The Sociology of Diplomats and Foreign Policy Sector: The Role of Cliques on the Policy-Making Process

Introduction

In a long-term process, Turkish foreign policy was generally reactive and ultimately it was important to maintain the status quo. Attention has been focused on gathering information about developments and reacting only when it is necessary rather than producing different choices and choosing among them. As a result, creativity and tendency of shaping of incidents have been compromised for the sake of certainty and clarity (Memoir 13: 227).

This is how retired ambassador Yaman Başkut described the Turkish foreign policy-making process in his memoir published in 2004. Nevertheless, literature on Turkish foreign policy illustrates that this reactive character of Turkish foreign policy weakened in early 1980s and mid-2000s as Turkey is defined as a new ‘soft power’ (Oğuzlu, 2007) with a clearly defined goal change that spans the period to the uprisings in the Middle East (Cop and Zihnioğlu, 2017). While the theoretical approaches adopted to explain these changes incorporated the EU integration process, and internal dynamics as potential independent variables, there has been an exclusive reliance on rationalist approaches that treat Turkey as a single and centrally administered entity which led to neglecting the critical role played by state bureaucracy since the eighteenth century of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish military was presented as the sole bureaucratic actor pushing for a Western oriented foreign policy, and the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ (TMFA) bureaucracy is mentioned only in general terms as a veto player blocking initiatives of political elites, that is, during Özal’s time, due to its different view (see Kösebalaban, 2011: 12).

This paper is not a study of Turkish foreign policy but an exploratory case study of Turkey to understand the impact of the sociology of elites (independent variable) on the foreign policy-making process (dependent variable) in two periods: post-1980 and post-2005. The paper responds to Khan’s (2012: 362) invitation to revive the ‘sociology of elites’ as a field of study to understand how they control resources and convert them into other forms of capital. The sociology of elites is measured by looking at the meritocracy, political appointments and socio-economic background of bureaucrats. The outcomes are inspired by organisational process and governmental politics models put forward by Graham Allison in his important book ‘Essence of Decision: Explaining Cuban Missile Crises’ (Allison, 1969, 1971). The former argues that foreign policy outcomes are outputs of the organisations which perform their ‘routines’ and ‘standard operating procedures’ (Allison, 1971: 79; Nelson and Winter, 1982: 11–15) . The latter, meanwhile, sees actions in foreign relations as outcomes of negotiations among players active in the national governments and have different perceptions, motivations, powers and manoeuvres to increase their bureaucratic powers (Allison and Zelikow, 1999; Meek, 2007: 350; Michael Clarke, 1989). It is assumed that non-diversity of social backgrounds among bureaucrats limits the variety of viewpoints and leads the TMFA to take position according to its organisational routines. Hence, the TMFA remains a reactionary and status quo defending policy-making actor. On the contrary, given Turkey’s economic development and expanded university sector, the more heterogeneous TMFA establishment is expected to incorporate diverse views and be more pro-active to allow Turkey appear as a soft power.

Data for this paper have been drawn from 17 published memoirs of retired diplomats who served in the MFA since the 1940s and 12 semi-structured interviews with recently retired diplomats, diplomatic wives, and former foreign ministers (see Appendix 1). Memoirs are personal documents that give information on how diplomats experience different organisational norms and culture as well as patterns of behaviour in their work such as interactions between diplomats of different ranks and elected politicians. However, diplomats are allowed to write their memoirs only after their retirement. Therefore, there are limited memoirs published for the period that covers post-2005. Therefore, these data are supplemented with 12 interviews as well as published news stories.

Findings first illustrate that similar to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFAs) all around the world (i.e. UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office), TMFA was marked by strong hierarchical tradition triggered by a career path through elite schools and universities. Both the recruitment and promotion of diplomats were tied to specific career path and strong hierarchy of ranks which includes tendency towards cliques. These factors triggered organisational routines making foreign policy outcomes as outputs of the organisations within the TMFA. Therefore, the position of the highest ranking diplomat, the undersecretary, mattered the most until early 1980s. Thereafter, this hierarchal tradition weakened initially since 1980 and became more visible in the post-2005 period as the TMFA’s elite structure started becoming more heterogeneous. This has led to the weakening of cliques which eventually reduced the impact of organisational parochialism and altered the policy-making process of the Turkish foreign policy incrementally from organisational process to governmental politics. At the final stage, rising political appointments and newly emerging programmatic elites’ efforts on the circulation of elites led to the emergence of a new clique led by political elites. As a result, the foreign policy decision-making process has been politicised as government increased its control over the decision-making process particularly since 2011.

