Turkey is a longstanding ally of the USA and Europe. After the demise of the Soviet empire, Turkey's strategic importance has changed but not diminished. Today, Turkey is facing a completely different foreign and security policy environment. However, Turkey is also undergoing extraordinary internal change. Many established political truths of the Republic's 75-year-long tradition are increasingly questioned by a growing part of its people. Above all, there is the rise of political Islam and the ensuing clash of ideologies between "secularists" and "Islamists" as well as the debate about Turkey's "Kurdish reality". Turkey's allies will have to respond to this development by adapting their policies. Nothing less than a re-evaluation and, eventually, a re-orientation in relations with both the USA and Europe is required if Turkey is to remain anchored in the West. This is a comprehensive overview and analysis of Turkey's internal and external changes. It provides elements of a new American and European policy toward a key strategic partner.
Heinz Kramer, one of Germany's leading analysts of Turkish affairs, is a senior research analyst at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Ebenhausen.
"Kramers Buch eroeffnet die Chancen aur Korrektur zumindest der Fehlwahrnehmungen." -Josef Janning, Internationale Politik, 12/5/2000 |"Heinz Kramer has accomplished the impossible: he has produced an extremely well-written and comprehensive book on the dilemmas of modern Turkey." -Henri Barkey, Lehigh University, Middle East Journal, 3/27/2001 |"As an overview of the dilemmas Turkey faces... this is an excellent study." -Nilufer Kuyas, Privateview, 4/19/2001 |"... an outstanding piece of work- erudite, thoughtful, and lucid. But the book is a must-read above all by virtue of its comprehensiveness and coherence.... It is rare indeed that studies of national foreign and security policy go to the trouble of basing their argument on so thorough an explanation of the domestic past and present.... Kramer's is the best book on Turkish politics and foreign policy to appear for some time. That alone should be reason enough to pick it up." -Carl Cavanagh Hodge, Okanagan University College, European Security, vol. 9; 2000 |"'A Changing Turkey' provides an excellent review and fascinating analysis of the centrifugal religious, ethnic and cultural, political and strategic forces, and the dilemmas of Westernisation, which have dogged Turkey for much of the recent past." -Dr. Oliver Richmond, University of St. Andrews, Ethnic Conflict Research Digest, 12/8/2000 |"The Kramer book is the best book I have read about Turkey.... This work is complete, well researched, and fluid." -George Kaloudis, Rivier College, Nashua, NH, International Journal on World Peace, 3/1/2002 |"[Kramer's book] provide[s] the reader with a detailed and up-to-date analysis of developments in Turkey and the impact of these on Ankara's regional and international profile." -Anoushiravan Ehteshami, University of Durham, Mediterranean Politics, 4/1/2002 |"Heinz Kramer has written a succinct and well informed survey of Turkey's domestic politics, its shifting foreign and security policies, and their implications for Europe and the United States." -Kevin Rosser, Journal of Energy Literature, 2002
