The meta-geography of the Middle East and North Africa in Turkey’s new geopolitical imagination

Abstract

This article critically analyses Turkish security discourses connected to the meta-geography of the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) before and after the developments of the Arab Spring. A critical geopolitics approach and critical security theories in international relations provide the theoretical framework, as security discourses are considered to be a product of geopolitical imaginations and codes that, in turn, shape the making of foreign and security policies. First, the article examines the invention of BMENA as a meta-geography within Turkey’s new geopolitical imagination, as well as the new geopolitical codes underlying the new security discourses. Then, the article assesses the impact of the Arab Spring, which led to major changes in Turkey’s newly established geopolitical codes, formulated in the pre-Arab Spring period, and analyses the ruptures and continuities in Turkey’s security discourses in the light of those developments. Finally, the article concludes that the Arab Spring, especially the Syrian crisis, shifted the focus of Turkey’s foreign policy in BMENA from cooperation to conflict. This has led to a resecuritization of Turkey’s geopolitical codes, discourses and security practices in the region, revealing the limitation of Turkey’s current geopolitical imagination.

Keywords

Arab Spring critical geopolitics foreign policy security Turkey

Introduction

Turkey has been actively involved with the Broader Middle East and North Africa (hereafter BMENA) since the USA’s invention of this region as a meta-geography to justify its engagement in the area following the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Meanwhile, Turkey’s geopolitical imagination regarding this so-called region, its geopolitical codes, and its security discourses and practices have changed dramatically – a development that is even being considered by some as a ‘shift of axis’ from its traditional pro-Western leaning towards a pro-Middle Eastern one. This new activism in Turkish foreign policy coincided with the victories by Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)) in general elections from 2002 onwards, particularly after Ahmet Davutoğlu, a professor of political science and international relations, became an adviser to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and later Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2009. Davutoğlu is well known as the chief architect of the changes in Turkey’s geopolitical imagination and foreign and security policies in general, and towards BMENA in particular – a role evidenced by his book Strategic Depth, published in 2001, which is also referred to by some scholars as the ‘Davutoğlu doctrine’ (Ioannis, 2010).

The development of this new geopolitical imagination, which depicts BMENA as an important geography, led to Turkish geopolitical codes being reformulated and security discourses reshaped during the pre-Arab Spring period. Turkey tried to establish good relations with BMENA, employing soft power in its efforts to become a regional power. However, some aspects of Turkey’s security discourses and foreign policy shifted dramatically following the outbreak of the Arab Spring, as Turkey’s existing geopolitical imagination faced serious challenges as a result of those developments, leading to the country’s alienation from both the existing regimes and their supporting regional actors, particularly Iran and Russia. The Syrian crisis created a particularly major impasse that caused Turkey’s foreign policymaking elite to resecuritize its discourses, a move that was accompanied by various practical consequences, such as a potentially destabilizing request to NATO to site Patriot missiles on Turkish territory.

In response to the need to reconsider Turkish foreign policy in this challenging new environment, this article analyses how BMENA as a meta-geography has been invented within Turkey’s geopolitical imagination, in parallel with that of the USA, and how Turkey’s security discourses and practices have been shaped by this imagination, both before and after the Arab Spring. The article adopts the theoretical framework of critical geopolitics and borrows some analytical concepts from critical security approaches in international relations to analyse how geopolitics and security discourses interact as they are translated into Turkey’s foreign and security policies.

The next section presents this theoretical framework and introduces the analytical tools through which the authors analyse Turkey’s new geopolitical imagination of BMENA and its translation into security discourses and practices, both before and during the Arab Spring.

Critical geopolitics, meta-geographies and security discourses

Critical geopolitics was developed in the post-Cold War 1990s as an alternative to classical geopolitics by prominent scholars such as John Agnew, Simon Dalby and Gearoid Ó Tuathail (Agnew, 2003; Agnew and Corbridge, 1995; Ó Tuathail, 1996; Ó Tuathail and Dalby, 1998), to ‘develop a mode of interrogating and exposing the grounds for knowledge production and of seeking to analyze the articulation, objectivization and subversion of hegemony’ (Power and Campbell, 2010: 243). Born as a critique of modern understandings of geopolitics, Ó Tuathail (2000: 167) argues that critical geopolitics is a ‘post-modern geopolitical condition since it refers to spatial logics beyond the modern geopolitical imagination’. Questioning the hegemonic discourses of realism and neorealism, critical geopolitics is an attempt to ‘problematize theoretical enterprise that places the existing structures of power and knowledge in question’ (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 107). In this effort, critical geopolitics scholars have aimed at ‘exposing power politics of state and military bureaucracies and committing to an open democratic debate about the meaning and politics of “security”’ (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 108). Thus, with critical geopolitics, the given and accepted nature of classical geopolitics is placed under scrutiny.