Elite Sociology as a Driving Force for Organisational Process and Governmental Politics Outcomes

The sociology of elites as a research field studies the impact of elites on the decision-making and implementation processes (see Bhandari, 2017; Dülffer and Frey, 2011). Elites are defined as ‘social groups who command certain resources in a given social entity’ (Dülffer and Frey, 2011: 2, see also Khan, 2012). They are perceived to be synonyms of political elites who are elected governmental officials such as ministers, heads of states and governments as they have the authority to lead the politics and activities of the state. However, bureaucrats (i.e. diplomats) and other high level civil servants are also elites as they have significant control and visibility in the making of policies. Genieys and Hassenteufel (2015) recall the findings of the earlier scholarship on elites which highlights the strong impact of elites on policies (Domhoff, 1996; Higley and Burton, 2006; Keller, 1963). Drawing on the insights of this scholarship, Genieys and Hassenteufel (2015) invite attention to the concrete roles of elites such as their skills to design policies, to bring them on the agenda and to oversee their implementation (see also Genieys, 2010; Genieys and Smyrl, 2008).

Elite studies concentrated mostly on the recruitment methods and political careers of elites (see Almeida, 2003; Cayrol et al., 1970; Martocchia Diodati and Verzichelli, 2017). What determines how elites generate changes in the policy processes, according to Hassenteufel et al. (2010), is their career trajectories which help accumulating power and facilitate intervention in the policy-making process. More specifically, elites’ social backgrounds, occupational careers, and specialisations, reputations for policies and shared ideas influence their way of thinking and decision style which in turn help producing policy change. Hence, studies on elite sociology focus on the background of elites measured though their social and economic status which is determined by the ‘schools, families and clubs’ (Khan, 2012: 361). While education is presented as an important component to gain licence to the profession (Gulbrandsen, 2018: 163), it is also an important component for the ‘production and reproduction of elite groups’ (English, 2005; Schleef, 2006; Stevens, 2009) as well as the divisions in society based on social origin (Flemmen, 2012). Drawing on insights from Mosca (1896: 61), Hartmann (2006) highlights that elite families put their children on the right educational path or instruct them the traditions of the profession (i.e. high politics) from young ages. As a result, the ruling class becomes a ‘clique of influential families into which it would be hard for newcomers to make their way’ (Mosca, 1896: 260 cited in Hartmann, 2006: 11). Elite structure, however, may undergo a transformation with the emergence of ‘programmatic elites’ who put forward intellectual programmes to trigger policy changes which alter ‘elite structure and action’ (Genieys and Hassenteufel, 2015: 281).

This paper seeks to understand the impact of the sociology of elites on the foreign policy-making process. Academic literature established a strong link between diversity in the family and educational background of elites, the degree of homogeneity and heterogeneity of elites and the way in which the policies are negotiated and implemented. In fact, English (2005) illustrated how the sociology of the new thinking ignited by elites influenced an identity change and triggered the end of the Cold War. Dülffer and Frey (2011: 2) also noted that elites were critical to drive the process of decolonisation which also influenced the composition of elites. Role of elites was particularly highlighted in the process of European integration. For instance, Moreira et al. (2010) noted that European integration of Portugal was led by political elites alone. Likewise, Bests et al. (2012: 5) focused on the theory of permissive consensus to argue that vital interests and autonomy of elites (in the member states) at the expense of the population were the main factors to drive the integration of Europe. These findings help to develop the proposition that composition of elites is a crucial factor to influence policies and policy-making styles.

This paper seeks to test this proposition by studying how the ‘circulation of elites’ impacted the policy-making process of the TMFA. Two particular policy-making processes are identified drawing on the insights from ‘Essence of Decision: Explaining Cuban Missile Crises’ by Graham Allison: organisational process and governmental politics approaches. Organisational process approach explains foreign policy decisions as organisational outputs determined by organisational routines and organisational parochialism. In this approach, governments incorporate semi-independent organisational structures, each with assigned responsibilities to allow the government to benefit from their expertise when a problem arises (see Barnard, 1938). These organisations involve large number of individuals who are coordinated around sets of routines and standard operating procedures to deal with the problems in the most effective way (Allison, 1969: 698; Nelson and Winter, 1982: 11–18). Hence, while the final decision appears as a choice of a single decision-maker, it actually reflects competing preferences of these organisations, their routines and standard operating procedures (Allison, 1969: 698, 1971: 79). A homogeneous elite structure helps to preserve organisational routines and triggers organisational parochialism which refers to the tendency of the organisations and sub-organisational units to preserve their vital interests (Allison, 1969: 698). Organisational parochialism is further exacerbated by selected information to the organisation, recruitment and promotion criteria, small group pressure, length of tenures of individuals and distribution of incentives within the organization (Allison, 1969: 700).

