A Literature Review: Turkey’s Role as a Peacekeeper in the Western Balkans

Since the 1990s, Turkey’s engagement in the Western Balkans has evolved from military participation in UN’s peacekeeping missions to a multidimensional foreign policy encompassing diplomacy, economic cooperation, investments, cultural and religion related activities. This evolution process brought up diverse scholarly interpretations ranging from institutional analyses of peacekeeping contributions to constructivist critiques of identity politics. At first glance, literature seems divided between Turkish sourced, peacekeeping focused explanations and European sourced “Neo-Ottomanism" arguments. Since the topic is currently active in international politics, it is possible to adopt this false categorisation with personal bias. But through further research and inspection, another categorisation of publications or approaches can be accomplished. Rather than a binary division, the literature clusters around three overlapping approaches.

1. Institutional Approach: Focused on Turkey’s contributions to the peacekeepingoperations of United Nations. Explains the peacekeeping role through securitycooperation and proactive participation in international institutions.
   

2. Constructivist/Identity Driven Approach: Focused on discourse, symbolism andTurkey’s cultural and religious activities in the region. Explains Turkey’s role as arevisionist actor rather than a peacekeeper.
   

3. Realist/Geostrategic Approach: Interprets Turkey’s policies and activities withinregional power dynamics and international competition.

1. The Institutional Approach: Turkey as a Cooperative and Peacekeeper Actor

The institutional approach focuses on Turkey’s material and organisational contributionsto stability and peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia. Early studies describe Turkey’s peacekeeping participation as a continuation of its NATO identity and alliance commitments (Oğuzlu and Güngör, 2006; Güngör, 2007). Turkey’s participation in SFOR and KFOR, stressing military professionalism and multilateral coordination.

Subsequent studies extend this focus beyond battlefield activity to broader peace supporting mechanisms (Oğuz, 2016). Other studies detail Turkey’s engagement in reconstruction, civil-military cooperation and post-conflict institution building (Sazak and Özkan, 2016; Çoşkun, 2021). Their methodologies combine document analysis with elite interviews, thus they produce empirically grounded record of peace operations.

Later studies within this approach either compile the whole participation since 90s and descriptively explain Turkey’s activities in the region and connecting them to current political situation (Şenel, 2024) or praising and crediting Turkey’s role for peacekeeping and stability in the Western Balkans (Sofos, 2024). While most of these studies depict Turkey as a cooperative peacekeeper motivated by alliance solidarity and regional stabilization (Oğuzlu and Güngör, 2006; Sazak and Özkan, 2016; Oğuz, 2016; Çoşkun, 2021; Şenel, 2024), others depict it as a pragmatic peacekeeper motivated by status recognition (Güngör, 2007; Kumek, 2023; Sofos, 2024).

2. The Constructivist Approach: Neo-Ottomanism and Soft Power

Another approach within the literature interprets Turkey’s activism through the lens of identity and discourse. The term Neo-Ottomanism, which is popularized in both academic and policy debates, allegedly captures how historical and cultural references influence contemporary foreign policy narratives. Authors such as Baklacıoğlu (2015) and Türkeş (2016) argue that Ottoman heritage functions as a symbolic resource linking Turkey’s domestic identity construction with its regional diplomacy. Implementing discourse and content analysis, they trace speeches, cultural programs and educational initiatives that frame Turkey as a natural actor in its former imperial geography.

This approached developed a domination within the literature after 2016. Several publications claim that the coup attempt in 2016 and then the referendum in 2017, which brought the presidential system to Turkey, rapidly shifted Turkey to authoritarianism (Alpan and Öztürk, 2022). Subsequently, Turkey’s foreign policy shifted to Neo-Ottomanism and de-Europeanisation initiated or increased in the foreign policy (Albayrak and Turan, 2016; Ergin and Karakaya, 2017; Yavuz, 2020; Hazır, 2022). Before 2016, “Turkey’s return to the Western Balkans” was the main narrative of this approach, it is in some means the predecessor of Neo-Ottomanism narrative. Neo-Ottomanism also studied with interdisciplinary methods with Sociology and Political Science (Karakaya, 2025).

There are also works arguing that the practices evaluated as Neo-Ottomanism are a label rather than a constructivist ideology, a label used by Turkey to enhance its growing visibility in religious, cultural and media spheres, thus compete with other actors in the region for regional status (Lika, 2015; Dursun-Özkanca, 2016, 2019). These works also overlaps with the third, geostrategic approach.

3. The Geostrategic Approach: Turkey as a Competitor for Regional Power

The third approach depicts Turkey’s role within a broader and regional context. Scholars emphasize the geopolitical interplay among Turkey, the EU and Russia (Vračić, 2016; Barašin, 2025). From this perspective, Turkey’s peacekeeping and mediation activities function as instruments for maintaining strategic autonomy while aligning with Western security structures.

These works blend realism and regionalism, using policy analysis and comparative regional studies (Dursun-Özkanca, 2023). They interpret Turkey’s Balkan presence as balancing actor of a regional power struggle (Emin and Ekinci, 2024). For instance, Bechev (2012) argues that Turkey’s activities in the Western Balkans reflects to its post-Cold War recalibration, seeking regional influence through cooperative operations and transnational activities.

Unlike the identity-oriented approach, which also mentioned as constructivist approach, the geostrategic or realist approach views Ottoman references as tools of legitimacy for its activities in the region, the activities which are also viewed as pragmatic practices for influence development.

4. Comparative Table of Approaches

5. Conclusion

The academic literature on Turkey’s role as a peacekeeper in the Western Balkans is best understood with multi-approach layout. Institutionalist, constructivist, and geostrategic approaches each reveal complementary facets of the same phenomenon: Turkey’s attempt to balance alliance commitments, identity narratives, and regional ambitions.

