Historical Materialist Analysis of Turkish Foreign Policy Toward Syria (2024–2026)

Sammanfattning

This study examines Turkish foreign policy toward Syria through the lens of historical materialism. Departing from mainstream analyses that treat economy and politics as separate spheres, it situates class dynamics at the core of foreign policy formation, arguing that Ankara's engagement is systematically driven by the imperative to convert conflict into economic opportunity for Turkish capital. The thesis traces how Turkish capital projected its interests across multiple domains. Following the 2024 regime change, Turkey aspired to spearhead Syrian reconstruction and use Syria as a gateway to Gulf markets; however, reconstruction ambitions failed to materialize due to the lack of Gulf capital inflows, relegating Turkish firms to subcontracting roles, while attempts to tether the Syrian economy through Turkish lira adoption collapsed due to currency instability. Nonetheless, Turkey continues to leverage Syrian refugees as a flexible domestic labor pool and has seen a relative rise in exports to Syria. The analysis situates Turkey as a 'sub-imperialist' actor demonstrating that Turkey's role in Syria reflected alignment with the United States, thereby illuminating a hierarchical chain of imperialism that subordinates Ankara's regional agency to the broader capitalist world order.