Failure to resolve a particular issue requires a change in the organisational routines (Allison, 1969: 698) which may be conducted by empowering new personnel committed to change. This will lead to the ‘circulation of elites’ highlighting the infiltration of new elements from the lower classes or the replacement of the ruling elites with new ones (Hartmann, 2006: 13) which leads to change in the composition of elites (Gulbrandsen, 2018: 160). Circulation of elites occurs when bureaucratic organisations are no longer dominated by the graduates of powerful elite schools filled by the children of powerful families but a more heterogeneous group due to the gradual infiltrations from the lower classes. Nevertheless, diversity and plurality is not synonym with their equality (Denord et al., 2018: 280) as the rise and fall of elites are not automatic. On the contrary, the newly infiltrating lower class individuals initially amalgamate into the upper class (Mosca, 1896: 65). Only if certain attributes and qualities of the elites start losing significance, elites will inevitably circulate and replaced by new or ‘programmatic elites’ as a relatively homogeneous group (Genieys, 2010). As a result, as Pareto (1916) noted, formation of the top ruling class follows a cyclical path (cited in Martocchia Diodati and Verzichelli, 2017: 1352) leading to the replacement of one ‘clique of the ruling class’ by another (Hartmann, 2006: 18).

Circulation of elites, and diversity in the elite structure may trigger a revision in the policy-making process of the organisation, as it will be unlikely to preserve organisational routines in the long term. For Mosca (1896: 395), this will trigger greater democracy into the decision-making process. This process can also be facilitated by experience and learning or due to the emergence of new information relying on the knowledge and experiences of newcomers that lead to the alteration of the previous information (Garvin et al., 2008: 109). In this case, members of the organisation should modify their behaviour or be replaced by new staff willing to change (Allison, 1969: 701).

Governmental politics approach argues that foreign policy outcomes are neither planned choices of the government nor organisational outputs, but outcomes of bargaining taking place among many actors with different perceptions, priorities and interests (Allison and Zelikow, 1999). While this approach still recognises the important role played by bureaucracy, it evaluates the perceptions, motivations, powers and manoeuvres of players in the decision-making process against each other where bureaucracy is a part but not the whole (Allison, 1969: 707). Such an approach to the role of elites challenges the conceptualisation of elites merely as shapers but also as veto players that are influenced from other domestic factors such as public opinion but also their own career trajectories. For instance, Hube and Verzichelli (2012: 65) highlighted the emergence of supranational elites or Eurocrats, and brought into attention the fact that self-interests of bureaucrats as the core motivation for their support for European integration.

The governmental politics approach is a pluralist model that focuses on the decision-making process where asymmetries of information and resources become critical for the representation of different interests to participate in the decision-making process (Denord et al. (2018: 279). Its main proposition is that foreign policy outcomes turn to be outcomes of games played by bureaucrats and political elites in order to increase the interests of themselves and their organisations (Michael Clarke, 1989; see also Hube and Verzichelli, 2012). As each actor seeks to persuade others, each player constitutes a veto player towards the realisation of the government’s choice. Recruitment criteria are also emphasised widely. Martocchia Diodati and Verzichelli’s (2017) study on ministerial circulation in Italy has shown rising ‘political personalisation’ and greater intervention of political leaders in the process of selection and circulation of ministers. Presence of political appointments rather than meritocracy leads to the subordination of bureaucratic elites by political elites and increases the likelihood of government’s position to prevail in the bargaining process.

Before the 1980s: Homogeneity in Sociology of Elites and Organisational Processes

Similar to the leadership role of the European national elites in triggering the process of European integration (Bests et al., 2012) in general and Portuguese political elites in particular (Moreira et al., 2010), Turkish state elites were critical to drive the direction of the new republic. Autonomy and the power of the bureaucracy originate from its self-assumed role of protecting disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century by adopting Western institutions and governance structures (Hale, 2001: 19). Known for his work in the field, Shaw (1968) drew attention to the importance of elites’ social and educational background, and indicated that highly educated and motivated students coming from relatively modest families obtained education in the secular schools opened in the nineteenth century and established the new reformist generation of the twentieth century during the Tanzimat period. These elites eventually replaced the elites of 1908 who were loyal to the Sultan (Shaw, 1968: 36–37, cited in Szyliowicz, 1971: 373). Similarly, this was true of French schools in interwar Lebanon as they were forging elites conductive to the French mandate as well as the long-term affiliation of Lebanese elites with France (see Möller, 2011; see also Cousin and Chauvin, 2014). Bests et al. (2012: 65) also highlighted factors such as the role of education, income, and social status as critical to drive positive feelings towards European integration and triggering a ‘feeling of belongingness to a common European space’ (Bests et al., 2012: 5).