The further development of critical geopolitics, especially in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA, led to the formation of a new geopolitical imagination, where new friends and foes, as well as new insecurities, were defined by US policymakers (Dalby, 2008: 424). Mapping certain geographies as bearing threat to US interests became an important practice. As part of this mapping, US policymakers imagined a broader version of the geography called the Middle East. This led to ‘securing’ places like Afghanistan or Iraq as geographies that required urgent military intervention. It is exactly this that critical geopolitics scholars criticize: this realist way of handling geopolitics and its ‘given’ nature. Inspired by constructivist approaches in international relations, critical geopolitics authors mentioned above pointed to the subjective character inherent in critical geopolitics since particular geopolitical imaginations are shaped by cultures and identities. Since identity is mostly articulated through discourses, scholars of critical geopolitics were ‘concerned to excavate the geopolitical discourses that shaped international relations and to consider how geographical imaginations subtended processes of intervention and engagement’ (Cox et al., 2008: 7). In short, how security is defined is closely determined by geopolitical imaginations, which are shaped by identities and revealed by the discourses. From a different angle, state identities are also shaped through foreign policies that are based on representations of danger (Campbell, 1998). Thus, interests, foreign policies and identities are in constant interaction and shape each other. In explaining especially how hard-power practices such as wars and military interventions came about, critical geopolitics, critical security and constructivist approaches in international relations became closely connected.

As an alternative to classical geopolitics, critical geopolitics has also faced criticism (Kelly, 2006: 24–53). Agnew (2010: 569), for instance, notes that ‘to date, the overwhelming body of work in critical geopolitics has focused on the contemporary United States and the European colonial powers’, criticizing how ‘they were treated as if they are the sole active forces in world politics’. Nevertheless, its scope has widened from global superpower rivalry to technological transformation, global risks, and economic or ecological interdependence (Aalto et al., 2003: 1). Although some regard this development as a ‘distraction and dilution’ of its original purpose (Dalby, 2010: 282), it offers a valuable perspective for analysing world politics. Although the initial aim of critical geopolitics scholars was to criticize hard-power discourses and practices, such as war-fighting or other military interventions, the authors of this article believe that it is equally important and useful to analyse the role of geopolitical imaginations in soft-power discourses and practices that have not been paid due attention in the literature.

It is important at this point to define ‘geopolitical imagination’ as a key analytical tool. Critical geopolitics considers geopolitics as a ‘cultural phenomenon’ (Ó Tuathail and Dalby, 1998: 2), where the concept of the geopolitical imagination, influenced by national identity, culture and myths, refers to how countries construct the world. Thus, in critical geopolitics, geographies are depicted as being imagined or invented rather than as objective realities. The concept of geopolitical codes, while forming geopolitical imaginations, represents a valuable contribution to our efforts to understand foreign policymaking. The term was first used by Gaddis to refer to the ‘strategic assumptions’ that governments make about other states while formulating their foreign policies (Dijkink, 1996: 2). According to Peter Taylor and Colin Flint, various important factors affect the formation of geopolitical codes, such as the identification of current and potential allies and enemies, national myths and identities (Flint, 2006: 127), and attempts to justify these calculations to domestic publics and the global community (cited in Flint, 2006: 56). Previous imperial glory, for instance, can become a longed-for national myth, which in turn determines what kind of a geopolitical imagination a state may have. Geopolitical imaginations and geopolitical codes, therefore, are important for efforts to analyse how countries depict their geopolitical surroundings, how they define security based on representations of danger. Such analysis, in turn, enhances our understanding of international relations, since geopolitical imaginations ultimately translate into the foreign and security policies of states.

More specifically, meta-geographies are forms of such geopolitical imaginations, or ‘intellectual constructs which are necessarily ideological’ (Lewis, 2010). Borrowing from Lewis and Wigen (1997: ix), we might define meta-geography as ‘a set of spatial structures through which people order their knowledge of the world’. They argue that these are ‘unconscious frameworks that organize studies’ of various disciplines, and that ‘meta-geographies constitute ideological structures’ (Lewis and Wigen, 1997: xi). That is, meta-geographies are inventions that serve the interests of a region’s depictors. Bilgin (2005: 12) argues that these invented regions mostly ‘serve as shorthand to describe a part of the world that is crucial to external actors’ and their security concerns and interests. The importance of this for international relations is that the way in which these regions are constructed also translates into the foreign policies that are pursued towards them (Agnew and Corbridge, 1995; Bilgin, 2005: 13). Bilgin (2005: 15) further argues that the way these regions are constructed also translates into conceptions of security towards these regions and creates a clear link between meta-geographies as geopolitical inventions and the security discourses and practices directing these regions.

