Resumen de Policy Entrepreneurs and Foreign Policy Change: The Greek-Turkish Rapprochement in the 1990s

Spyros Blavoukos, Dimitris Bourantonis

• Besides systemic changes that lead to the re-prioritization of foreign policy objectives, foreign policy change is also a result of domestic policy entrepreneurs’ pursuit of a political return. Their potential to orchestrate change depends on the existing entry barriers that emanate from the political and institutional features of the domestic policy-making process. It is accentuated by system-wide developments and security crises that illustrate old policy failure. This article discusses the role of policy entrepreneurs in foreign policy change by reference to the Greek–Turkish rapprochement in the late 1990s that resulted in Turkey receiving the status of EUcandidate country in 1999.