Integrating these perspectives allows researchers to move beyond debates over “Neo-Ottomanism” versus “pragmatism” and instead to explore how discourse and practice intersect in shaping Turkey’s evolving peacekeeping identity. A future research agenda should thus combine empirical mission analysis with interpretive insights to explain not only what Turkey does in the Balkans, but how and why those actions acquire meaning in the region’s complex post-conflict environment.

Bibliography

Albayrak, D.Ö. and Turan, K. (2016) Neo-Ottomanism in Turkish foreign policy through the

lenses of the principal-agent theory, Journal of Security, Strategy and Political Studies, 1(1), pp. 129–154.

Alpan, B. and Öztürk, A.E. (2022) Turkish foreign policy in the Balkans amidst ‘soft power’ and ‘de-Europeanisation’, in Turkey and the Balkans. Routledge, pp. 44–62.

Baklacıoğlu, N.O. (2015) Between neo-Ottomanist kin policy in the Balkans and Transnational Kin Economics in the EU, JEMIE, 14, p. 47.

Barašin, O. (2025) Turkey’s Geopolitics Towards the Balkans, in Z. Milošević and D. Lazarević

(eds.) Pan-Turkism Today. Belgrade: Institute for Political Studies, pp. 407–417. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18485/ips_panturkism_today.2025.ch26.

Bechev, D. (2012) Turkey in the Balkans: Taking a broader view, Insight Turkey, 14(1), pp. 131-

146.

Coşkun, Y. (2021) Turkey’s Contribution to Peace and Stability in The Balkans: Assessing the

Turkish Military Contingent in Bosniaherzegovina Under the Stabilization Force (SFOR) Mission (1996-2004), Avrasya Etüdleri, 59(1), pp. 35–57.

Dursun-Özkanca, O. (2016) Turkey and the European Union: Strategic Partners or Competitors in the Western Balkans?, Journal of Regional Security, XI(1), pp. 33–54.

Dursun-Özkanca, O. (ed.) (2019) Turkish Foreign Policy in the Western Balkans, in Turkey–West Relations: The Politics of Intra-alliance Opposition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 38–62. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316998960.004.

Dursun-Özkanca, O. (2023) Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the Western Balkans: A Neoclassical

Realist Analysis of Motivations and Interests, One Hundred Years of Turkish Foreign Policy (1923-2023): Historical and Theoretical Reflections. Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 123–142. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35859-3_6.

Emı̇n, N. and Ekı̇ncı̇, M.U. (2024) Boosting Influence: Türkiye’s Renewed Military Activism In

The Balkans, Insight Turkey, 26(Spring 2024), pp. 229–254. Available at: https://doi.org/10.25253/99.2024262.16.

Ergin, M. and Karakaya, Y. (2017) Between neo-Ottomanism and Ottomania: navigating state led and popular cultural representations of the past, New Perspectives on Turkey, 56, pp. 33–59. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/npt.2017.4.

Güngör, U. (2007) The analysis of Turkey’s approach to peace operations, PhD Thesis. Bilkent Üniversitesi (Turkey). Available at: https://search.proquest.com/openview/224453740dcdd08a8386f9ee45127c1b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=2026366&diss=y (Accessed: November 16, 2025).

Hazır, Ü.N. (2022) Anti-Westernism in Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Foreign Policy under

Erdoğan, Russia in Global Affairs, 20(2). Available at: https://doi.org/10.31278/1810-6374-2022-20-2-164-183.

Karakaya, Y. (2025) Perpetuum Mobile: Neo-Ottoman Nostalgia as an Impossible Machine of Conquest, in Claiming the People’s Past: Populist Politics of History in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Metamorphoses of the Political: Multidisciplinary Approaches), pp. 121–137. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009453615.008.

Kumek, İ. (2023) Yükselen Bir Orta Gücün Statü Arayışı: Türkiye ve Birleşmiş Milletler Barışı

Koruma, Güvenlik Stratejileri Dergisi, 19(44), pp. 35–65.

Lika, L. (2015) The return of Turkey to the Western Balkans: A challenge or an opportunity for the European Union?, Politikon: The IAPSS Journal of Political Science, 28, pp. 58–73. Available at: https://doi.org/10.22151/politikon.28.3.

Oğuz, Ş. (2016) The Evolution of Peace Operations and the Kosovo Mission, Uluslararası

İlişkiler Dergisi, 13(51), pp. 99–114.

Sazak, O. and Özkan, N.S. (2016) Turkey’s contributions to security sector reform (SSR) in

conflict-affected countries, Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University, p. 9.

Şenel, A. (2024) Türkiye’s Role in Western Balkans Security Cooperation, Diplomasi ve Strateji Dergisi, 5(1), pp. 158–195. Available at: https://doi.org/10.58685/dsd.1502513.

Sofos, S.A. (2024) Turkey’s Presence in the Western Balkans. University of Edinburgh. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7488/ERA/5177.

Tarik Oğuzlu, H. and Güngör, U. (2006) Peace Operations and the Transformation of Turkey’s Security Policy, Contemporary Security Policy, 27(3), pp. 472–488. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260601060388.

Türkeş, M. (2016) Decomposing Neo-Ottoman Hegemony, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 18(3), pp. 191–216. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2016.1176388.

Vračić, A. (2016) Turkey’s role in the Western Balkans. Research Report RP 11/2016. SWP

Research Paper. Available at: https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/253173 (Accessed: November 16, 2025).

Yavuz, M.H. (2020) The Balkan and Arab Responses to Neo-Ottomanism, in Yavuz, M.

H., Nostalgia for the Empire. 1st ed. Oxford University PressNew York, pp. 203–235. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197512289.003.0009.