The interdisciplinary gap between critical geopolitics and international relations has been touched upon by some scholars. Mamadouh and Dijkink (2006: 352), for instance, argue that critical geopolitics has mostly been applied to international relations in terms of ‘boundary-making processes’. However, in their view this linkage is problematic, since geopolitics is regarded as a peripheral social science, whereas international relations is a much larger field associated with political science, law and foreign policy. For them, this is a possible explanation for ‘why critical geopolitics as an approach might be barely familiar to [international relations] scholars’, who mostly deal with ‘traditional research agendas or … realist interpretations of geopolitics that frame [international relations] as power politics based on fixed national interests’ (Mamadouh and Dijkink, 2006: 353). Thus, although most critical geopolitics scholars are academic geographers, the task of merging the boundaries of critical geopolitics into international relations can enhance our understanding of world politics. In this respect, the linkage between critical geopolitics and critical security approaches in international relations is important because it provides useful insights for understanding and explaining the invention of geographies or meta-geographies, foreign and security policy discourses, and the practices of states directed towards them. It is no coincidence that ‘the emergence of critical geopolitics was coeval with the development of critical security studies (Power and Campbell, 2010: 243). In this regard, the authors hold the view that case studies in which the interplay of these approaches is used as a theoretical framework will broaden our understanding of international politics.

The next important issue concerns the tools of analysis for specific cases. Ó Tuathail and Agnew (1992: 195) argue that

the challenge for students of geopolitics is to understand how geographical knowledge is transformed into the reductive geopolitical reasoning of intellectuals of statecraft. How are places reduced to security commodities, to geographical abstractions which need to be ‘domesticated’, controlled, invaded or bombed rather than understood in their complex reality?

In this regard, discourse forms an important dimension of analysis in both critical geopolitics and critical security approaches. The former views discourses as extremely powerful and important, in that ‘more than mere conversations about world politics, they are also power structures in themselves’ (Toal, 2000: 126). While reconceptualizing geopolitics, Ó Tuathail and Agnew (1992: 190) define it as ‘a discursive practice by which intellectuals of statecraft “spatialize” particular types of places, peoples and dramas’. They further point to the ‘great irony in geopolitical writing since it was always a highly ideological and deeply politicized form of analysis’ (Ó Tuathail and Agnew, 1992: 192). Their argument is based on the premise that geography is a social and historical discourse closely linked to politics and ideology. Therefore, in the context of political speech, they argue that discourse ‘is NOT simply speech or written statements but the rules by which verbal speech and written statements are made meaningful’ (Ó Tuathail and Agnew, 1992: 193).

Furthermore, discourses are not just language or conversations (Toal, 2000: 126), but also carry a performative aspect (Bialasiewicz et al., 2007: 405). Müller (2008: 322) also argues that discourse understood not only as language, but also as language and practice, places greater emphasis on the difference between narratives and discourses and ‘contributes to a more comprehensive understanding and analysis of the discursive constitution of geopolitical identities’. He relates the notion of discourse to the performativity of Judith Butler, who, in a post-structuralist fashion, ‘conjoins practices, performances, texts and images’ (Muller, 2008: 330). Here, performativity means ‘the reiterative and citational practice through which discourse produces the effects it names’ (Muller, 2008: 330). Huysmans (2011: 371) notes that the ‘act’ is neglected in securitization studies, arguing that ‘the task of re-engaging acts is particularly pertinent in the contemporary context, in which politically salient speech acts are heavily displaced by securitizing practices and devices’. Here, it is necessary to distinguish between formal and practical geopolitics (Ó Tuathail and Agnew, 1992). This article employs practical geopolitics, which aims to explain ‘how geopolitical premises enter into ways in which political elites and populations see their place in the world’ (Agnew, 2010: 570), and is concerned with the ‘geographical politics involved in the everyday practice of foreign policy [and] how common geographical understandings and perceptions enframe foreign policy conceptualization and decision-making’ (Ó Tuathail, 1999: 110). The article also includes how security discourses are formulated as a part of practical geopolitics.

In conclusion, one may argue that for efforts to understand state foreign and security practices, the interplay between critical geopolitics and critical security approaches on the one hand, and constructivist paradigms in the discipline of international relations on the other, provides a useful analytical foundation. The next section explores how BMENA was invented in the geopolitical imagination of Turkey’s ruling elite. It then considers the security discourses and acts that are relevant for how BMENA has been located in Turkish foreign and security discourses and practices both before and during the Arab Spring.

BMENA as a meta-geography in Turkey’s new geopolitical codes and imagination: Exceptionalism à la Turca?

BMENA was invented as a meta-geography encompassing Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the Arab world and Iran, to serve the USA’s interests in the post-Cold War period. These interests included ‘securing the route to Central Asian oil resources, whilst holding Islamism in check which has become a persistent anxiety in the USA since the 1979 Iranian Revolution and September 11 attacks’ (Bilgin, 2005: 114). The root causes of the Islamist extremism and terrorism that imperilled US interests were seen as stemming from the repressive nature of Middle Eastern regimes, depicted as ‘rogue’ or ‘failed’ states. In April 2004, the USA presented its ‘forward strategy of freedom’ to the other G-8 states as a set of proposals for a Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI), to be adopted at the G-8’s June Summit on Sea Island, Georgia, USA. The draft report claimed that ‘the Greater Middle East region, which refers to the countries of the Arab world, plus Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Israel, poses a unique challenge and opportunity for the international community’; that ‘demographic changes, the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq from oppressive regimes, and the emergence of democratic impulses across the region together present the G-8 with a historic opportunity’; and that ‘G-8 leaders should forge a long-term partnership with the Greater Middle East’s reform leaders and launch a coordinated response to promote political, economic, and social reform in the region’ (cited in Güney and Gökcan, 2010: 29).

