Turkey: forced marriage or marriage of convenience with the Western Balkans?
Résumé
This study deals with Turkey’s increasing involvement and activism in the Western Balkan countries mostly between 2002 and 2018, under the rule of the Justice and Development party. It therefore, seeks to shed much needed light on this aspect of Turkish relations with its Western Balkan neighbors in the context of the broader shift in Turkish domestic and foreign policy under the AKP from a realist-secular orientation to a more religious and active one with its new state identity. Therefore, it also explains the complex relations between religion and state identity. In order to analyze this process, the article explore the actives of various Turkey originated transnational institutions which are the dominant actors of Turkey in the region and the perspectives of the policy-makers both in Ankara and in the Western Balkan capitals.