Abstract
The view of identities as always situated in a relationship with the Other underlies contemporary constructivist social theory. Taking a step further, and combining constructivist approaches to identity with insights from post-colonial studies, this article argues that the Other, far from being a mere presence, often plays an active role in identity politics. By tracing the historically varying ways in which Turkey and Russia have engaged in European identity construction, it demonstrates that this is an interactive process of negotiation between the European Self and its external Others in which agency of the Other is revealed. In particular, Russia and Turkey exercise agency by challenging, each in its own manner, the EU’s power to define the normative meaning of Europe. While Turkey has contributed to a decentring of European identity by challenging the self-perception of Europe as a multicultural space, Russia’s uncompromising stance tends to consolidate the EU-centred image of Europe as a political community based on liberal democratic values.
Introduction
Constructivist theories mostly stress that identities are situated in a relationship with the Other (e.g. Hopf, 2002; Neumann, 1999; Wendt, 1992, 1999). Yet, they have generally shied away from looking at this relationship from the perspective of the Other and engaging in a systematic investigation of the agency of the Other in shaping intersubjective meanings through its representational practices. Drawing on insights from post-colonial studies (Bhabha, 2005; Chakrabarty, 2000; Ling, 2002) and liminality theory (Norton, 1988; Turner, 1995), it is contended that the Other, far from being a mere presence that reproduces the identity discourses of Self, often plays a subversive role by negotiating and contesting identities. This subversive impact, which is often overlooked by ‘self-centred’ analyses of identity, is particularly manifest in the case of ‘liminal’ Others that occupy partly-self/partly-Other positions in identity discourses. This article, by tracing the historically varying ways in which Turkey and Russia, as Europe’s liminal Others, have responded to discourses on European identity through their own representational practices, seeks to unravel their agency in the construction of European identity. In addition, the comparative analysis reveals that liminal Others can exercise agency in different ways, and when they do, as in the case of Russia and Turkey in the current period, they impact on European identity differently. While Turkey’s representational practices have succeeded in getting Turkey closer to the EU by accepting the EU’s power to define the normative meaning of Europe, they have also contributed to a decentring of European identity by challenging the self-perception of Europe as a multicultural space. In contrast, Russia’s representational practices have been characterized by a resistance toward EU-defined values, and this resistance has tended to reproduce the boundary between the West and the East of Europe, thus helping to consolidate the EU-centred image of Europe as a political community based on liberal democratic values.
Since the early 1990s, identity has been a focal point of constructivist theorizing in international relations; however, certain key questions about the constitution of identities are far from settled. One prominent area of contention is whether an external/spatial Other is necessary for the constitution of identity (Abizadeh, 2005; Wendt, 2003). A second debate revolves around whether Othering is necessarily associated with antagonism and violence. Our analysis of how Russia and Turkey are shaping and negotiating European identity builds on recent contributions that have once again stressed the relationality of identity (Epstein, 2011), spatial dimension of identity construction (Prozorov, 2011) and the varying forms, i.e. positive and negative, of Othering (Berenskoetter, 2007; Roe, 2008; Rumelili, 2007).
In the following section, the respective contribution of this article is situated within these ongoing debates. On the relationality of identity, our analysis of Turkey and Russia as Europe-makers stresses that identity formation processes are not and should not ever be studied as entirely endogenous processes. The Self can never be the sole author of its identity, and ‘Self-centred’ analyses of European identity are simply overlooking the ways in which external/spatial Others, such as Russia and Turkey, are shaping European identity in different ways. On the nature of Othering, it is contended that while identity construction does involve some negativity and antagonism, the cases of Russia and Turkey attest to Othering being often a hybridizing practice involving both positive and negative representations. Thus, both Turkey and Russia are constituted as ‘liminal’ others, which are partly European and partly not.
The main objective of this article is to initiate a new debate on the agency of Others in the constitution of political identity. While the argument that the Other has a role to play in identity construction might seem self-evident, as demonstrated below, the existing literature has reduced this role to a mere presence and not systematically explored the nature and extent of its agency. Thus, the third section of the article highlights the main theoretical contribution of the study, which consists in identifying the various ways in which liminal Others may exercise agency in the constitution of political identity. Drawing on post-colonial studies literature and liminality theory, we discuss how positions of liminality and hybridity enable the subversion of the identities on whose margins they are located. Yet, it is noted that liminal actors may practise and enact their liminality in ways that are more or less subversive or non-subversive at all, including indifference, self-assimilation, negotiation and resistance.
In the fourth section, this article comparatively analyses the ways in which Turkey and Russia have historically responded to the discourses on European identity and the construction of their identities as different. The different ways in which the two countries have practised their Otherness and liminality in different historical periods are located and the implications of these practices on European identity are discussed. Our empirical analysis does not aspire to test or measure the extent of the influence these two countries have had on European identity. At this stage, we limit ourselves to demonstrating that more thorough empirical examination of the Other’s agency must have a prominent place on the constructivist research agenda, and thus hope to pave the way to less Euro-centric studies of European identity formation. 1
Relationality, spatiality and forms of othering
The symbolic interactionist roots of early constructivist identity theorizing had made the relationality of identity a fundamental premise (Wendt, 1992). However, relationality has taken a back seat in the following mainstream constructivist works, which have focused more on how social structures of shared norms and meaning constitute identities, i.e. constitution of self by social (Finnemore and Sikkink, 2001; Jepperson et al., 1996: 58–62), while post-structuralist approaches have continued to focus on the political constitution of identities in and through differentiation, and stressed the close association of these practices with power and violence (Campbell, 1992; Der Derian and Shapiro, 1989).
