The paper explores the role and peculiarities of the populism in the
modern foreign policy of the Republic of Turkey. Populism became
especially popular in Turkey’s foreign policy discourse when the Justice
and Development Party came to power in 2002 and R.T. Erdoğan as
President in 2014. Special attention is paid to R.T. Erdoğan’s populist
statements made in the context of the key foreign policy ideologies -
Neo-Ottomanism, Neo-Panturkism and Islamism. The propaganda of
Neo-Ottoman ideas is aimed at restoring Turkey to its former Imperial
greatness. The ultimate goal of Turkey’s populism in Turkic states is to
form a new Turkish-centric subsystem of international relations - the
“Turkic world”. Turkey’s Islamic populism within the country is
primarily aimed at the conservative part of the population and at the
world Islamic community on the international arena. The main task of
such populism is the gradual abandonment of the principles of M.K.
Ataturk and the secularism, as well as the formation of public opinion
that Ankara is the center of the Islamic world. The author comes to the
conclusion that Turkey’s populism is quite effective and assists the
ruling elite in achieving its foreign policy goals. In many ways, the
success of Turkey’s populism depends on the competent policy of its
implementation by R.T. Erdoğan - a classic example of an Eastern
politician with a charismatic type of leadership. However, the situation
may change significantly in case of the power change in Turkey,
emergence of a new leader and, consequently, new populist mechanisms.