Turkey, Geopolitics, and the Age of Populist World-Making

This book explores Turkey’s transformation into an active and influential emerging power under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It argues that populist governance and foreign policy are not separate domains but expressions of a common political logic. Erdoğan’s populism does not simply shape Turkey’s international engagement; it extends into it, producing a distinct form of populist revisionism that reworks regional orders in line with domestically forged antagonisms.

Situating Turkey’s transformation within broader global trends, notably the erosion of liberal democratic institutions domestically and the unravelling of the rules-based international order, frames the core inquiry of this study. This analysis provides a sophisticated framework for understanding Turkey’s foreign policy within the broader contestation of liberal norms, multilateral institutions, and the very concept of democracy itself, raising crucial questions about the resilience of liberal democracy and the adaptability of the international system in an age of populist ascendancy.

It will appeal to scholars, policymakers, international relations professionals, students, and general readers interested in populism, Turkish politics, and international relations.

Spyros A. Sofos is Assistant Professor of Global Humanities at Simon Fraser University. His research explores the intersection of societal insecurity, identity and collective action and, to date, it has focused on Turkish politics and society, nationalism and populism in Europe and the Middle East, urban citizenship in the Middle East, European Muslim identities and politics, and the theory of populism. He has authored Turkish Politics and ‘The People’: Mass Mobilisation and Populism (2022), coauthored Islam in Europe: Public Spaces and Civic Networks (2013), and Tormented by History: Nationalism in Greece and Turkey (2008), coedited Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe (1996) and his work has been widely published in political sociology, political science and interdisciplinary journals