Political Psychology and the Ontological Security Approach: Prospects of Images in Turkish Foreign Policy

Although Political Psychology is an enriched discipline with reference to either theoretical or experimental non-Turkish studies, it could not have found enough space in Turkish literature. Having been two of the contributions of the discipline, image and balance theories state respectively that the groups develop stereotypes to each other and the individuals seek behaviours to be coherent with their attitudes and emotions otherwise they feel a sense of disturbance. In this context, considering the literature of ontological security, the study claims that the states look for a balance in their behaviours in just the same way as the individuals, these behaviours take a place around images and it provides ontological security. When it comes to the secondary claim, the study propounds that images may change even though they seem to be static, but in this case, ontological security concern steps in and the states legitimise this change by referring to their identities and narratives. In this regard, the study evaluates interrelations of Turkey with Azerbaijan, Greece and Syria. National newspapers and discourses have been used as primary sources and it has been tried to follow the method of discourse analysis. At the end of the work, it is seen that both claims of the study were confirmed regarding the case of Turkey and that both Political Psychology and ontological security share compatible logics.