Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment – A Eurasianist Odyssey

by Cengiz Çandar
Published: 25 August 2021 [Policy Series: 10]

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Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment, A Eurasianist Odyssey, is the most comprehensive account to date of the transformation of Turkey’s foreign policy related to its regime change. With first-hand knowledge, Cengiz Çandar tells the story of the emergence of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s revisionist Turkey in global affairs. References from almost 90 different names from around 20 countries, he also reflects how the international expertise on Turkey viewed Turkey.

“Cengiz Çandar has written a thought provoking and tremendously insightful book on contemporary Turkish foreign policy rooted in a deep understanding of Turkish history and politics. Çandar’s insights are grounded in experiences as a journalist and foreign policy advisor. This book goes a long way to explain Turkey’s strident foreign policy today. It is a wonderfully informative and enjoyable read!”

– Lenore G. Martin, Co-Chair of the Study Group on Modern Turkey, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, USA

 

“No one  better understands and  explains “Neo-Ottomanism” than Cengiz Çandar, who coined the term almost 30 years ago, long  before it became a fashionable concept capturing the evolution of Turkish foreign policy. And very few writers can so beautifully weave professional insights,  objective analysis and anecdotal flair. By transcending easy clichés and lazy analogies,  Çandar has produced a definitive account. If you could only read one book on Turkish foreign policy , this is it.”

– Ömer Taşpınar, ProfessorNational War College and The Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), USA

 

“In his new book, Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment: A Eurasianist Odyssey, Cengiz Çandar, a veteran foreign policy analyst, advances a lucid explanation of his country’s increasingly assertive behavior. His seemingly paradoxical conclusion is aptly encapsulated in the book’s title. Çandar’s book is an intellectual tour de force and a must-read for anyone interested in the intertwined problem of contemporary Turkey’s identity and foreign policy.”

– Igor Torbakov, Historian, former research scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

CONTENTS

• Preface
• A Revisionist Power on the International Stage
• The World’s Pandemic Year, Turkey’s Year of Belligerence
• Turkey: The Country to Watch
• Neo-Ottomanism: A Controversy
• A Kaleidoscope of Hostility
• Contestation
• Nostalgia or Restoring Imperial Glory
• Neo-Ottomanism: A Metamorphosis  (From Özal to Erdoğan via Davutoğlu)
• Genesis of Neo-Ottomanism
• The Contours of Özalian Neo-Ottomanism
• Davutoğlu: Neo-Ottomanist or Not?
• Turkey-Centred Islamism or Arab Revenge on Turkey
• Davutoğlu versus Özal: Prelude to Erdoğan
• From Obscure Islamist Scholar to High-Profile Strategist
• “Shamgen” versus Schengen
• Neo-Ottomans versus Neo-Safavids
• Arab Spring, the Game Changer
• From Zero Problems with Neighbours to No Neighbours without Problems
• Sunni-Sectarian and Anti-Kurdish Impulses
• Turkey in Syria, Eurasianism in Action
• Erdoğanist Neo-Ottomanism in Play
• The Eurasianist Diversion: Turkey Marches to Syria
• Syria: The First Move on the Neo-Ottomanist Chessboard
• Blue Homeland: Turkish Mare Nostrum (Reaching North Africa, Gunboat Diplomacy in the Eastern Mediterranean)
• Expanding to Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean
• Interconnection
• Turkey and Greece: Dispute on Maritime Delimitation and EEZ’s
• Greek Resentment, German “Appeasement”
• Reasonable Propositions for Maritime Delimitation
• Blue Homeland: Turkish Maritime Claims Larger than Sweden
• Blue Homeland: “Eurasianism versus the Imperialist Powers of the West and Greece”
• In Russia’s Backyard:  Turkey in the South Caucasus
• Turkey’s Entry into Russia’s “Near Abroad”
• Timid Turkey 1992: Assertive Turkey 2020–2021
• Dual Corridor or the Road to Central Asia and China
• Competitive Cooperation or Adverserial Collaboration with Russia
• Erdoğan and Putin: Observing Realpolitik
• First Turkish Military Presence in Caucasus in over a Century
• Neo-Ottomanist Turkey: For How Long?
• Wars Cost Money
• Turkey: A “Sick Man” That Never Was
• Overturning Conventional History
• The Reckoning
• Searching for New Geopolitical Axes in a Multipolar World
• Turkey’s Hostile Dance with the West
• Differing Views on China and Russia
• The Old Overlord in the New Middle East
• Great Power Rivalries of the “Second Cold War”
• The Black Sea Dilemma
• The Uyghur Case: Moral Bankruptcy of Turkish Nationalism and Eurasianism

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cengiz Çandar, scholar and journalist, is the leading expert on Turkish foreign policy, the main architect of the Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement as President Turgut Özal’s advisor in the 1990s. Author and contributor of several publications in Turkish and English on Turkey, the Middle East and international relations, a co-author Turkey’s Transformation and American Policy, New York, 2000 and The United States and Turkey – Allies in Need, New York, 2003, both are Century Foundation publications and The Future of Turkish Foreign Policy, MIT Press, 2004. His Turkey’s Mission Impossible, War and Peace with the Kurds published in the U.S. in 2020. Çandar is Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS) and Senior Associate Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI).

CREDITS: Cover design by Nihal Yazgan

PRODUCT DETAILS:

ISBN: 978-1-80135-044-0 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-80135-049-5 (Digital)
Publisher: Transnational Press London
Published: 25 August 2021
Language: English
Pages: 198
Binding: Paperback
Interior Ink: Black & white
Weight (approx.): 0.5 kg
Dimensions (approx.): 15cm wide x 23cm tall