Partisanization of Turkish foreign policy: shifts in Turkey’s Cyprus policy under AKP rule

This article examines shifts in Turkey’s Cyprus policy under the AKP across three phases of Turkish foreign policy (TFP): liberal, neo-Ottomanist, and nationalist. It traces the transition from support for reunification to advocacy of a two-state solution and increasing economic, cultural, and political interference in Northern Cyprus. The article argues that domestic politics primarily drove these shifts, while external developments – including the relative weakening of Western influence, deteriorating Turkey–EU relations, failed reunification negotiations, and changing Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics – created opportunities and constraints. However, it is the shifts in the AKP’s domestic political strength, alliances, and strategies for consolidating and maintaining power that shaped its responses to these developments. This relationship is conceptualized as the ‘partisanization’ of foreign policy: growing subordination of foreign policy to the governing party’s political needs and survival strategies, enabled by weakening institutional constraints and concentrating policymaking authority in the party leadership.