Insights from the Turkish case confirm these findings. In fact, in the case of Turkey, the role of Galatasaray (High) School was particularly highlighted in the formation of modern Turkey as well as its modernisation as there was a need for Western educated bureaucrats capable of understanding the Western administrative structures (Lewis, 1961: 120 cited in Szyliowicz, 1971: 377). In fact, Szyliowicz highlighted the importance of two schools with a quote from his friend: ‘Harbiye plus Mülkiye equals Türkiye’. The former is a military academy formed in 1849, and the latter was formed in 1859 to train civil servants for several public institutions and the predecessor of Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences (Szyliowicz, 1971). He has shown that 86% of graduates of Mülkiye worked in public administration; largely the Ministries of Interior, Finance and Foreign Affairs between 1859 and 1949 (Szyliowicz, 1971: 377). Although we do not know about the proportion of the graduates employed in the TMFA, given the small size of Turkish bureaucracy at the time, it would not be wrong to argue that those employed in this period have increased their ranks and have become the determinants of organisational culture in the TMFA. This appears identical to the French club Le Siècle in the twenty-first century France known with its homogeneity with respect to age, gender, education and social background (see Denord et al., 2018: 294–295).

One should keep in mind that these elites have a shared experience of observing the fall of Ottoman Empire, and led the struggle for independence. Feeling surrounded by enemies, they were characterised by ideology, the so-called ‘Sevres syndrome’, and developed a realist and pragmatic approach to foreign policy that sought to prevent the recurrence of history (Koçak, 1986: 394–295). Therefore, Turkish foreign policy became security-oriented, reactive and prioritised the protection of status quo (Karaosmanoğlu, 2004) which is also reflected in Yaman Başkut’s aforementioned quotation (see introduction). These elites believed that protection of the state required them to preserve their institutional autonomy and resist subordination to civilians. These bureaucratic elites included the Turkish Armed Forces (graduates of Harbiye) and the TMFA (established in 1834-mostly graduates of Mülkiye), both of them had gone through Western style secular education. Similar to the role of political elites in driving European integration of Portugal as a breakaway from a dictatorial and colonial past (Moreira et al., 2010: 58–59), Turkey’s European integration is led by bureaucratic elites as a strategy to break away from the Ottoman past.

Taking a closer look at the TMFA, political appointments were rarely the case historically (Interview 2, 2010) which rendered the TMFA a strong, meritocratic and autonomous institution. Nevertheless, there appeared a clear career path to enter the TMFA. For example, when he was describing his period, retired ambassador Kamuran Gürün (1948–1982) emphasised that appointments of diplomats were tied to a procedure, and even the President had no influence except for a few posts (Memoir 7: 154). There was also a widespread perception about the TMFA that it accepts civil servants coming from only rich and prominent families (see Memoir 9: 12; Memoir 1: 204). Nevertheless, retired ambassador Kemal Girgin (1959–2006) rejected these and highlighted that the TMFA was a democratic institution and employs anybody based on merit (Memoir 9: 15).

While the merit-based recruitment system is expected to ensure that candidates from diverse backgrounds can enter the TMFA, this was not the case as there appeared a clear career path largely due to the fact that Turkey had a limited university sector at the time. In fact, memoirs of diplomats continuously highlighted the necessity of graduating from Galatasaray High School or other French teaching schools, to enter the TMFA as a diplomat. In fact, diplomatic wife Melahat Baydur highlighted that her husband’s (retired ambassador Mehmet Baydur) family indirectly and perhaps unintentionally prepared him to be a diplomat, as they sent him to French teaching Saint Benoît in primary and secondary school, and laid the ground for him to go to Galatasaray High School (Memoir 8: 105; see also Interview 6: 11). These findings are consistent with the evaluations of Hartmann (2006), who refers to Mosca’s analysis of families putting their children on the right educational path. From this context, the Turkish case appears identical to France in the twenty-first century due to the presence of a ‘power elite of upper class’ (Denord et al., 2018: 281). Also, a closer analysis of this career path confirms the assertion that holders of economic capital can buy better education to access to this ‘career path’ and reaffirm their ‘meritocratic’ domination (Denord et al., 2018: 300). The inevitable result is a homogeneous elite structure which creates and perpetuates organisational parochialism.