In her recent article, Charlotte Epstein (2011) has highlighted how constructivist theorizing has ended up essentializing identity by downplaying the constitutive relation between Self and the Other. For Epstein (2011: 340), however, ‘Other’ refers to the ‘generalized other’, the symbolic order that comprises the meanings within which identities are constituted, and not necessarily to specific others, i.e. other identities (or subject positions) that are constituted within the same symbolic order. We stress that relationality of identity presupposes the presence of both the generalized Other and a multitude of specific Others, which constitute the identity of Self, and which are, in turn, taken as reference points by Self in defining, validating and performing its identity. Identities are multifaceted and result from numerous, and highly contested, instances of othering. In principle, any difference can be politicized and elevated into a marker of identity (Barth, 1969; Neumann, 1999: 1–37). As a result, identities are constituted, at any given time, in relation to multiple others, including internal and external others as well as the generalized Other. While our focus on Russia and Turkey as Europe’s specific Others is justified in terms of their salience (Neumann, 1999), it is recognized that the European identity is also simultaneously being constituted in relation to the social structures of international politics (Wendt, 1999) as well as to other significant Others, such as the US (Joenniemi, 2010), Europe’s own past (Wæver, 1998) and migrants within Europe (Huysmans, 2000).
Given this multiplicity of Others, a key question is whether identities can be constituted solely through temporal othering, that is by taking a past state of Self as the reference point (Abizadeh, 2005: 58; Wendt, 2003: 527–528). Most notably, Ole Wæver has argued that in the European context, instead of ‘the EU and the West “othering” various neighbors, the dominant trend … is that the other is Europe’s own past (fragmentation)’ (Wæver, 1998: 100; see also Wæver, 1995: 71–75). Also, Thomas Diez argues that the European Union ‘has opened up the possibility of the construction of a political identity through a less exclusionary practice of temporal difference’ although he observes, contrary to Wæver, a trend toward the exclusionary geopolitical forms of othering (Diez, 2004).
Such arguments on the constitution of identities mainly, if not solely, through temporal othering cast identity formation as a purely endogenous process, and thus pave an alternative route to essentialism. Yet they have been recently challenged on both empirical and theoretical grounds. Studies analysing the EU’s identity discourse amply demonstrate the presence as well as the growing dominance of external referents (Browning, 2003; Diez, 2004; Rumelili, 2004). Similarly, as demonstrated by Ted Hopf (2002: 153–210), in Russia’s case the role of the Soviet historical Other in national identity construction is mutually conditioned by the presence of the external Others. In a recent article, Sergei Prozorov contends that the opposition between temporal and spatial othering is not theoretically sustainable, as ‘any historical action must negate a section of actually existing Space, thereby transforming this present existence into the past’, and therefore ‘it is impossible to negate only temporally or only spatially’ (Prozorov, 2011: 1282). Thus, while the war-torn past is an important referent, Europe, as any other identity, remains dependent on external Others, such as Russia and Turkey, and practices of spatial othering.
Concerning the debate on the nature of Othering, recent contributions have stressed that the association of Self/Other relations exclusively with enemy roles is based on the misinterpretation as a necessity of something that the earlier post-structuralist literature (Campbell, 1992) had identified as just a potentiality. Identity construction through differentiation does involve the exertion of symbolic power by the Self over the Other, and perhaps an antagonization of the generalized Other (Epstein, 2011) located outside in political space (Prozorov, 2011). In particular, contemporary post-structuralist interpretations of Carl Schmitt, such as the one developed by Chantal Mouffe (2005), have emphasized the point that the inside–outside antagonism is the only way to conceive of unity in a world that lacks any pre-given metaphysical hierarchies. This does not entail, however, the definition of the Other as an identity which is antithetical to Self, a specific Other which would be in the same category as the Self (e.g. a state against another state). Thus, it would be wrong to associate othering solely with practices of discrimination, denigration, exclusion and violence. Empirical analyses in different contexts have shown that Self/Other relations are constituted along multiple dimensions, and hence practices of Othering take various forms (Diez, 2005; Hansen, 2006; Rumelili, 2007). Positive and negative representations of the Other can coexist and be projected upon different aspects of the Other’s identity. Thus, Othering often turns out to be a hybridizing practice that situates its referents in liminal, partly self/partly other subject positions.
Consequently, when Turkey and Russia are posited as Europe’s Others, it is meant that discourses on European identity routinely differentiate the European Self from certain aspects of Turkish and Russian identities. This differentiation, on which the constitution of European identity depends, often imposes a normative hierarchy of superiority/inferiority. Yet this does not mean that representations of Russia and Turkey are solely cast in negative terms, and justify a foreign policy of dissociation and violence. And, conversely, when European institutions closely associate with Russia or Turkey, it does not mean Russia and Turkey are no longer Others of European identity. Discourses on European identity often differentiate between the ‘European’ and ‘non-European’ elements of Turkish and Russian identities. References to Turkey are more prominently employed when the cultural borders of the EU–Europe are at stake, while the Russian Other dominates discourses on Europe’s political identity.
In short, the comparative analysis undertaken in this article stresses that identities are constituted in relation to multiple Others, which differ as to their impact on the identity of the Self, instead of a singular archetypal Other, which represents an anti-Self. In particular, our analysis shows that the contemporary European identity discourse is in many ways a hybridizing discourse that situates its external Others, such as Russia and Turkey, not in directly oppositional, but in liminal partly-Self/partly-Other positions.
