FPC Briefing: Weathering the crazy seasons- Turkish foreign policy in the era of political climate change

A common Turkish phrase says that in the summer, the summer does what it should do as the autumn does what is expected of it during its season, ditto winter and spring. It sometimes is brought up as a sort of rejoinder when someone complains about rainy weather in late September or the blistering heat of mid-July. However, as is increasingly the climatological fashion nowadays, the seasons seemingly suffer from a crisis of identity. They are confused as to which colors to wear and what face to show. It is now known beyond any doubt that this is the result of the world-wide, manmade phenomenon of climate change which is causing environmental and social havoc and disrupting popular expectations. Radical man-made climate change but of a political kind is also what has occurred within the Arab Middle East in the past year. What the region witnessed in 2011 in political terms has constituted an overthrow of the traditional order of the seasons and thrown popular expectations to the wind.