The invention of the meta-geography of BMENA in the US geopolitical imagination coincides with the period of AKP rule in Turkey, and the AKP government has characterized Turkey as a ‘democratic partner’ in the making of BMENA (Milliyet, 2012). Aras and Görener (2010: 74) argue that ‘the perceptions and belief systems of policy-makers with respect to their internal and external environment are significant in explaining foreign policy change’. Thus, when the conservative-democratic AKP, with its religious roots, came to power in 2002, this clearly signalled that a change in Turkey’s geopolitical codes and foreign policy was imminent. Turkey’s republican elite, influential in foreign policymaking, had adopted a strongly ‘Western-oriented, isolationist, passive foreign policy stand, while effectively excluding mass society from constructing alternative role conceptions’ (Aras and Görener, 2010: 78–79). In Strategic Depth, regarded as the philosophical foundation of Turkey’s new dynamism, Davutoğlu (2001) challenges various republican security discourses, arguing that Turkey’s foreign and national security mentality has been plagued by the so-called Sèvres syndrome (see Michael, 2010: 74). He signalled that Turkey’s traditional foreign and security policy understandings and practice could no longer meet new security challenges, contending that Turkey should instead act with self-confidence in its ability to meet them. And that, ‘when we set ourselves the objective to become a wise country, we realize it comes with many expectations and requires new instruments which might be missing in Turkey’s traditional foreign policy toolkit’ (Davutoğlu, 2012b: 4). Some have named Turkey’s new geopolitical vision ‘Turkish exceptionalism’,¹ as Turkey set new global objectives that would both bring order to its surrounding region and address universal human problems. For example, Davutoğlu (2011a) stated that

if God wills, as we aspire, so by 2023 we will become one of the ten greatest world economies with a GDP exceeding 2 trillion dollars. The world will see how a strong yet compassionate Turkey extends its hand to humanity. With this growing economy, we aim not only to enhance the well-being of our own people, but to redress all humankind’s grievances.

The shift in the mindset, geopolitical culture and imagination of the new ruling elite in terms of its reconceptualization of Turkey’s location in world affairs can be seen in the new motto on the website of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs: ‘There is no diplomacy of the line, but only the diplomacy of the whole territory; and that territory is the whole world.’² The phrasing originates from a directive given by the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal, to his commanders during the liberation war of the 1920s, urging them to continue resisting by forming new lines of defence whenever an existing one was overrun by the enemy (‘there is no defence of the line, but only the defence of the whole territory, and that territory is the whole country’), and provides a striking example of how the AKP’s foreign policymaking elite constructed a new role for itself. This transformation, according to Aras (2009: 30), was the result of a domestic transformation and a new foreign policy vision.

Thus, the mindset shift among Turkish policymakers during the AKP’s period of rule has radically altered Turkey’s geopolitical imagination. Examination of this new imagination, which is revealed in the discursive shift, is also helpful for understanding how new security discourses have been formulated. Since Ahmet Davutoğlu is considered the main architect of this change, the article will examine his discourses and public speeches, which reflect Turkey’s new geopolitical codes.

Geopolitical code 1: Proactive involvement in securing BMENA as a soft power

First of all, in various discourses, Davutoğlu reiterated that post-Cold War conditions were emerging in the Middle East, so Turkey had to play an active role in remoulding relations among the region’s countries (see e.g. Davutoğlu, 2011a). According to him, the time had come to overturn historical enmities and misperceptions created by the divisions of the Cold War, and to develop mutual trust between BMENA nations to create a zone of prosperity and peace. To legitimize its policy of active involvement, Davutoğlu made constant discursive references to Turkey’s regional historical bonds and unique historical legacy stemming from the Ottoman Empire. Thus, part of his concept of ‘geographical depth’ referred to the regions surrounding modern Turkey where the Ottoman Empire had ruled for many centuries, thereby locating Turkey at the epicentre of a massive hinterland. The goals of Davutoğlu’s proactive regional policy are, first, sustaining a balance between Turkish national interests and human conscience and universal values, and second, ‘creating a belt of peace, stability and security around Turkey’ (Davutoğlu, 2012a). From a critical geopolitics perspective, it is possible to argue that BMENA is perceived as being such a belt.

Turkey’s active involvement in the search for solutions to regional problems in its periphery (Aras, 2009) can be understood in relation to the new discourses that characterize its new geopolitical codes. We can consider various recent initiatives as translations of these new geopolitical codes into foreign policy practice: Turkey’s rapprochment with Syria, Turkish diplomacy in Lebanon’s crisis, its contribution to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), its role in the Syrian–Israeli peace process, and its Iraq policy ‘which aimed to develop initiatives for regarding the emergence of an Iraqi state while also planning to provide security for Kurds and Turcomans in Northern Iraq and … develop relations with the different segments of Iraqi society regardless of ethnic and sectarian differences’ (Aras, 2009: 38), can all be considered examples of how this geopolitical code has been translated into foreign policy practices.