Liminality, hybridity and the Other’s agency
The primary input of this article, however, lies beyond a comparison of the Turkish and Russian Others in European identity construction. Combining constructivist approaches to identity with insights from post-colonial studies, it is argued that in addition to their constitutive roles as Others in European identity construction, Russia and Turkey also negotiate, contest and re-make European identity through their own representational practices. So far, constructivists have been mostly concerned with the ‘uses of the Other’ by the Self in identity construction (Neumann, 1999), which implies a simultaneous construction of both the Self and the Other in one discursive space – that of the Self (e.g. Hopf, 2002: 169–195). There is recent interest in how those constituted as Others respond to the identity discourses of the Self (e.g. Zarakol, 2011), but those works again focus solely on the ways in which the Others assimilate into the hegemonic discursive space of the Self. It is suggested in this article that it is time to expand our horizon by looking at identity construction as a process that is profoundly conditioned by the mutual constitution of the inside and the outside, where both the Self and its Others enjoy agency.
Post-colonial theory is a good complement to constructivism in the analysis of identity constitution; while constructivism focuses on exposing contingency of identities and norms and their embeddedness in social interaction (Finnemore and Sikkink, 2001; Kratochwil, 1989; Neumann, 1999; Wendt, 1999), post-colonialism emphasizes the relations of power and inequality inherent in any Self–Other relationship (Gandhi, 1998; Krishna, 2009). Facing the normative power of the EU and the overwhelming economic and military supremacy of the West as a whole, both Russia and Turkey currently find themselves in a quasi-post-colonial setting. 2 At the same time, application of post-colonial theory does not necessitate that we unambiguously establish either the Russian or the Turkish situation as strictly speaking post-colonial. Rather, post-colonial theory can be drawn upon as an alternative approach to analyse subjectivity and agency in international relations (Ling, 2002).
The agency of the Other in the construction of the identity of the Self is an issue that has been explored by post-colonial writers in the imperial and post-imperial context (Bhabha, 2005; Chakrabarty, 2000). In fact, there is significant disagreement in the post-colonial studies literature itself about the extent to which the hegemony of colonial discourse leaves room for meaningful autonomous resistance by the colonized (Parry, 1995). According to Gayatri Spivak, colonialism has eliminated all grounds for resistance that are not in essence reproducing and strengthening of the colonial hegemony (Spivak, 1995). Homi Bhabha, on the other hand, emphasizes that instead of a clear-cut exclusion or opposition, the colonial discourse is productive of hybridization, ‘a discrimination between the mother culture and its bastards, the self and its doubles’ (Bhabha, 2005: 159). Within this space of ambivalence, the hybridized native deploys a range of forms of subversion and resistance. Having (seemingly) adopted the knowledge of the Master, the natives are at once complicit in its reproduction, but are also simultaneously misappropriating and perverting its meaning, thereby circumventing, challenging and refusing colonial authority.
It can be contended that these post-colonial debates on the agency of the Other have relevance beyond studies of empire and would significantly benefit IR identity theorizing. As both constructivist and post-structuralist approaches to international relations have been duly criticized for lacking a theory of the agent, identity scholars have come to rely on psychological theories at the price of making the problematic assumption of state as person (Wendt, 2004; Wight, 2004; for an alternative application, see Flockhart, 2006). The post-colonial notion of agency avoids these theoretical problems, as it does not stipulate the pro-active agency of a cohesive, purposive, autonomously calculating agent. Rather, it is a structurally conditioned agency that does not conflict with the post-structuralist understanding of subjectivity as constituted through discourse (Allen, 2002) and one which emerges as an effect of the discursive interaction between various subject positions.
Consequently, our analysis stresses that European identity is constructed through discursive practices that exist at various levels – global, pan-European, national, (sub)regional and local – not only within Europe but also in what is constructed as the outside of Europe. National identity construction inevitably involves references to Europe as a significant Other, and this happens within the EU and elsewhere, in the countries like Russia and Turkey. Tension that inevitably exists between different discursive spaces produces dislocation on both sides of discursive boundaries (Diez, 2001) and opens additional spaces for manifestations of agency. In particular, certain representations that might be structurally determined at the national level produce discursive effects on the community for whom the first one is a significant Other. By projecting their own visions of Europe onto the EU, the outsiders impel the insiders to articulate the identity of Europe in a slightly different manner compared to what would be possible without this discursive intervention. The agency of the Other must thus be understood not as individualist and intentional, but rather as relational and discursive.
Moreover, in order to be present and to matter, the agency of the Other does not need to manifest itself in oppositional resistance. Bhabha stresses that the post-colonial agency is one which is constituted by the master discourse, but manifests itself innovatively in episodes of hybridization and localization (Bhabha, 2005). Ilan Kapoor characterizes it as a ‘guerrilla type’ agency, which he argues is indeed more effective than a direct counter-hegemonic discourse, which is more liable to cancellation or even re-appropriation by the dominant one (Kapoor, 2003).
Recent writings on liminality also underscore the effectiveness of hybridization in subverting the categories imposed by social structure (Malksoo, in press; Rumelili, in press). The concept has been pioneered by the anthropologist Victor Turner (1995: 95), who contended that liminal entities that are ‘neither here nor there … betwixt and between the positions assigned and arranged by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial’, present the possibility of existing outside of and beyond the socially pre-given positions, and thus possess anti-structural qualities and revolutionary potential. If, as noted above, European identity discourse is productive of liminal Others, which are partly European and partly not, those liminal Others, such as Russia and Turkey, are thus constituted to enact the possibility of existing outside of and beyond the categories of European vs. non-European. The representational practices of such partly self/partly other subject-positions produce tensions and dislocations on the discursive boundaries of European identity, and invite alternative articulations of Europe.