Similar to the central role played by grandes écoles in France; and American prep schools and Ivy League universities in the United States (Denord et al., 2018: 281), these elite schools pave the way towards Mülkiye which gives access to the TMFA. In fact, in the case of Turkey, curriculum of Mülkiye was largely attached to the recruitment exams of the TMFA which led graduates of Mülkiye to be the dominant group in the TMFA (Interview 6). Kemal Girgin (1957–2006) also asserted that when he entered the recruitment exams of the TMFA in 1957, everybody knew each other either from Galatasaray High School, Robert College or Mülkiye. Even though sometimes children from rural areas and from civil servant families could be successful in the recruitment exams of the TMFA, they usually came from free-boarding government schools which paved the way for them to get into Galatasaray High School and other elite schools and eventually to the TMFA (Memoir 9: 28). Hence, Girgin confirms that despite the merit-based recruitment system, there has been a career path to enter the Turkish MFA as a diplomat.

Another factor to trigger organisational routines is the presence of cliqueism which means high ranking diplomats establishing power groups from their supporters in the entry and promotion stages. As a matter of fact, retired diplomat Erdil Akay (1959–2001) stated that when he joined the TMFA in 1959, diplomatic staff were largely French speaking. An attempt by then Undersecretary Fatin Rüştü Zorlu to add English assessment as a compulsory requirement in the recruitment exams have been abandoned when French-speaking candidates became unsuccessful in the exam (Memoir 14: 13, 17, 22) which would disrupt his powerful clique. It is important to note that Kemal Girgin ranked the first in the recruitment exams even though he did not follow the aforementioned career path (illustrative of merit-based recruitment), but he expressed that this made Mülkiye graduates very angry as their clique did not yet get promoted to the rank of undersecretary in the TMFA (Memoir 9: 16, 28). ¹ In addition, former diplomats highlight in their memoirs that traditions of Galatasaray High School have been carried to the TMFA that forged a strong hierarchy of ranks, preventing lower ranking bureaucrats to take initiatives without being led by their high-ranking superiors (Memoir 1: 72, 90). More specifically, it was highlighted that Director of Generals were seen as God in the 1940s when he entered the Ministry (Memoir 1: 88) as revealed in the following statement:

When Deputy Director General Nedim Veysel İlkin, and especially when Director General Feridun Cemal Erkin entered our room, we, including our branch managers would immediately stand up, and greet our supervisors in the ready state . . . (emphasis added). There were hours reserved for signature. We would take the signature book but do not submit it to the Director General without checking the cleared writings. I remember even today with great fear how Feridun Cemal Erkin once hit the table and how he flies all the paper into the air (Memoir 1: 90).

In addition, promotion criteria were linked to collecting score points from supervisors which is identified as a fact or to trigger organisational parochialism as asserted in the organisational process approach. In fact, Ambassador Yaman Başkut (retired in 2003) began his memoirs by stressing ‘Innovation in the Foreign Ministry? What does it mean?’ (Memoir 13: 45). What he implied was that any initiative that challenged organisation routines was not encouraged. Confirming this argument, Günver (Memoir 1: 202) argued that Turkish bureaucracy restrains people and in order to do the job, it is necessary to confiscate the powers. He noted that change can only be realised when a person with the power and budget takes up the challenge and to fight for change (see Memoir 1: 202).

Post-1980s: Weakening of Cliques and Rising Governmental Politics

Diplomats highlight in their memoirs that the composition sociology of elites have changed since 1980s and started to become more heterogeneous. For instance, retired ambassador Kamuran Gürün also stated that the TMFA has moved away from its influential position in all matters dramatically since 1980s (see also Memoir 1: 88). Writing in 1998, Girgin also stated that since the past 8–10 years, there was no such intensive cliqueism and the monopoly of Mülkiye also weakened with the growing number of civil servants coming from liberal schools such as Middle East Technical University (METU) and Boğaziçi University (Memoir 9: 17, also Interview 6). Nevertheless, this change had been realised incrementally rather than dramatically as new elites largely amalgamated into the old elites as Mosca predicted. Mülkiye graduates were still dominant as they were high-ranking first entrants. Therefore, even though the foreign minister was sitting at the highest position of the hierarchy in the TMFA, he or she could hardly alter the undersecretary’s (highest ranking bureaucrat) opinion regardless of the personality and leadership of foreign minister until 2005 (Interview 2). Therefore, throughout the 1990s, there is a coexistence of the organisational process and governmental politics approaches in the TMFA decision-making process.

