An Eclectic Methodological Approach in Analyzing Foreign Policy: Turkey’s Foreign Policy Roles and Events Dataset (TFPRED)

Abstract

This article describes the steps in developing an eclectic coding scheme thatutilizes the Role theory framework. Role theory proposes that foreign policy isconducted with an attempt to fulfill the role conceptions that decision-makersformulate. Studies utilizing this framework usually identify national roleconceptions (NRCs) in the foreign policy speeches of decision-makers withvarious research techniques. Following the literature, this article first explainshow to use content analysis in identifying the most frequently referred NRCs inTurkish Foreign Policy (TFP). Then, unlike the literature, it takes a step furtherand offers event data analysis to look at the performance of these NRCs as well.With such an approach, it develops the Turkish Foreign Policy Roles and EventsDataset (TFPRED). The TFPRED is a dataset that is the product of a combinationof ‘hand-coded content analysis’ with ‘computer-assisted event data analysis’.The article presents a detailed explanation of the steps in using content analysisand event data analysis to build the TFPRED. It also explains the developmentof the eclectic methodological approach and gives an assessment of the author’sexperiences in combining the two methods.