In the following sections, it is shown how the hybridized agency of the Other has manifested itself in Russia’s and Turkey’s relations with western Europe retrospectively and how it functions to reproduce the liminal positions of both countries in contemporary Europe. Empirical analysis of discursive agency, such as that undertaken in this article, does not need to or seek to establish that representational practices under analysis reflect the dominant perceptions and attitudes in political leadership and society. Rather, it can be stressed that discourse produces effects independently of, and sometimes even contrary to the political objectives of the speakers. In every political community, competing articulations of identity co-exist often within the same discursive structure. We identify and focus on certain discursive debates and practices, and analyse how they enable and constrain the identity articulations in the communities that are significant Others.
Comparative analysis demonstrates that, historically, the discursive debates and practices in Russia and Turkey have enabled certain articulations of European identity and constrained others. This agency has not manifested itself solely in moments of open resistance to and contestation of European discourses, but also in the hybridization of the European discourses and standards throughout the so-called process of Europeanization. In the current period, we find that Russia and Turkey, constituted as different types of external Others, negotiate different aspects of the EU discourses on Europe. While Turkey challenges the constitution of Europe and Islam as mutually exclusive and inherently incompatible identities, Russia advances alternatives to the dominant western liberal interpretation of European values.
Russia and Turkey as Europe-makers
The significance of both the Russian and the Turkish Other for the emergence of European identity has been thoroughly examined in recent decades by a number of scholars. On Russia, particularly important has been Larry Wolf’s study of how the ‘invention’ of Eastern Europe in the 18th century as ‘not quite’ European cemented the idea of the ‘European civilization’ as exclusive and self-centred (Wolf, 1994). Similarly, the Turk has been and continues to serve as a key reference point in the definition, validation and performance of European identity (Neumann and Welsh, 1991).
Neither Russia nor Turkey has ever been a passive object constituted solely through European discourses and representations. The mutually constitutive Self/Other relationship between Europe and its Others has also been shaped by the outsiders’ responses to European representations. Through historically varying positions, such as arrogant indifference, active resistance, tactful negotiation and self-assimilation, the Others have continuously re-made and re-shaped European identity. In what follows, a historical overview is provided of how Russia and Turkey contributed to the construction of European identity. Turning to the present moment, the article examines the two distinct roles that the two countries play at present by respectively downplaying and utilizing cultural difference to challenge the hegemonic image of European identity.
Empires on the margins: The struggle for recognition
The image of the Turk first appears in a letter written by the Byzantine emperor Alexius Commenus to Robert I, the Earl of Flandern (Kuran-Burcoglu, 2003: 23). In this letter, as well as in other sources, the ‘cruel’ and ‘barbaric’ Turk was represented as ‘a wrath of God’, a punishment to Christians who have deviated from God’s commands. Following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Europe, which was until then only a marginal term, began to be invoked more frequently as a political referent to reinforce papacy’s calls for Christian unity to counter the Turkish threat (Neumann, 1999: 41, 44). The expansion of the Ottoman Empire thus played a crucial part in the consolidation of the European idea and the normative order associated with it by providing extra legitimacy to the disciplining practices directed at the less loyal Europeans.
In the 16th century, the negative image of the Turk in Europe solidified, but this negative image was not solely a product of European representations. The image of a brutal, arrogant and magnificent enemy was also deliberately cultivated and reproduced by the Ottomans as a tool of psychological warfare (Kumrular, 2005). As a result of the fear they were able to instill successfully, the Ottomans could conquer many territorial posts without having to fight. Thus, during the heyday of the Ottoman Empire the Turkish Other was conscious of but remained indifferent to its negative image in Europe. Quite the contrary, it deliberately reproduced and manipulated the negative perceptions in order to score further gains against its enemy.
In contrast to the Ottoman Empire’s arrogant indifference in this earlier period, Russia, it seems, always tried hard to play as an insider. In particular, this concerned religious politics and various projects of Christian unity in the face of the Ottoman expansion (Neumann, 1996: 5–10). Nevertheless, as Russia grew stronger, this created preconditions for its othering by Europe. Indeed, the creation of the Russian empire by Peter the Great in the context of the Great Northern War (1700–21) changed the entire geopolitical setting: instead of the North–South axis which had earlier dominated the European foreign policy thinking, the new East–West division was to define the European foreign policy coordinates from that moment on (Neumann, 1999: 77). Celebrating the victory over Napoleon at the Congress of Vienna, Alexander I brought Russia as close as it could have ever been to the status of a European great power, but the dividing line between the East and the West was never completely erased. One of the reasons for that was a typically post-colonial predicament: Peter the Great’s modernizing effort aimed at bringing Russia closer to the civilization defined in west European terms, which inevitably put Russia in the position of a backward country that had to learn from its more advanced neighbours. This produced a rift within Russian society and became a defining moment of Russian discursive reality with the onset in the 1830s of the never-ending debate between the Westernizers and the Slavophiles (Neumann, 1996: 13–39).