On the one hand, there has been an acknowledgement that political decisions are taken by the government and the Minister does not need to ask the opinion of the undersecretary on every issue (Memoir 7: 125; see also Memoir 6: 231). In fact, there were examples such as then Foreign Minister Emre Gönensay’s initiative of ‘Mondays meetings’ with Director Generals without involving the undersecretary in the process which paved the way for him to convince bureaucrats to undertake a major foreign policy change, that is, abandoning the long-standing position of handling Aegean disputes through bilateral negotiations with Greece but accepting to go to International Court of Justice (Interview 1). On the other hand, organisational process still appears dominant mostly due to the political instability throughout the 1990s. Then retired Yaman Başkut confirms this fact in his memoirs as such:

This fact was undoubtedly the result of the need for professionalism in the young Republic. This practice was so deeply rooted that the main responsible people were not very much interested in the details of foreign policy and have become only to perform the function of office. However, mutual respect and confidence in the Foreign Ministry was complete. In the early 1980s, this trend was reversed, and the role of the TMFA was minimized in the making of many decisions. The 1990s are the years in which the foreign policy bureaucracy and its experience have been reaffirmed. In 2003, the debate on whether diplomacy is ‘an area of specialisation or not’ has been revived which means that the confidence to the experience has not yet gained a permanent place in minds (Memoir 13: 225).

Girgin (Memoir 9: 98) also criticised the ‘Minister traffic’ in 1990s and highlighted that instability it created led foreign ministers remain in office for only 3 or 4 months, learn the word ‘foreign’ and lose their office before they learn the word ‘affairs’. Hence, foreign ministers did not seriously deal with foreign affairs but delegated tasks to diplomats due to their high level of expertise. This has been similar to the age of alternation in Italy when prime ministers delegated offices to technicians in order to get away the costs in case of failure (Hay, 2007, cited in cited in Martocchia Diodati and Verzichelli, 2017: 1358). Confirming this, Yaman Başkut commented on Tansu Çiller, who acted as Foreign Minister from June 1996 to June 1997 even without ever having to visit the TMFA, and that the bureaucracy perceived itself as superior to politicians at the time (Memoir 13: 133). Başkut challenged the dominant elite structure of the TMFA at the time as he graduated from the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland when the TMFA was still mostly dominated by Mülkiye graduates. In his memoirs, Başkut (Memoir 13: 228) highlighted that decision-making operated according to the organisational routines but what was missing was taking into consideration the content of the subject matter, its relations with similar matters, and the moves that other players could make. Hence, he implicitly asserted that the method in operation was organisational process while it should surely be the governmental politics. Başkut (Memoir 13: 224–225) asserted that negotiations between diplomats and the discourses of diplomacy representatives are not the only factors taken into account. Rather, all decisions are taken by politicians but alternatives listed to politicians are the common decisions of diplomatic interactions as highlighted in the organisational process model.

Post-2005: Greater Heterogeneity and Governmental Politics

Since the early 2000s, and especially after 2005, Turkish foreign policy has gone through a radical change both in terms of geographical alignment and normative dimension (Süleymanoğlu-Kürüm, 2018). The role of elite circulation, that is shifts to the composition of elites, is not sufficiently addressed in the academic literature as a factor to motivate this transformation. In fact, newcomers since 1980s started climbing to top positions along with further newcomers from liberal universities (i.e. METU, Bilkent and Boğaziçi Universities) in greater numbers. In 2010, 24 (out of 100) candidates successful in the interview were graduates of Boğaziçi University. They were followed by graduates of Bilkent University, Istanbul University, METU and Marmara University. At the same time, new private universities in Ankara and Istanbul as well as public universities in Anatolia were able to place their graduates as diplomats for the first time (Tuncay, 2010, see also Sabah, 2010). This diversity is facilitated by Turkey’s university sector in general and the international relations (IR) programmes in particular (Interview 6, 8, 9). Until 1970s, ‘political branch’ (equivalent of IR programme) of Mülkiye was the only programme to train diplomats. However, during 1980s (METU, Istanbul University and Boğaziçi University) and 1990s, many universities started to open IR and equivalent programmes. This trend continued through until the 2000s. Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu (2013: 304) reports that while 42 universities offered IR and its equivalent programmes by 2008, this increased to 109 by July 2012.

