Decisionmaking process matters: lessons learned from two Turkish foreign policy cases

Abstract

This article suggests that the nature of the decision unit and the decisionmaking rules influence the foreign policy decisionmaking process. This is especially the case in "complex" foreign policy decisions. We discuss two such cases from the Turkish context--the decision to intervene militarily in Cyprus in 1974 and the decision to accept the EU candidacy offer during the Helsinki Summit in 1999--by applying the "decision-units" framework. Our findings from the comparison of these two cases offer important lessons for Turkish foreign policy decision making especially under coalition decision units.