The significance of this debate was not limited to Russian identity politics and nation-building. Peggy Heller convincingly argued that the very idea of the West as a civilizational community emerged in the course of this discussion and then spread into a wider European public space (Heller, 2010). The fixation of Europe as a positive identity in the hegemonic discourse, where certain norms and practices were marked as ‘European’ and others as ‘non-European’, also depended on the two-way political dynamics between Europe and Russia. Iver Neumann has maintained that Russia’s ambition for a great power status has been misplaced ever since 1815: while the Russian leaders and diplomats claimed for Russia a position equal to other European powers on the basis of its military might and geopolitical influence, the European definition of great power centred on the notion of good governance (Neumann, 2008). Yet, reverse dynamics were in operation as well: the European notion of good governance was shaped by contrasting the west European norms with the ‘exotic’ and ‘barbarian’ Russian mores. The relevance of Russia as a political Other of Europe became especially pronounced in the context of the Crimean War, when Russia’s ‘backwardness’ in terms of political and legal institutions and norms was used to justify British and French alliance with a Muslim empire (Turkey) against a Christian one (Russia). This event was a manifestation of the secularization of European politics, but arguably also contributed to this process. Thus, in line with our theoretical argument, the tension between the two discursive spaces created certain societal dynamics on both sides. Russia’s active involvement in European affairs was instrumental in shaping common European identity – even though not quite in the way Russia wanted.
The defeat of the Ottoman army at the gates of Vienna in 1683 constituted a milestone in the history of the image of the Turk in Europe. Thereafter, perceptions of horror and fear diminished, and the Turks were associated with the adjectives ‘ugly’, ‘deceitful’, ‘ridiculous’ and ‘sensual’ (Kuran-Burcoglu, 2003: 28). In addition, with the growing secularization of the European state system, the civilization/barbarism dichotomy began to replace the religious differentiation system based on believer/infidel (Neumann, 1999: 52). Following the defeat at Vienna, a fundamental change also occurred in the Ottoman outlook towards the Europeans, acknowledging for the first time their superiority. Thereafter, the Ottomans implemented Europeanizing reforms in the military, education, administration, dress, political and civil rights, partly as a survival strategy to withstand European imperial ambitions, and partly to compensate for their perceived lack in civilization which they had come to internalize.
The parallel with many aspects of Peter the Great’s reforms in Russia, including the timing and the consequences for identity politics, is really striking. Like in Russia, this process of Europeanization was not a wholesale submission to the perceived superior. Protests and resistance became more vocal among the Ottomans as it became clear that adoption of European norms and institutions could neither prevent the break-up of the Empire nor stem the territorial ambitions of European powers. However, these acts of resistance began to take the form of reverse Euro-centrism, which accepted the hierarchy of civilization/barbarity, but questioned the superior positioning of Europe vis-à-vis the Turks within that hierarchy (Berktay, 2005: 192–194).
Following the wide-scale political reforms in 1856 and the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War, the Ottoman Empire was finally admitted to the Concert of Europe, with the Treaty of Paris, which declared the independence and integrity of the Empire. Yet, this admission meant neither that the Turk was recognized as an equal European power, nor that Russia, despite its wounded feelings, was fully excluded (Neumann, 1999: 56, 88–89). Within the Euro-centric world-view that distinguished the superior Europeans from the primitives they had the duty to colonize, both the Ottomans and the Russians occupied what they perceived to be a threateningly ambiguous, liminal position (Berktay, 2005). While certainly superior to the primitives, they could not fully rely on international law, as it accorded full protection only to the ‘inheritors’ of European civilization (Neumann, 1999: 57, 89–93). Reflecting the changed balance of power in the 19th century, the representation of the Ottomans as the ‘sick man of Europe’ became prevalent, and the salience of the Turkish Other diminished (Kuran-Burcoglu, 2003: 30–31). This was happening at the time when the liberal criticism of Russian backwardness was gaining strength, turning Russia into a key political Other of Europe (Neumann, 1999: 94–99).
Post-imperial modernization as Europeanization
The collapse of both empires, with all its undeniable world political significance, could not transform the landscape of European identity politics. The Soviet communist utopia initially presented itself as entirely incompatible with the existing capitalist world order, but as the revolution was running out of steam it became increasingly obvious that it was conceived of in terms of Western modernist discourse. The late Soviet ideology is an even better illustration of Bhabha’s notion of hybridity, since it was based on the image of the Soviet Union as an alternative to the capitalist West both in modernist and in traditionalist terms. It presented itself as a country where science and social reforms had liberated the masses, while at the same time playing with the notions of ‘spirituality’, authenticity, ‘great Russian culture’ and the like, borrowed from the German romantic tradition in the 19th century. This controversial mix remains a feature of post-Soviet Russian identity politics, though the modernist component has become less dominant (Hopf, 2002: 39–82, 153–210).
Regardless of the internal evolution of Soviet identity, for the rest of Europe the USSR was first and foremost a political, rather than a cultural, Other. The communist utopia was taken seriously by west Europeans as a possible alternative to Western modernity. What the Soviet Union did, and not just the fact that it was there as enemy, undoubtedly had its impact on social policies, thus demonstrating one more aspect in which the Other’s agency manifested itself. However, as both Soviet society and the international system entered a period of relative stagnation, the role of the Soviet Other was again reduced to a mere presence.
In Turkey, the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War produced an ambivalent attitude, with Europe being perceived simultaneously as a model and a threat (Rumelili, 2004). The ambivalence remains strong despite the fact that Turkey is often posited to be a model Europeanizer. Indeed, with Kemal Ataturk’s reforms, Turks shed away many cultural markers that marked their difference from Europe, including the alphabet, dress, calendar, measurement system and holidays. In addition to being a political project, Europeanization thus became ‘a performance geared for the gaze of the West’ (Ahiska, 2003: 355).
