Many ideological regimes exhibit dissonant institutionalization (Brumberg 2001), or the incorporation and routinization of multiple competing narratives and symbols of political community. Where electoral arenas are competitive, political elites vie with one another through the use of communicative discourse (Schmidt 2002) to present and legitimate their contesting positions to the public. Often times, these contrasting narratives paint different pictures of world politics and regional affairs. As a result, the political dynamics that occur outside of these countries are interpreted to legitimate or undermine various narratives and institutions in different ways, thus impacting the domestic political process. This paper specifically explores the ideological impact that regional dynamics have on the politics of Turkey and Iran. While most of the Middle East is comprised of authoritarian regimes that characteristically lack strong guiding ideologies, the regimes of Iran and Turkey are exceptional due to their ideological nature. Both are examples of mixed regimes, or nondemocratic regimes that hold competitive elections under the conditions of unfair competition, illiberal civil rules and/or a reserved domain of power. In Turkey, a military domain institutionalized with a Kemalist ideology intervenes in politics, and, in Iran, clerical intervention in politics is supported through Islamic ideology. Using a historical institutionalist approach, this paper argues that regional dynamics have largely been used to support the nondemocratic institutions of the Iranian regime, while they have been used to undermine those of the Turkish one. In addition, it highlights the importance of ideas in the institutionalization of state structures and how such ideas are legitimized or delegitimized under changing domestic and regional conditions.