While elite circulation was partially a natural outcome of Turkey’s expanded university sector, it was also designed by new elites of Justice and Development Party (AKP) who can be identified as ‘programmatic elites’. While all former foreign ministers were graduates of Mülkiye prior to 2003, the slogan of ‘first Mülkiye then Türkiye’ lost its relevance with the coming into power of AKP whose elites were mostly economists from universities such as Boğaziçi University (as Ahmet Davutoğlu who served as chief foreign policy advisor to then Prime Minister Erdoğan from 2002 to 2009 and Foreign Minister from 2009 to 2015) and Istanbul University (especially the class of 1987) (Radikal, 2012). Nevertheless, AKP’s political elites also adopted further measures for elite circulation. In the TMFA, this process had been led by Davutoğlu who acted as the main architect (so-called ‘Shados Minister’) of Turkey’s emerging pro-active foreign policy even in the presence of other foreign ministers (Yaşar Yakış, Abdullah Gül, Ali Babacan) based on his doctrine of ‘strategic depth’. In doing so, Davutoğlu benefitted significantly from the weakening Mülkiye domination. The new composition of the TMFA was dominated by classmates of Davutoğlu from Boğaziçi University who facilitated the departure from so-called ‘Sevres syndrome’ and introduction of non-traditional instruments such as mediation and economic instruments with the help of Anatolian business elite. Hence, Davutoğlu was supported to implement his doctrine and expand Turkish foreign policy horizons on the ‘Afro-Eurasian’ axis and redirect Turkey from West to the (Middle East) (Bakan and Çimen, 2018).

On the one hand, Davutoğlu highlighted the emergence of a new, more democratic policy-making process as all administrative meetings are conducted in the form of brainstorming sessions to allow everybody to express their opinion freely (Davutoğlu, 2012: 77). On the other hand, this personal assessment cannot be considered as an illustration of taking different voices into account. On the contrary, it is possible to argue that programmatic elites of AKP created a new clique (mostly led by Davutoğlu) within the TMFA confirming the proposition of Vilfredo Pareto (1916) who argued for the cyclical changes in the structure of top ruling elites (cited in Martocchia Diodati and Verzichelli, 2017: 1352). Genieys (2010) noted that programmatic elites intervene in the policy-making process collectively and actively generated new ideas and reforms that help to institutionalise their power with the implementation of their own policies. In fact, Davutoğlu and his team worked to further diversify the elite structure within the TMFA by relying on the inability of diplomats to speak the languages of the countries they served (69%) (T24, 2012) as a source of legitimisation and criticised them for feeling proud for not speaking Middle Eastern languages (Interview 5). This has allowed the AKP’s programmatic elites to employ a number of strategies for elite circulation.

First, the organisational law of the TMFA was changed in 2010 to facilitate the recruitment of diplomats from diverse programmes such as psychology, history and sociology (Güvenç, 2010; Radikal, 2012; T24, 2012). According to then Deputy Undersecretary Naci Koru, this change allowed the TMFA, like any other country in the world, to recruit ‘well-trained civil servants’ from any university as long as they qualified with respect to their foreign policy perspective, reasoning, analytical skills and language skills (T24, 2012). ‘Diplomacy Academy’ is also restructured to encourage diplomats’ to learn languages of neighbouring countries as well as global languages (Davutoğlu, 2012: 13) and paved the way for them to obtain in-service training and postgraduate studies abroad. These efforts aimed at inserting greater heterogeneity in the elite structure to take into account different schools of thought as illustrated by the Deputy Undersecretary Naci Koru:

A significant change in the MFA is the universities that diplomats graduated from. When we entered the MFA, 8 out of 10 people were from Mülkiye. 6-7 of them were promoted to the rank of ambassador. In the past, there were very few universities that could train professional civil servants to the Ministry. This is no longer the case. We can recruit very well-educated young people from Boğaziçi, Bilkent University and METU and many other universities. Those from the same university are inevitably from the same school [of thought] (T24, 2012).

Second, similar to personalisation of politics in the ministerial circulation in Italy through appointment of ‘high flyers’ who have not previously served in lower positions (climbers) (Martocchia Diodati and Verzichelli, 2017: 1357, 1359), AKP’s elites led foreign policy through advisors and minimised the role of the TMFA by relying increasingly on political appointments (Interview 12, Memoir 17: 202). The outcome of this, according to former ambassadors was fading away meritocracy and master-apprentice relationship, politicising the TMFA and turning it into an international communication agency. While AKP has increased its control over the bureaucracy particularly in its third period (2011–2015) (Gümüşcü, 2016: 47), there has been an incremental rise in political appointments particularly since 2001 as highlighted in the memoirs of retired ambassadors (see Memoir 17: 202). The new strong executive leadership of then Prime Minister Erdoğan is greatly facilitated by the size of his electoral margin increasingly since 2002. The end result of political appointments – which increased to 10% by 2019 – was negative according to former Undersecretary Faruk Loğoğlu as diplomats lost their ability to say ‘no’ to things they observe as detrimental to the interests of Turkey (Solaker, 2019). The new mode of governance in the TMFA aligned closely with what Martocchia Diodati and Verzichelli (2017: 1354) noted as ‘Westminster model’ as elites are unified and respond to the party leader who is also the government leader as recruitment of bureaucratic and political elites have become more personalised and advisors were appointed to ‘shadow ministers’.