At the international level, the performance of Europeanization inevitably entailed membership in international institutions as a European state. Through persistent demands of inclusion, Turkey reminded the Euro-centric institutions (Commission on Europe at the League of Nations, the Council of Europe, NATO) of their professed principles of universalism and equality (Barlas and Guvenc, 2009; Yilmaz and Bilgin, 2005: 53). Turkey’s almost pathological insistence on gaining recognition as a Western/European state thus contested the exclusivity of the West/Europe.
The European Union remains the only Western/European institution which has not granted Turkey the membership that it has sought with varying degrees of determination since 1959. By virtue of this fact, the symbolic encounters between the EU and Turkey have been particularly productive not just of Turkish insecurities, but also of the EU–Europe’s self-understanding. While some representations cast Turkey’s differences from Europe as inherent and rooted in geography and religion, others portray Turkey’s peculiarity as stemming from deficiencies in human rights and rule of law. Whereas a view of Russia as inherently authoritarian seems to strengthen the identity of Europe open to all democratic countries, the figure of Turkey as inherently non-European contributes to the essentialization of Europe’s geography, history and culture. To quote just a couple of the best-known statements, the former Dutch Commissioner, Frits Bolkenstein, argued in 2004 that Turkey entering Europe would mean forgetting 1683, when the Ottoman army was defeated for the second time at the gates of Vienna (Traynor, 2004). Similarly, Herman van Rompuy, the current EU President, declared back in 2004, in his capacity as a Belgian MP, that ‘the universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey’ (Phillips, 2009). The French President Sarkozy has repeatedly voiced his preference for a geographically fixed Europe that does not include Turkey (Kuebler, 2011).
Competing discourses in Europe downplay Turkey’s cultural differences and emphasize Turkey’s problems with human rights and democracy, as the reasons for Turkey’s exclusion. While such criticisms have been a standard staple of EEC/EC/EU-Turkey relations since 1959, their specification and standardization in the form of the Copenhagen criteria solidified the hierarchy of superior/inferior in EU–Turkey relations. At the same time, this standardization promised a level playing field in EU’s enlargement strategy, where Turkey’s performance could be evaluated in the absence of cultural prejudices. Thus, the articulation of the Copenhagen criteria was cautiously welcomed in Turkey, as it kept open the possibility of ‘becoming European’. Yet, at the same time, in the Turkish national imaginary the Copenhagen criteria have been too reminiscent of the 19th century Standard of Civilization (cf. Behr, 2007), which the Ottoman Empire tried hard to attain, but which nevertheless proved insufficient to deter European territorial ambitions. In particular, the requirements regarding the rights of ethnic and religious minorities reproduce the dual image of Europe as a model and as a threat because of the way in which similar European demands have paved the way for the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in late 19th and early 20th centuries.
While Turkey’s cultural Otherness is more pronounced, Russia’s role in the construction of European identity after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of (yet another) empire continued to be predominantly that of a political Other. It will be noted that Russia’s exclusion from Europe barely ever involves any questioning of Russia’s belonging to Europe in cultural terms. In spite of the not infrequent appeals by romantic nationalists to ‘cultural self-determination’, the Russian state remains keen on insisting that Russia is part of the European civilization (Morozov, 2010), and it seems that the EU largely accepts this mapping.
By simply disappearing from the global political arena, the Soviet Union gave a huge boost to the self-confidence of west Europeans. The resulting western expansion was not only unprecedented in scale, but also took place in an entirely new setting. Throughout the 20th century, Europe was a discursive arena where different interpretations of European legacy clashed and struggled for hegemony. As a result, the integration project as such was open not only to different potential members, but also to diverging interpretations of its primary objectives. The arrival of the Copenhagen criteria and the hegemonic structure which they represented eventually established equivalence between the European utopia and the really existing legal and political order embodied in the EU.
Russia of the early 1990s was perceived as a disciple rather than a challenge. However, it soon turned out that the EU’s influence over Russia was rapidly waning. This has by no means led to the EU’s reconsidering its self-perception as a model. On the contrary, Russia’s intransigence actually solidifies the EU as a political actor and makes its self-understanding more coherent. In a world where there is only one way of being European, Russia’s otherness ceases to be a difference within an imagined community of Europe and is inevitably ousted into the external domain. The othering of Russia turns into exclusion, and the latter, as most of the time since the mid-19th century, is framed in political, rather than cultural, terms.
Within the contemporary EU discourse, the meaning of Europeanness is often defined with a negative reference to Russia. One most patent example was the discursive framing of the Ukrainian ‘orange revolution’ of 2004 and the ensuing events. Consider, for instance, the following statement in an editorial in The Financial Times: the Ukrainians had ‘demonstrated beyond doubt that, given the chance, their country could be a genuine European democracy. It is not condemned by its past and its geography to Russian-style authoritarianism’ (Financial Times, 2004). In this statement, Europe (without Russia) figures as the (only) model for democracy, while Russia is unambiguously presented as setting the standard for authoritarianism. Similar patterns can be discerned in the geopolitical struggles about ‘the European perspective’ for Belarus, Moldova and, of course, Georgia.
One of the most recent and most telling examples of that logic is the July 2009 open letter to Barack Obama, in which a group of intellectuals and former political leaders from Central and Eastern Europe called on the United States to ‘reaffirm its vocation as a European power’ in the face of Russian ‘revisionism’. Russia stands here as a direct opposite of Europe:
It challenges our claims to our own historical experiences. It asserts a privileged position in determining our security choices. It uses overt and covert means of economic warfare, ranging from energy blockades and politically motivated investments to bribery and media manipulation in order to advance its interests and to challenge the transatlantic orientation of Central and Eastern Europe. (Adamkus et al., 2009)
In a revealing, although by no means unusual, twist of political geography, the United States becomes a European power, while Russia is unambiguously excluded.
