Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This chapter analyzes the rise of neo-patrimonialism in Turkish foreign policy under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, focusing on how external engagement has been transformed into a vehicle for regime survival. Drawing on the concepts of beka sorunu (existential survival of the state) and şahsim devleti (the “my-person” state), the chapter argues that Erdoğan’s foreign policy has shifted from strategic pragmatism and civilizational rhetoric to a fully personalized, transactional order. The failed coup of 2016, reframed as a foundational myth, legitimized an authoritarian restructuring of the state in which dissent became treason and loyalty to Erdoğan indistinguishable from loyalty to the nation. This shift fused domestic authoritarianism with external adventurism. Erdoğan’s alliance with ultranationalists (MHP) entrenched a “flag-waving for survival” discourse that securitized Kurdish demands, criminalized opposition, and militarized foreign policy. Military interventions in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Karabakh were framed as acts of national defense but functioned as tools to bolster Erdoğan’s domestic legitimacy, galvanize nationalist-Islamist support, and reward loyal business elites through patronage. Intelligence institutions, particularly the National Intelligence Agency under Hakan Fidan, supplanted professional diplomacy, turning foreign policy into a stage-managed spectacle of survival. By reducing statecraft to regime maintenance, Erdoğan has produced an incoherent but durable neo-patrimonial foreign policy—simultaneously Islamist and nationalist, anti-Western yet NATO-bound, expansionist yet defensive. The chapter highlights how this fusion of populism, militarism, and kleptocracy has eroded republican institutions, deepened Turkey’s international isolation, and locked the country into a cycle where foreign policy no longer serves national interest but the perpetuation of a single leader’s authority.</jats:p>