmaz rivalries, offer a suitable solution, because of issues that has had far-reaching effects on the country. Heper render machine translation substandard and the
______APSA MENA Politics Section: MENA Politics Newsletter | Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2020 15 and Sayari note that Turkish politics has always S , E a a a a a a - a , a like an average world leader as his three belief Islamic tradition exalts the role of a strong and scores point to a more cooperative leadership in charismatic leader in maintaining order, enables unison. His nature of political universe and personalities to shape domestic politics and strategic direction belief scores featuring his foreign policy.29 Kesgin argues that individual speeches in English are even higher than those of leaders, prime ministers, and now presidents have the average world leader. However, when he enjoyed both legal powers defined by the Turkish addresses domestic audience in Turkish, Erdogan constitution and informal powers derived from views political universe and others in more their personality and charisma.30 By focusing on negative terms and he is inclined to employ more certain decision-makers and their leadership aggressive strategies to accomplish foreign policy traits in media coverage and framing of politics, goals. In his domestic speeches, furthermore, the Turkish media also plays a key role in Erdogan attributes more control to himself in personalizing politics.31 managing foreign policy events vis-à-vis others. On the eve of most elections, Erdogan embraced hawkish foreign policy themes in his campaign The audience factor has become ever more speeches such as threatening the Syrian rampant in populist and polarized political government and Kurds with military operations, systems, with Turkey being one of the primary but those themes are more pronounced in his cases of this phenomenon.32 While the audience domestic speeches in Turkish than in those T a targeting Western and Arab Spring-struck general, the effect may be more pronounced in the countries.33 E a a foreign policy realm due to its double-sided 2012 as the Turkish premier are illustrative: audience, that is domestic vs. international. For a a a a a a a a , a , E a E Ca a a a a a . (G Turkish have been the most vitriolic and willing, we will go to Damascus very soon, and belligerent during critical electoral cycles such as will pray in the Umayyad mosque, too).34 the 2015 and 2018 general elections and the 2017 constitutional referendum. TOCA allows us to contrast lea a Table 1. Da a E a a deliver speeches in their native Turkish language scores in English (E) and Turkish (T) materials at home with those delivered in English abroad in compared to norming groups on state leaders35 the same temporal domain.
Ta 1 Da a E a
Rogue World Davutoglu Davutoglu Erdogan Erdogan contrasting political belief scores conditioned by Leader Leader (E) (T) (E) (T) the audience effect, which are also compared to Average Average Nature of Political 0.151 0.301 0.225 0.315 0.331 0.201 world and rogue leadership norming groups. First, Universe
Da a a a Strategic Direction 0.25 0.401 0.321 0.401 0.425 0.281 average world leaders when he addresses domestic Perception of Control 0.18 0.224 0.188 0.374 0.207 0.302 audiences, but his speeches in English exhibit a regression in all of his beliefs placing his profile Speech N 52 164 30 30 40 40 between mainstream and rogue leadership Years 2014-2016 2014-2016 2016-2019 2016-2019 norming samples. While the decline is evident in Source: Own depiction.36 all three beliefs, his perception of control score fell almost by half in his foreign policy speeches While they hail from the same ideology and abroad. Unlike Erdogan, Davutoglu has a political party lines, the stark differences between command of English and chose to speak in English Erdogan and Davutoglu conditioned by the when he was before foreign audiences instead of audience type are notable. Table 1 above shows seeking translation help. that while addressing domestic audiences,
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Erdogan employs harsher and more hawkish foreign policy rhetoric toward other countries. Sercan Canbolat, University of Connecticut, Yet, Erdogan switches to a much softer tone when [email protected] he addresses foreign audiences in the same time frame and about the same topic. By contrast, Da a in Turkish are more dovish, while those in English have a more KE HA C ALITION: THE AKP- conflictual tone. Consistent with the results MHP PARTNERSHIP AND TURKISH FOREIGN above, President Erdogan uses self-effacing POLICY language about himself populated by modest a a Ka , a zaman Sulta a a a . (M By Sibel Oktay brothers, this destitute person (I) never tried to become a Sultan).37 As Cagaptay notices, the The June 2015 parliamentary election was nothing a a T a short of a watershed moment for Turkish politics. foreign policy rhetoric.38 The incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority for the first