As demonstrated by Sergei Prozorov (2009), the exclusion and self-exclusion of Russia is in fact a stable pattern that to a large extent defines its relationship with the EU. The presence of Russia as a non-liberal-democratic alternative to the EU political order thus strongly contributes to the ‘geopoliticization’ of European identity (Diez, 2004). The official position of Brussels is that thinking in terms of geopolitics and the spheres of influence is obsolete, but in effect various surrogates of membership that the EU currently offers to its neighbours – the European Neighbourhood Policy, the Eastern Partnership and so on – all are driven by security concerns (Joenniemi, 2007). They originate in a simplified version of the democratic peace theory, which classifies the political systems different from western democracy as security threats per se. The only way of adequately addressing these challenges is to spread the West European model of liberal market democracy to the neighbouring countries without really offering them a stake in defining the norms they are expected to follow. By figuring as ‘the perfect image of “Europe’s past”’, as simultaneously a territorial and a temporal Other (Prozorov, 2009: 156), Russia, in fact, contributes to the constitution of the EU Europe as a new geopolitical actor.
Negotiating cultural and political otherness
While Turkey’s compliance with EU’s conditions for membership was partial and half-hearted until the official recognition of its candidacy in 1999, thereafter, Turkish governments and societal actors initiated a full-scale democratic reform process that explicitly took the European norms and standards as reference. At the same time, Turkey began to couple conformity with resistance, and in fact has become more adept at framing its defiance in a way that resonates within the European public space. The resistance, like before, takes the master narrative as a reference point, yet it goes beyond the reserve Euro-centrism, based on the crude reversal of the categories of civilized/barbaric, prevalent in the late Ottoman period. This more sophisticated response has emerged as a product of the increased intimacy and hybridity that has laid bare European as well as Turkish insecurities.
The primary way in which Turkey negotiates the construction of European identity is through accusing Europe of Christian exclusivism. Turkish politicians of different political orientations have utilized this criticism since the mid-1990s (Rumelili, 2007: 88–91). Most recently, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan reacted to the mounting opposition to Turkey’s membership in Europe with the claim that ‘the Franco-German stance proves that the EU is a Christian club’ (Economist, 2011). The charges of Christian exclusivism carry a certain degree of resonance in Europe, and thus the question of Turkey’s belonging easily becomes embroiled in internal debates on multiculturalism, xenophobia and the role of religion in European identity. It frames the question of Turkish accession into the EU as the question of a Muslim country’s entry into a club dominated by Christian countries, thus using civilizationist discourse to question the moral superiority of the EU and placing the burden of proof on the EU if it wants to continue as a normative power. This hybrid discourse, which accepts the frame of hegemony but subverts it from the inside, makes it possible for advocates of Turkish accession to present the issue as an existential one for Europe as a community and as a foreign policy actor.
A second way in which Turkey plugs in European identity politics is by challenging the construction of Europe/Asia, West/Islam as mutually exclusive identities. Up until the mid-1990s, Turkish officials took pains to represent Turkey as a European state, on the basis of history, geography, contributions to European culture, etc. Later on, politicians of diverse political orientations began to embrace the image of Turkey as a liminal identity, both European and Asian, Western and Muslim (Rumelili, 2007: 91–94). Accordingly, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu outlines his vision for Turkey in Europe in the following fashion:
It is not a Turkey that turned into a derivative of European culture. Instead, we would like to see a Turkey that is able to contribute to the culture of humanity through integrating with European culture. (Davutoglu, 2009)
The representation of Turkey’s hybridity not as a threat but as an asset for Europe, again, directly enters the intra-EU political terrain by challenging the binary interpretations of European identity, which rest upon the construction of Europe/Asia, West/Islam as mutually exclusive and inherently incompatible identities. As such, they support the more open and multiculturalist readings of Europe’s identity, but since this view comes from an outsider and can be interpreted as interventionist, its end effect is far from certain. It is not inconceivable that instead of de-bordering, they could produce further securitization.
Russia’s attempts to present an alternative universal project, on the other hand, are compromised by the fact that this alternative is still described in terms explicitly borrowed from the western liberal democratic discourse. Here, one finds a clear example of the post-colonial situation: the challenge to the master discourse comes from within and is legitimized in the terms explicitly borrowed from the language of hegemonic power. The slogan of ‘sovereign democracy’, which was nearly elevated to the status of national doctrine during Putin’s second presidential term, is perhaps the best illustration here. Fully in accordance with the logic of hybridity, it did not mount a direct offence against the democratic values promoted by the West, but rather, by emphasizing the principle of state sovereignty, insisted on Russia’s right to develop its own, authentic, version of democratic society (Morozov, 2008). The very careful arrangement of the August 2008 intervention in Georgia as a ‘peace enforcement operation’ modelled on NATO’s 1999 war against Yugoslavia is yet another example of the hegemonic power of the western discourse and the way in which post-colonial agency can subvert this power in an indirect way (Morozov, 2010:194–196).
