The transformation of neo-ottomanism under justice and development party (JDP) rule in Turkey (2002-2022): the Central Asian vector

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Цитирование. Мармонтова Т. В., Жиенбаев М. Б., Васенёва Е. А. Трансформация политики неоосманиз-ма в годы правления Партии справедливости и развития в Турции (2002–2022 гг.): центральноазиатский вектор // Вестник Волгоградского государственного университета. Серия 4, История. Регионоведение. Международные отношения. – 2023. – Т. 28, № 3. – С. 178–186. – (На англ. яз.). – DOI:

Introduction. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of independent Turkic republics in 1991, Central Asia became a major direction in Turkish foreign policy. One of the tasks of the Justice and Development Party, whose leader, as you know, is the current head of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was to fill the power vacuum characteristic of the political situation in the newly independent states in Central Asia. The changes in the political situation in the region partly coincided with the internal transformations of the Turkish political system, where the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) has been in power since 2002. This transformation at the junction of foreign and domestic policy became the basis for a gradual change in foreign policy behavior in the 2010s, which became increasingly proactive, anti-western, and multilateral [20, р. 3052; 23].

Having won the December 2002 elections, the AKP combined economic liberalism with political conservatism, in which Islam played a key role. The party’s approach represented a new, intermediate option between Kemalist secularism and Islamism. As L. Gontingio emphasizes, the AKP “used Islam as a means to consolidate support and also relied on nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire to rebuild the national identity of the country” [16, рр. 6-9] having achieved, as a result, an increase in the country’s position in the international arena. The party itself is the last and most successful organization of the Islamist Movement of the national outlook (Milli Görüş Hareketi, MGH), which determines its predisposition to appeal not only to common ethno-national but also religious grounds [32, р. 1815].

Traditionally, the neo-Ottoman rhetoric of the AKP emphasized the common cultural heritage, Islamic ideology, and economic pragmatism [16, p. 3], which largely explains its attractiveness for the countries of Central Asia.

Purpose of the work is to carry out monitoring of the process of transformation of neo-Ottomanism policy in the Republic of Turkey in 2002–2022.

The subject of the work is the Central Asian vector of Turkey’s foreign policy during the rule of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey.

Methods. The research is based on a systematic approach and the principle of scientific objectivity. The article used comparative and evaluative methods, including case studies, which made it possible to show the process of transformation of the neo-Ottomanist policy in the Central Asian direction of Turkey’s foreign policy.