time since its ascent to power in 2002. Surprising The results lend support to the argument that many, the defeat quickly brought back talks of an there is no single monolith political Islamist a a a a leadership in foreign policy and individual leaders politics for decades preceding AKP: coalition sometimes matter more than a presumed ideology governments. Today, many consider the recent of the ruling elite. This preliminary research also alignment between the AKP and the Nationalist indicates the necessity and utility of factoring the Action Party (MHP) a governing coalition; audience effect in the study of political leaders however, evidence from Turkish foreign policy and foreign policy. A quantitative content analysis shows that this is not an accurate description.. E a a Da a in Turkey and abroad also suggests that political leaders are adept at projecting contrasting P R Ta E a disdain for leadership profiles depending on their main a . W a audience. As Kesgin cautions, while the variability T a , a of personality traits can be a personality trait a a a a a itself, further research is warranted to evaluate the unstable and short-lived string of coalition the validity of such argument.39 1990 . C a is a , E a a , a
a . 40 F AKP The preliminary findings from Erdogan and political spectrum, the MHP was similarly Da a unenthusiastic about the possibility of governing audiences suggest this would be a fruitful line of together with the AKP. That same night, MHP research and contribute to our understanding of leader Devlet Bahceli signaled firmly that they political leaders and their foreign policy would rather have an early election than decisions. In that sense, TOCA should be participate in a coalition with the AKP.41 Little did considered as a stepping-stone to opening novel Bahceli know that in the November election later research avenues in leadership studies and non- that year his party would first be decimated in the Western FPA. Specifically, future students of parliament and then eventually splintered, and Turkish politics and foreign policy might work on that a partnership with the AKP would save his such potentially statistically significant a . differences between English and Turkish text corpora and help disentangle the relationship between populism, audience effects, and decision- The AKP-MHP partnership has become the new making in Turkish studies. status quo in Turkish politics since then. In 2017,
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19.10.2016. Accessible at Endnotes https://www.tccb.gov.tr/haberler/410/55684/bu-ulkede-artik-
kimsenin-yaptigi-ihanet-yanina-kr-kalmayacak.html. Cammett and Kendall Notes 10 Göçek, Fatma Müge. 2011. The Transformation of Turkey: i Gile , Micheal W, and Jame C Ga and. 2007. Ranking Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Political Science Journals: Reputational and Modern Era. London, UK: I.B. Tauris. Ci a ional A oache . PS: Political Science & 11 Akturk, Sener. 2015. The Fo h S le of Poli ic : Politics 40 (4): 741 751. Eurasianism as a Pro-R ian Re hinking of T ke ii Teele, Dawn Langan, and Ka hleen Thelen. 2017. Gende in Geo oli ical Iden i . T ki h S die 16(1): 54-79. Gurcan, the Journals: Publication Patterns in Political Science. PS: Political Science & Politics 50 (2): 433 Me in. 2017. The Ri e of he E a iani i ion in T ke . Al- 447. Monitor. Available at https://www.al- iii A icle coded a m l i-co n a e ho e co e ing 2 o 3 monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/turkey-rise-of- co n ie ; a icle coded a egional foc on he MENA a a euroasianist-vision.html. whole or a sub-region, such as the Gulf, the Levant, and North 12 Ba g , Ban . 2018. Yea One: Reflec ion on T ke Africa. Second Founding and the Poli ic of Di i ion. Critical Times
1(1): 23-48. Al o ee T k ilma , Yek an. 2018. Q o Vadi Hintz Notes T ki e. Gazete Duvar. Available at
https://www.gazeteduvar.com.tr/forum/2018/06/01/quo- 4 Lisel Hintz, Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity vadis-turkiye-1-yazilmis-oykuleri-unutmali-bir-devlet- Contestation and Foregin Policy in Turkey. Oxford University kendisine-savas-acarsa/. Press, 2019. 13 https://tradingeconomics.com/turkey/military-expenditure.