Russia’s role as a Europe-maker is presently determined by the fact that it is unhappy about its exclusion from the European political space, tries to challenge this exclusion, but this challenge is certainly very far from being a radical one. Instead of confronting western/EU hegemony, Russia, in Gramscian terms, prefers to wage a war of position whose main parameters are defined by the hegemonic force. This inevitably leads to a situation where hegemony is being reproduced and even, precisely due to this challenge, tends to consolidate. The relative emphasis on the temporal dimension of identity construction which was a characteristic feature of the pro-European discourse during the Cold War is replaced with external othering: instead of self-critical reflection about its own past, the EU now defines itself as more progressive and morally superior to its neighbours. The result is that the struggle for the spheres of influence, rhetorically dismissed by both sides as a thing of the past, is back as a key form of European international politics.
In political terms, Russia remains an outsider whose active externality is crucial for the establishment and consolidation of the European Union as a sole embodiment of the European idea. The Europeans may quarrel between themselves about the best response to the crisis in the Caucasus or the direction of energy flows, but, as pointed out by Thomas Diez, ‘the representation of Europe as a force for peace and well-being is nearly consensual’ (Diez, 2005: 620). Any outside challenge solidifies the nearly universal adherence to this identity – it is not a coincidence that the Russian attempts to drive a wedge between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Europe on such issues as the significance of the Second World War and the victory over Nazism remain largely unsuccessful (Onken, 2007), in contrast to various oil and gas deals.
Conclusion
A comparative retrospective analysis of the roles played by Russia and Turkey as external Others of the EU-centred Europe demonstrate a number of similarities. Both relationships are embedded in a hegemonic situation where the meaning of ‘Europe’ is defined by the western core, while the eastern (oriental) periphery normally accepts the value of ‘civilization’ and Europeanness as they are defined by the master. At the same time, both are obviously unhappy about their subaltern positions and strive to challenge legitimacy of the hegemonic power. The nature of this challenge is profoundly influenced by the situation of hybridity in which both marginal players find themselves. In spite of their feeling of distinctiveness in the European cultural and political space and the repeated appeals to some authentic core which allegedly provides moral grounds for an independent standing vis-à-vis the West, their own identity discourses are almost completely integrated into the pan-European discursive field. This implies that the discursive resources they have to use when they speak about their distinctiveness and authenticity are borrowed from the dominant discourse of European modernity. In practice, this means that both Russia and Turkey can do very little beyond accepting the key values allegedly promoted by the European integration project, and both have to struggle for the right to have a say on how these values are applied in day-to-day political practice. As Richard Sakwa puts it: ‘Russia and Turkey do not challenge the existing world order, but only the place accorded to them in that order’ (2010: 8).
This alone makes formation of an ‘axis of the excluded’ (Hill and Taspinar, 2006) an unlikely prospect. Moreover, the two players differ in how radically they want to challenge the west European hegemony, as well as in the discursive domains they are ready to open while talking to their western neighbours. Turkey prefers to assume the posture of a disciplined student who diligently completes all assignments but is discriminated against by the prejudiced master. Russia, on the contrary, wants to position itself as an equal player whose opinion weighs as much as that of the EU or the United States. At the same time, Russia is much more careful when it comes to highlighting its difference from the West. It insists on its unquestionable belonging to Europe in cultural terms, and on all differences of opinion being strictly political and interest-based. By contrast, Turkey is not afraid of opening up the discursive domain of culture: it does not (and perhaps cannot) position itself as part of an imagined homogenous European cultural space, but chooses instead to accuse its opponents within the core of defending a xenophobic image of Europe as exclusively Christian.
Our research seems to demonstrate that Turkey has been more successful in its attempts to influence the process of European identity construction in the sense of being able to get accepted by the core. Russia, by playing in the fields of democracy and security, aims its counter-hegemonic strategy at the hard core of the European integration project. This in itself is a radical approach, and it is even further radicalized by the self-assumed position of an equal player. The result of the Russian efforts is a further consolidation of the EU as a political actor who takes it for granted that ‘normative power Europe’ is something that it can fully keep for itself. Russia’s agency thus also makes its impact on the EU’s core, but the outcome differs from the proclaimed goal. The ‘third space’ opened by Russia hardly overlaps with the west-European discursive space: while the criticism of western liberal democracy makes a lot of sense within the Russian context, it is confusing and mostly unacceptable for west Europeans, which leads to Russia’s exclusion being exacerbated.
Turkey, with its appeals to multiculturalism and diversity, targets the soft underbelly of the west European project. These are the issues which are most politicized in nearly all EU member states because of the really existing issues of social and cultural integration. As a result, Turkey can search for allies among the political forces active in the intra-EU debate. These attempts to decentre the hegemonic power are also risky because they question the moral standing of the EU and might lead to attempts to counter this criticism by othering Turkey even further, turning it again into a complete outsider of Europe. Yet it seems that on balance decentring has a better chance of success than a frontal attack.
While the post-colonial notion of agency is not embodied in a self-reflective subject, it would be unwise to deny any self-reflexivity on the part of Russia and Turkey in their interaction with the EU. As a matter of fact, there are all reasons to presume a good deal of strategic thinking behind both Russian and Turkish discourses on the identity and boundaries of Europe. However, one implication that can be drawn from our comparative analysis is that the Russian criticisms of liberal democracy have further solidified the division between Russia and Western Europe. Turkey might be facing a similar danger of alienating itself even further from Europe by criticizing the EU as a Christian club. Thus, even when actors understand themselves to be acting strategically, their representational practices may have discursive effects contrary to their objectives.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Pertti Joenniemi, Stefano Guzzini and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.
Bahar Rumelili thanks the Turkish Academy of Sciences for the generous support proby its Distinguished Young Scientist Program. Viatcheslav Morozov acknowledges support from the European Social Fund’s Doctoral Studies and Internationalization Programme DoRa and the Estonian Science Foundation.