Elite structure of the current TMFA is more heterogeneous than ever as it also incorporates diplomats even from clerical schools which are called imam hatip schools (see T24, 2019). Hence, the career path to TMFA though Galatasaray High School and other Western-educated schools lost its dominance. As a result, similar to what happened in Le Siecle in France, the social proximity between two groups of elites so as the gap between the individual achievement and elected office in the recruitment and promotion criteria widened (see Denord et al., 2018: 300). As opposed to former diplomats who had diplomats in their families teaching them the diplomatic code of conduct and traditions of high politics from early ages, newcomers enter into the environments which are very different from their growing up styles (Interview 4, 5). This has triggered a new policy-making process, according to what a recently retired diplomat interpreted as ‘Anatolian style’ which benefitted largely from the changes in the conduct of diplomacy around the world where formalism diminished and a more relaxed approach (even in the dress code and manners) started to dominate diplomatic interactions (Interview 6).

Conclusion

Empirical research on the TMFA finds an extensive correlation between the sociology of elites and the policy-making process as the periods of change in the sociology of elites overlap with the periods of change in Turkish foreign policy: post-1980 and post-2005. While factors such as the end of the Cold War, invasion of Iraq and the ‘Arab Spring’ have had impact on these shifts in Turkish foreign policy, elite structure also did indirectly, among many others, by impinging the relative role of bureaucracy. Increasing heterogeneity in the sociology of elites resulted in an incremental shift in the Turkish foreign policy-making process from organisational process to governmental politics approaches. Findings illustrate that until the 1980s, TMFA had a strong hierarchical tradition leading to the subordination of lower ranking diplomats by their superiors as promotion criteria required them to collect high score points from their superiors. This hierarchical tradition originated from the necessary career path to enter the TMFA which passes through Galatasaray High School and other international elite schools and continues with Mülkiye. In addition, cliqueism was widespread and different voices were effectively suppressed. As a result, the Turkish foreign policy-making process reflected organisational outputs in general and the viewpoints of undersecretaries as the highest ranking diplomat, in particular.

Even though this hierarchical tradition and cliqueism started to weaken after the 1980s, the policy-making process still reflected organisational routines of the TMFA throughout the 1990s due to the political instability, cabinet crises and economic problems. Under these conditions, political elites voluntarily delegated their responsibilities to the TMFA bureaucracy due to its extensive specialisation. Along with the weakening of the cliqueism, political elites sought to assume their responsibilities occasionally. Turkish domestic politics has also shifted. Unlike in the past when most Turkish governments were fragile coalitions, Turkey has had a single party ruled since 2002. A greater crackdown was observed in cliqueism particularly since 2005 as the dominance of diplomats graduating from Mülkiye were replaced predominantly with diplomats graduating from liberal schools such as Boğaziçi, Bilkent and METU as well as universities located in Anatolia. This has surely altered the impact that the TMFA has had on Turkish foreign policy and has also enabled the governments to use the TMFA in different ways. The weight of TMFA’s organisational routines weakened in the foreign policy-making process as increasing heterogeneity in the sociology of elites were translated into variation in the foreign policy strategies. Hence, the concept of national interests was defined, interpreted and analyzed more broadly.

Nevertheless, deliberate strategies employed by AKP’s programmatic elites for the circulation of elites and rising political appointments helped to politicise the decision-making process and personalisation of the foreign policy decision-making process by chief executive, now President Erdoğan. Former diplomats highlight that this has diminished the effectiveness of Turkish foreign policy in the post-2011 period. Programmatic elites’ efforts helped to create a new clique of likeminded elites. However, part of these elites have been purged as alleged Gulenists following the coup attempt of 15 July 2016, which also involved three of ambassadorial rank is likely to have another impact in the policy-making process of the TMFA. However, the time is still short to trace the impact of this incident on the organisational relations in the TMFA and its potential impact on the policy-making process of Turkish foreign policy and its outcomes. In addition, the recent growth of presidentialism in Turkish politics has meant that to some degree state bureaucracies, including the MFA, have been by-passed altogether. Foreign policy issues, such as Cyprus and Iraq, as well as personalities, like Davutoğlu, Gül and Cem, have all made a difference in the relationship between the Turkish foreign policy and the contribution of the TMFA.