It is important to note that, in line with what the critical geopolitics literature suggests, the invention of BMENA as a meta-geography in Turkey’s geopolitical imagination and the country’s active involvement in the region did not justify any hard-power role, such as military intervention or war, but rather a soft-power role. That is, geopolitical imaginations can shape and justify policies of a state that aspires to also become a soft power.

Geopolitical code 2: Turkey as ‘de-securitizer’ and ‘zero problems with the neighbours’

Prior to the Arab Spring, Davutoğlu constantly emphasized desecuritization of BMENA, arguing that Turkey should see its neighbourhood through the prism of opportunities rather than threat perceptions. In this conception, regional security involves more components than hard-power instruments. While security has frequently been understood as military or hard security, Davutoğlu (2010) argues that hard power cannot bring sustainable peace in Turkey’s region. His understanding of security is a more comprehensive one, in which the first dimension of security is economic cooperation, accompanied by cultural and political aspects, while the second dimension relates to methodologies for solving security problems. He identifies two types of security:

‘visionary security’ against regional tension, crisis or war, and ‘preventive security’, referring to a concept of regional order in the minds of the region’s political leaders and people. Vision is what avoids crisis, or the risk of crisis. There should be a new concept of regional order. (Davutoğlu, 2010)

Davutoğlu lists the principles of ‘visionary security’, from the Turkish perspective, as security for all, political dialogue, economic interdependency and multicultural coexistence. That is, he regards ‘visionary security’ in terms of soft security, implicitly promoting Turkey’s role as regional security provider. He believes that Turkey has the necessary elements of soft and hard power to achieve its regional goals without shying away from using its comparative advantage in this direction. Davutoğlu’s discourse of preventive security is also based on the assumption that security is for all, so Turkey’s security depends on that of the BMENA countries. For instance, he claims that the Palestinian problem not only affects Israel and Palestine, but also creates national security and economic risks for other neighbouring countries such as Turkey.

Thus, in his view, Turkey can secure the Middle East, since its ‘geostrategic location, booming economy, ability to understand different social and cultural dynamics in a vast geography, and its commitment to advance democracy domestically and internationally, are all important assets’ (Davutoğlu, 2011b). Turkey’s new national role conception imagines it as a country promoting cooperation, understanding and tolerance through dialogue and engagement, focusing its efforts on bringing together parties to solve or pre-empt conflict, championing universal values and human rights, supporting anyone subjected to unfair treatment, and promoting the economic and social development of underprivileged countries (Davutoğlu, 2011b). For Davutoğlu, as a regional peacekeeping power, Turkey has a mission to secure regional peace and stability. He rejects the labelling of this vision as neo-Ottoman, since this could be misconstrued as Turkey seeking a dominant position or imperial ambition (Davutoğlu, 2009). Rather, ‘Turkey’s role is to contribute to the successful completion of the region’s democratic transition’ (Davutoğlu, 2011b). However, being in the position of ‘security provider’ embeds in itself a paradox since it implies a hierarchical positioning vis-a-vis the BMENA countries in question. Accordingly, Turkey’s success is determined not by the role that Turkey imagines for itself in the region, but by how the region perceives Turkey’s role.

Prior to the Arab Spring, the new geopolitical code of ‘zero problems with neighbours’ constituted another important strand of Turkey’s desecuritization discourses. In Davutoğlu’s security discourses, Turkish security is defined in relation to both domestic and BMENA’s security, in an echo of an older principle of ‘peace at home, peace in the world’ – a motto of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. This policy has developed, gaining many layers and dimensions, though always based on this Kemalist tradition, with Davutoğlu claiming that the AKP has introduced five new principles: balancing freedom and security, zero problems with neighbours, active rather than reactive, complementary relations with global powers, and activism in international organizations. Davutoğlu (2011b) claims these inject a new dynamism into Turkish foreign policy and help Turkey adapt to a changed reality. He argues that Turkey intends to do more than just resolve problems with neighbours, aiming instead to transform its neighbourhood, ‘where serious problems and elements of instability exist, into a basin of friendship and cooperation serving the interests of all’. He continues:

In this context, we believe that our policy of zero problems with neighbors has also gained additional meaning and importance as the Middle East stands on the brink of a historical transformation. We hope that the current dynamic for reform advances in a way that meets the people’s expectations while also contributing to regional peace and security.

At the very beginning of the Arab Spring, therefore, Turkish security discourses included securing BMENA through contributing to its democratization, since Turkish policymakers most probably assumed that democratization would mean peace and stability in the region.

