Secrecy and the Study of International History: Missing Dimension in Turkish Foreign Policy

The study of international history largely depends on an exploitation of hitherto unexplored data. The sources of these data could vary from national archives to private papers to semi-structured interviews and so on. An examination of the historiography of Turkish Foreign Policy requires the employing of a rigorous methodology to unearth novel data to feed into current academic debates. Students of international history should be advised of possible logistic and methodological flaws and obstacles in the process. This article examines these logistical and methodological obstacles to conducting archival research for historiographical studies.