14 Adar Notes https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2019/03/13/turkey-
targets-defense-and-aerospace-exports-to-counter-growing- 5 Kingsley, Patrick. 2019. The World Condemns E dogan national-deficit/. War on Kurds. But Turkey A la d . New York Times. 15 https://eraiturkey.com/news/aviation-and-defense- Available at industry-in-turkey/. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/europe/Turkey- 16 T ke : Ne d one of a e o o e o i i h ea e. Kurds-Erdogan.html. Anadolu Agency. 03.03.2019. Available at 6 Karsikaya, Birol Altiok & Karsikaya, Sinan. 2017. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkey-new-drone- Recalib a ing Turkish Foreign Policy After the Arab Uprisings: software-to-spot-terrorists-with-ease/1407978. From Pro-Activism to Uncertainty by Easing Off Ideational and 17 Ginge a , R an. The T ki h Na in an E a of G ea Po e Liberal Goal . In Contemporary Turkey at a Glance II: Com e i ion. Wa on he Rock . 30.04.2019. A ailable a Turkey Transformed? Power, History and Culture. Edited by https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/the-turkish-navy-in-an- Meltem Ersoy & Esra Ozyurek. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Pp: era-of-great-power-competition/. 145-161
7 Ozkan, Behlul. 2014. T ke , Da ogl , and he Idea of Canbolat Notes Pan-I lami m. Survival 56 (4); Taspinar, Omer. 2008.
T ke Middle Ea Policie : Be een Neo-Ottomanism and 18 Hintz, Lisel. Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity Kemali m. Ca negie Pa e 10; A ailable a : Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey. (New York: Oxford https://carnegieendowment.org/2008/10/07/turkey-s- University Press 2018). middle-east-policies-between-neo-ottomanism-and-kemalism- 19 Ozdamar, Ozgur and Sercan Canbolat, "Understanding new pub-22209; Hintz, Lisel. 2018. Identity Politics Inside Out: Middle Eastern leadership: An operational code National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey. approach." Political Research Quarterly 71, no. 1 (2018): 19-31. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; Danforth, Nick. 2016. 20 Stephen G. Walker, Mark Schafer, and Michael D. Young, T ke Ne Ma a e Reclaiming he O oman Em i e. "Systematic Procedures for Operational Code Analysis: Foreign Policy. Available at Measuring and Modeling Jimmy Carter's Operational https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/23/turkeys-religious- Code." International Studies Quarterly 42, no. 1 (1998): 175- nationalists-want-ottoman-borders-iraq-erdogan/. 189. 8 Synder, Jack. 1991. Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and 21 Ozgur Ozdamar, Sercan Canbolat and Michael D. Young, International Ambition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. P ofiling Leade in T ki h. In Fo m Coding in Tong e : Also see Sonmez, Goktug. 2017. The Interplay between Developing Non-English Coding Schemes for Leadership international and domestic factors in Turke s grand Profiling." International Studies Review (2020) online first: strategy-making. PhD Thesis. SOAS, University of London. https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa001 (accessed 3/19/2020). 9 B lkede A k Kim enin Ya hane Yan na K Kalma acak , T ki e C mh i e i C mh ba kanligi, ______APSA MENA Politics Section: MENA Politics Newsletter | Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2020 49
22 Stephen G. Walker, Mark Schafer, and Michael D. Young, communication, May 6, 2018) and Akan Malici (personal "Systematic Procedures for Operational Code Analysis: communication, April 5, 2018). Measuring and Modeling Jimmy Carter's Operational 36 For the operationalization of variables used in this research, Code." International Studies Quarterly 42, no. 1 (1998): 175- see the following: 1) Nature of Political Universe (P-1) Index: % 189. Positive Other Attributions minus % Negative Other 23 Publication figures are compiled by the author from Attributions. Varying from -1 (the most conflictual) to +1 (the https://scholar.google.com/ (accessed 3/21/2020). most cooperative); 2) Strategic Direction (I-1) Index = % 24 Nick Levine and Michael D. Young, "Leadership Trait Positive Self Attributions minus % Negative Self Attributions. Analysis and Threat Assessment with Profiler Varying from -1 (the most belligerent) to +1 (the most Plus." Proceedings of ILC 2014 on 8th International Lisp cooperative); 3) Perception of Control (P-4) Index: Self Conference (2014): 50-59. Attributions divided by [Self Attributions plus Other 25 The coding schemes are available at Social Science Attributions]. Varying from 0 (the least self-control) to 1 (the Automation, https://socialscience.net/ (accessed 3/19/2020). most self-control). Source: Stephen G. Walker, Mark Schafer, 26 David M. Eberhard, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig and Michael D. Young, "Systematic Procedures for Operational (eds.). 