From this discussion, the desecuritization of Turkey’s relations, especially with Syria and Iran, can be understood as a practice envisaged by this geopolitical code. Various examples demonstrate that Turkey’s security discourses have shifted from conflict to cooperation and desecuritization: its facilitator role in the nuclear issue between Iran and the 5 + 1 group; increased trade between Turkey and Iran; official visits by Syrian and Turkish leaders in 2004; and Turkey’s mediation efforts between Syria and Israel (Aras and Polat, 2008).

Geopolitical code 3: Turkey as a ‘regional protector’ of BMENA

In Davutoğlu’s security discourses, the notion of ‘strategic depth’ rests on the creation of a sense of regional protectorship based on shared interests and common ideals, achievable only through more effective regional cooperation and active engagement with all regional systems in Turkey’s neighbourhood. This, in turn, necessitates enforcing existing regional integration structures and forging new ones as necessary, which is why Turkey supports and seeks to promote regional cooperation in its neighbourhood. Turkey believes that this would help countries find regional solutions to regional problems, rather than waiting for other outside actors to impose their own solutions (Davutoğlu, 2011b). The idea of ‘regional protectorship’, however, involves various inconsistencies and paradoxes. First, while defining regional protectorship, Davutoğlu identifies implicit enemies, who seemingly act on behalf of the region yet impose solutions that serve their own interests. Identity and interest are also interwoven in this discourse, and they characterize how Turkey’s new geopolitical culture and identity are shaped as those of an ‘insider’ rather than an ‘outsider’ to the region’s problems. Implicitly, therefore, Turkey is imposing its leadership on regional integration structures. Arı and Pirincci (2010: 7–8) stress that a basic reason for Turkish activism is the AKP government’s intention to pursue its regional policy utterly independently of the major powers that have so far shaped Middle East policies.³ As Davutoğlu frequently points out, it is Turkey’s wish that regional countries take the initiative from non-regional actors to solve their own problems, although it is implied that Turkey would retain the status of primus inter pares within this group. According to Davutoğlu (2012a: 8),

a new Middle East is rising and Turkey should continue to be its protector,⁴ pioneer, servant and ardent supporter. A new belt of peace, stability and prosperity would surround Turkey, while Turkey would establish economic development, democratization and international prestige along with this new Middle East, and its peoples.

Kosebalaban (2011: 112) argues that, while Turkey is considered a regional outsider, it perceives itself as being an indispensable component, a pioneering or model member of the wider group of nations: ‘Turkey does not enjoy the unquestioned support of a superpower, or a deeply-rooted geocultural sphere of influence, based on sectarian solidarity.’ Yet the geopolitical code presents Turkey as the regional protector that should guide other states into the realm of democratic ideals represented by the Turkish model.

Geopolitical Code 4: Turkey as ‘democracy promoter’ and an ‘integrative power’ in BMENA

It is important to note that, in Davutoğlu’s view, Turkey should entrench its regional power position to become a credible global actor. It should engage its neighbours more dynamically, working more decisively to reconcile mutual historical disagreements and to be accepted as an indispensable party in regional conflict management and resolution processes. It should also become a linchpin of overlapping economic and political groupings in this large geography. Fisher Onar (2011: 470) points to the fact that Davutoğlu regards Turkey as a facilitator, ‘which could open channels of communication with isolated and radical actors in regions like the Middle East and seek to resocialize them into the international system, contributing to western as well as Turkey’s own regional security’. This discourse has replaced the ‘Turkey as a bridge connecting East and West’ metaphor, since the latter is considered to underplay the country’s great potential and aspirations. Davutoğlu thus redefines Turkey’s identity in relation to its interests in the light of the developments in BMENA.

Davutoğlu (2011a) regards Turkey as the epicentre of a massive hinterland, specifically BMENA, into which it can project power, contending that anyone based in Istanbul can access both the surrounding regions and the world. He depicts Turkey as having a strategic depth based on its geographical and historical depth. This imagination is backed by historical references highlighting the ‘long history that provides Turkey and Turkish people with a unique set of relations with countries and communities all around it’. Being ‘in the midst of a vast geography’ also ‘places it in a position to relate to and influence the developments that are key to the future of the world. So the question is not achieving the strategic depth, but using it for regional and global peace’ (Davutoğlu, 2011b). Thus, Davutoğlu uses Turkey’s ‘strategic depth’ in BMENA, which has its historical justification in the Ottoman past, to reveal his aspirations for Turkey’s soft-power role as peace provider. What is different and remarkable in Davutoğlu’s discourses is that he considers the surrounding Middle East, Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia as all hinterlands of Turkey, where it can play an ‘effective role as an order-instituting country’ (Dinc, 2011: 64) or integrative regional power.

