The ‘Ankara Moment’: the politics of Turkey’s regional power in the Middle East, 2007–11
Abstract
Around 2007 Turkey became a regional power in the Middle East, a status it has maintained at least until the outset of the Arab Revolt in 2011. To understand why Turkey only became a regional power under the Muslim akp government and why this happened at the specific point in time that it did, this article highlights the self-reinforcing dynamics between Turkey’s domestic political-economic transformation in the first decade of this century and the advantageous regional developments in the Middle East at the same time. It holds that this specific linkage—the ‘Ankara Moment’—and its regional resonance in the neighbouring Middle East carries more transformative potential than the ‘Washington Consensus’ or the ‘Beijing Consensus’ so prominently discussed in current global South politics.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Turkey forfeited its chance to act as a potential mediator and power broker between the warring factions in the Syrian opposition.
“Turkey also forfeited its chance to act as a potential mediator and power broker between the warring factions in the Syrian opposition.”
From The structure-identity nexus: Syria and Turkey's collapse (2011) (2016) · cites this paper as [10]
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Soft Power, Religion, and Anti-Americanism in the Middle East
Çíftçí, S., & Tezcür, G. M. (2015) · Foreign Policy Analysis · doi:10.1111/fpa.12090 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Dal, E. P. (2016) · Third World Quarterly · doi:10.1080/01436597.2016.1142367 · Cited by 60 · see citing works
On the shores of politics: Sea, solidarity and the Ships to Gaza
Kosmatopoulos, N. (2019) · Environment and Planning D Society and Space · doi:10.1177/0263775818823750 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
The structure-identity nexus: Syria and Turkey's collapse (2011)
Daoudy, M. (2016) · Cambridge Review of International Affairs · doi:10.1080/09557571.2016.1231659 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Aydın, U. (2019) · Regulation & Governance · doi:10.1111/rego.12269 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Hegemonic power relations in real practices of spatial planning: the case of Turkey
Şanlı, T., & Townshend, T. (2018) · European Planning Studies · doi:10.1080/09654313.2018.1448755 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“Most recently, the government’s organic linkages are strongly dependent on these sections of society and they ‘cooperate most successfully within the municipalities under AKP control’, and therefore have ‘vast patronage capacities at [their] disposal’ (Bank & Karadag, 2012, 2013).”
BackgroundThe Shape of ‘Rising Powers’ to Come? The Antinomies of Growth and Neoliberal Development in Turkey
Tansel, C. B. (2019) · New Political Economy · doi:10.1080/13563467.2019.1584173 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
The UN factor in the “regional power role” and the Turkish case in the 2000s
Sever, A., & Gök, G. O. (2016) · Cambridge Review of International Affairs · doi:10.1080/09557571.2016.1230731 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
The Pendulum of Majoritarianism: Turkey’s Governmental Self-Identity and Turkish–Egyptian Relations
Tetik, M. O. (2021) · Contemporary Review of the Middle East · doi:10.1177/2347798921999190 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Turkey’s openly pro-Palestine/Hamas stance required distancing itself from Mubarak’s Egypt (Bank & Karadag, 2013, p. 297), and Mubarak’s Egypt stayed skeptical about Turkey’s regional intentions (Magued, 2016, p. 19).”
BackgroundRegional Power Role and Intervention: The Turkish Case Over Syria in the 2000s
Sever, A. (2020) · Contemporary Review of the Middle East · doi:10.1177/2347798920901870 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Turkey’s “Return” to the Middle East
Altunışık, M. B. (2014) · Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · doi:10.1057/9781137484758_7 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Turkey’s Multistakeholder Diplomacy: From a Middle Power Angle
Baba, G. (2018) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-72365-5_4 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Arı, T., & Munassar, O. (2020) · Gazi Akademik Bakış · doi:10.19060/gav.838831 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Donelli, F. (2023) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4522326 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Israel: The Partial Regional Power in the Middle East
Kappel, R. T. (2014) · Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · doi:10.1057/9781137484758_8 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Baba, G. (2018) · Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Institutional Repository · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Buehler, M., & Schulhofer-Wohl, J. (2021) · Mediterranean Politics · doi:10.1080/13629395.2021.1974198 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“…survival (Brownlee, 2012; Yom, 2016), democratization (Jamal, 2012), democracy promotion (Bush, 2015), ruling parties’ production of legitimacy via foreign policy (Bank & Karadag, 2013), and the influence of international norms on political polarization and opposition to democracy (Zarakol, 2013).”
BackgroundThe legacy of the Arab uprisings on Turkey’s foreign policy: Ankara’s regional power delusion
Dinçer, O. B. (2022) · Cambridge Review of International Affairs · doi:10.1080/09557571.2022.2145180 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“The relative success and unprecedented positive image of the AKP government at home and in the region, ‘ the Ankara moment ’ , in the words of Bank and Karadag (2013), once combined with the long-awaited actual opportunity of the political Islamists of the region in terms of coming to power, mixed…”
BackgroundUnpacking the Domestic Political Foundation of Middle Powers: Cases from South Korea and Turkey
You, C. (2022) · The political economy of the Asia Pacific · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-76012-0_8 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Before the Arab Revolts and After: Turkey’s Transformed Regional Power Status in the Middle East
Bank, A., & Karadag, R. (2014) · Palgrave Macmillan US eBooks · doi:10.1057/9781137484758_6 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Self-citationDie politische Ökonomie regionaler Macht. Die Türkei unter der AKP
Karadag, R., & Bank, A. (2013) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-658-02537-3_14
Self-citationSevin, E. (2017) · Palgrave Macmillan series in global public diplomacy · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-49334-3_6
Turkey’s Nation-Building and the Kurdish Question
Balta, E. (2023) · The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-33444-3_5
BALKAN MIGRATION ROUTE AND TÜRKİYE IN THE CONTEXT OF REGIONAL SECURITY COMPLEX THEORY
Aslan, S. Y. (2025) · Anadolu Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi · doi:10.53443/anadoluibfd.1679421
Forever the Frenemies of the Middle East? Türkiye’s Regional Relations with Iran, 2002 to 2023
Yalçınkaya, Z. F. S. (2026) · All Azimuth A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace · doi:10.20991/allazimuth.1726446
Maritato, C., & Peri, R. D. (2026) · Middle East Critique · doi:10.1080/19436149.2026.2630129
Turcja a dynamika przemian na Bliskim Wschodzie : casus stosunków turecko-syryjskich
Wódka, J. (2014) · Myśl Ekonomiczna i Polityczna
- Authors
- Bank, A., & Karadag, R.
- Affiliations
- German Institute for Global and Area Studies (DE)
- Max Planck Society (DE)
- Venue
- Third World Quarterly
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2013-03
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 287-304
- ISSN
- 0143-6597 (ISSN-L)
- 1360-2241
- OpenAlex
- W2089730152
- Cited by
- 31
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 17.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Third World Quarterly (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Turkey's Politics and Society
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › International Relations and Foreign Policy
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Historical Turkish Studies
- Keywords
- Middle East politics, AKP government, self-reinforcing dynamics, Arab Spring, Washington Consensus, Beijing Consensus, Global South, Turkish foreign policy
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review