2020. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Twenty- Code Analysis: Measuring and Modeling Jimmy Carter's third edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Online version: Operational Code." International Studies Quarterly 42, no. 1 http://www.ethnologue.com (accessed 3/19/2020). (1998): 175-189. 27 Ozgur Ozdamar, Sercan Canbolat and Michael D. Young, 37 English translation my own. For Turkish-language media P ofiling Leade in T ki h. In Fo m Coding in Tong e : coverage of this speech, see: Hürriyet Daily News E do an: Developing Non-English Coding Schemes for Leadership B faki hi bi aman l an olman n ga e inde olmad Profiling." International Studies Review (2020) online first: available at https://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/erdogan-bu- https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa001 (accessed 3/19/2020). fakir-hicbir-zaman-sultan-olmanin-gayretinde-olmadi 28 Klaus Brummer and et al., "Coding in Tongues: Developing (accessed 03/20/2020). Non-English Coding Schemes for Leadership 38 Soner Cagaptay, The New Sultan: Erdogan and the Crisis of Profiling." International Studies Review (2020) online first: Modern Turkey. (London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing 2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa001 (accessed 3/19/2020). 39 Ba i Ke gin, "T ke E dogan: Leade hi S le and 29 Metin Heper and Sabri Sayari, (eds). Political Leaders and Foreign Policy Audiences." Turkish Studies 21, no. 1 (2020): Democracy in Turkey. (Lanham, MD: Lexington 56-82. Books 2002). 30 Ba i Ke gin, "T ke E dogan: Leadership Style and Oktay Notes Foreign Policy Audiences." Turkish Studies 21, no. 1 (2020): 56-82. 40 E do an: Koali on k b , ( E dogan: Coali ion i 31 See the following works for further insights: Ali F. Demir, nigh ma e ) Al Jazeera, April 19, 2015. Turk Dis Politikasi nda Liderler (Leaders in Turkish Foreign http://www.aljazeera.com.tr/haber/erdogan-koalisyon- Policy). (Istanbul: Baglam Yayinlari 2007); Baris Kesgin, kabustur "Leadership Traits of Turkey's Islamist and Secular Prime 41 Bah eli koali ona ka la ka a 'e ken e im' dedi, Ministers." Turkish Studies 14, no. 1 (2013): 136-157. ( Bahceli h he doo on he coali ion, called for early 32 See, for example, Oksan Bayulgen, Ekim Arbatli and Sercan elec ion ) Cumhuriyet, June 8, 2015. Canbolat. "Elite Survival Strategies and Authoritarian Reversal http://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/bahceli-koalisyona- in Turkey." Polity 50, no. 3 (2018): 333-365 and Baris Kesgin, kapilari-kapatti-erken-secim-dedi-294061 "T ke E dogan: Leade hi S le and Fo eign Polic 42 Fo an e cellen o e ie , ee Selim Ko , In T ke , Audiences." Turkish Studies 21, no. 1 (2020): 56-82. E dogan I S ill Calling All he Sho , Foreign Policy, 2019. 33 Rece Ta i E dogan, T m I Righ on S ia. T ke https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/29/in-turkey-erdogan-is- Can Ge he Job Done. New York Times January 7, still-calling-all-the-shots-bahceli-mhp-akp/ 2019. 43 Ko , Sho . See al o Kemal Ki i ci and K a Ona li, In https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/opinion/erdogan- T ke , E do an and hi AKP mble, Brookings Institute, turkey-syria.html (accessed 3/22/2020). April 2, 2019. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from- 34 Translation my own. For English-language coverage of this chaos/2019/04/02/in-turkey-erdogan-and-his-akp-stumble/ speech, see: Hürriyet Daily News, P emie o to pray in Some political scientists use more nuanced language and call Dama c mo e oon, a ailable a the AKP-MHP partnership an alliance or an electoral coalition, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/premier-vows-to-pray-in- ee Be k E en and Sebnem G m c , Killing Com e i i e damascusmosque-soon-29505 (accessed 04/10/2020). A ho i a iani m Sof l : The 2019 Local Elec ion in T ke , 35 The norming sample scores on rogue and average world South European Society and Politics 24, no. 3 (2019): 317-342. leaders are courtesy of Stephen Benedict Dyson (personal 44 Selim Sa ak, E dogan Wo Enem I Hi Onl All , Foreign Policy, 2019. ______APSA MENA Politics Section: MENA Politics Newsletter | Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2020