Since, in Davutoğlu’s discourses, Turkey’s security is closely linked to Middle Eastern security, which can only be achieved through democratization, Turkey is depicted as a regional power that represents the ‘voice of human consciousness’ and ‘virtue’ beyond any political calculations, and thus as a country that ‘will lead the major wave of change in the Middle East and be its pioneer’. To legitimize this role, he argues that ‘the Middle East’s people see Turkey not only as a friend and comrade, but also as a country pioneering a new regional order, a new idea having the potential to determine the region’s future’ (Davutoğlu, 2012a: 7). He contrasts Turkey’s role of regional democracy promoter with the archaic regimes doomed to death. In his geopolitical imagination, the new Middle East can only be secured through brotherhood, through the overcoming of ethnic and class differences. There is also a commitment and determination that Turkey will work until this peaceful order is established and will be both ‘the pioneer and spokesperson of this new peaceful order’ (Davutoğlu, 2012a: 7).

Turkey’s self-confidence, political development, economic capabilities and, especially, its ability to reconcile Islam with democracy should make Turkey a reliable and respected power in regional and even global politics. Davutoğlu (2012b: 5) depicts Turkey’s identity and national role conception as that of a ‘wise country’ in the international community that, ‘especially in times of crises, such as the economic crisis the world is going through or the political transformation in its region, delivers essential functions as conflict prevention, mediation, conflict resolution or development assistance’. He states that ‘this wise country role requires establishing a healthy balance between crisis management and vision management’ (Davutoğlu, 2012b: 7). Within this vision, BMENA is depicted as a region needing a successful role model, namely Turkey, meaning it is Turkey’s mission to help the countries in the region:

In pursuit of our global objectives, we will endeavor to listen to the conscience and commonsense of humanity, and become a firm defender of universal values. While embracing these universal principles we will enmesh them with local values and advocate in particular human rights, and such norms as democracy, good governance, transparency and rule of law. (Davutoğlu, 2012b: 5)

It is critical to note here how Davutoğlu mainly tries to justify Turkish policies towards BMENA by emphasizing humanitarian aspects, contending that Turkey should stake a claim to the region’s future: ‘Our sole perspective is humanity. When we look at the region’s people, we only see “humans” as most dignified among all creatures, independent of religion, ethnicity or sect’ (Davutoğlu, 2012a).

All in all, these geopolitical codes reveal, however, some inconsistencies when assessed as a totality. First, the object of zero problems with neighbours, although aiming at desecuritizing the region and establishing a zone of peace and prosperity, clashes with how the geopolitical codes are formulated regarding Turkey’s comparatively ‘superior’ role vis-a-vis the BMENA regimes. Thus, although Turkey aimed at creating a degree of in-group solidarity with the ‘regional protectorship’ code, its imposition of itself as a role model and integrative power have overshadowed the ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy. These inherent paradoxes in Turkey’s geopolitical codes, therefore, led to the depiction of BMENA by Turkish foreign policymakers as a meta-geography that is in need of Turkey as a role model and soft power. Constructed in this way in the geopolitical imagination of Turkey, BMENA inevitably posed further challenges when the Arab Spring came about.

The Arab Spring: Revisiting Turkey’s geopolitical codes and security discourses?

It is important to note, first, that the upheavals were still going on in BMENA, especially in Syria, when this article was written. Therefore, the Arab Spring is not a completed process. However, for some scholars the Arab Spring revealed the ‘frontiers of Turkey’s new geopolitical imagination’ (Aras and Polat, 2007). Although the uprisings against various North African regimes were welcomed by Turkey at the start, creating hopes that authoritarian dictatorships would be removed in a domino effect, Öniş (2012: 48–51) argues that they were unanticipated by Turkish policymakers. He further argues that Turkish foreign policy was uncertain and inconsistent as developments started in BMENA, stemming from an ‘ethics versus self-interest’ trade-off. Consequently, Turkish responses to the Arab Spring went through different phases: cautious unilateralism, reluctant participation, unilateral proactivism, and finally a return to a more cautious approach and reluctant multilateralism. However, what is relevant here is that developments in BMENA, by creating certain challenges, led to a reformulation of some of the above-mentioned geopolitical codes, including the redefinition of friends and enemies in Turkey’s new security discourses.

First, during the upheavals that started in Tunisia and followed on in other countries in BMENA, Davutoğlu’s public and diplomatic discourses constantly reiterated his geopolitical code of ‘zero problems with neighbours’ and ‘regional protectorship’. He endorsed increased Middle Eastern integration and interdependence by removing all kinds of security constraints. In addition, in many addresses, he presented Turkish foreign policy’s recent metamorphosis into the geopolitical code mentioned above as an example of how desecuritization might be beneficial for other regional states (Davutoğlu, 2011b). Davutoğlu (2011c) pointed to Turkey’s recent experiences in handling domestic challenges by reconceptualizing them independently of traditional security concerns and resolving them by highlighting the importance of pluralistic democratic society. In particular, the latter emphasis became more discernible in Davutoğlu’s official speeches about the Arab Spring. Thus, it can be argued that Turkey is portrayed as a role model that is capable of dealing with domestic challenges thanks to the democratic nature of its regime.

During the crises in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Turkey adopted a firm political stand, ardently supporting the principle of popular sovereignty as the linchpin of the successor regimes. In all three cases, Turkey preferred to issue diplomatic démarches, calling on the countries’ leaders to implement political reforms allowing smooth changes of power. In Libya, Turkey’s main concern was to prevent a power vacuum that might allow the return of former colonial powers, particularly France, to the region. In Egypt, Turkey was among the first countries demanding Mubarak yield to popular will. However, Turkey’s diplomatic attempts to internationalize the Libyan and Syrian crises seriously contradict its geopolitical code regarding ‘regional protectorship’, which emphasized the in-group identity and solidarity that Davutoğlu (2011b) has previously promoted. In varied platforms, the latter has announced that the recent Syrian civil war has prompted anxiety in Ankara lest Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s non-conciliatory authoritarianism fan sectarian conflicts throughout the Islamic world. As the Syrian crisis has deepened, Davutoğlu has given increasing warnings that it threatens the region’s stability, peace and security. Particularly during the Syrian crisis, Turkey’s discourses have increasingly securitized the process of regime change in BMENA because of its implications for both Turkey and the Islamic world, as well as the increased militarization as a result of the deployment of Patriot missiles on Turkish territory. This development revealed the limits of the ‘preventive mediation’ (Davutoğlu, 2011b) of regional disputes as part of the proactive and visionary nature of Turkey’s new foreign policy.

Second, regarding Turkey’s active involvement and soft-power role, the Arab Spring has made Turkish policymakers aware that Turkish mediation in regional conflicts requires greater resources and energy, which depend on domestic consent. That is, Turkish public support has become vital for justifying the state’s involvement in events in BMENA now that Turkish diplomacy needs actions rather than words. Accordingly, Davutoğlu’s discourses became more justificatory towards the Turkish public. He declared that Turkey is currently a core country in its own region, continuing to do what is expected of it. For example, dealing with Syria ‘is not a matter of preference; it is an obligation. If we do not deal with it, we will encounter greater problems in the coming days’ (Davutoğlu, 2012a). ‘As a result, we have come a long way in improving our relations with neighbours and opening up new areas of cooperation’ (Davutoğlu, 2011b). According to Davutoğlu (2012a), Turkey has also ‘presented an example for others to seek more freedoms, which have otherwise been constrained by security considerations, and offered a reliable partner for those who are willing to proceed in this direction’. Hence the recent developments in BMENA have been considered both as vindicating the approach that portrays Turkey as a role-model for the nations in the region and as furnishing Turkey with new opportunities to extend the common area of freedom. Subsequently, the Turkish ruling elite had to present more tangible goals to justify Turkish involvement, particularly in Libya and Syria, where several factors played significant roles in securitizing the issues. In Libya, the crisis put Turkish foreign investments worth approximately $23b at risk, which provided the government with considerable public support for more active engagement. Regarding Syria, problems stemming from geographical proximity played a pivotal role in allowing the Turkish elite to resecuritize its discourses by portraying the Syrian regime as a serious threat. Here, relevant issues included the influx of Syrian civilian refugees, the accidental killing of Turkish civilians by Syrian mortar bombs, and the Syrian military’s downing of a Turkish military reconnaissance aircraft. Turkey’s request that NATO deploy Patriot missiles, noted earlier, is another example of this resecuritization.

Third, Davutoğlu’s discourses referred to the geopolitical code that depicted Turkey as an ‘integrative power’. He indirectly tried to warn regional actors to take seriously the implications of the political setting of the Arab Spring by emphasizing the need for a radical shift in the Islamic world’s mentality. For instance, in his inauguration address to the Independent Permanent Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in August 2012, Davutoğlu (2012c) asked the Islamic world to criticize itself for its poor human rights record and its inability to act collectively against those regimes within the Islamic geography that were oppressing their own peoples, and to protect Muslim populations’ rights in other regions. Davutoğlu utterly rejected the views portraying Islam as irreconcilable with universal values and claiming that the notion of human rights was introduced into the Islamic world only in modern times. In reality, he argued, the idea of human rights relies on basic doctrines within Islam and had developed in parallel with the rise of Islamic civilization. On several occasions, he also noted the multi-confessional nature of old Islamic societies and Islam’s human-oriented understanding of societal order. In the past, those values had been the glue that bound together the societies of the region. According to Davutoğlu, as the Arab Spring develops, people will reintegrate and return together to their history. While reintegrating such societies will inevitably be hard, Davutoğlu (2012d) claims that the prospect for interdependent societies sharing similar political objectives is not too distant.

Fourth, Davutoğlu (2012c) revealed that events in the Middle East show that the Islamic world still has to deal with challenges from resistant ideology-oriented Cold War regimes. His critique of the Assad regime is an example, where he suggests that it has become both anachronistic as the Middle East changes and a threat since it risks bringing Cold War politics back into the region (Davutoğlu, 2012e), as a return to Cold War conditions would entail a return to balance-of-power politics that would destroy the regional identity currently under construction. The Syrian regime’s rejection of popular demands for reform also fans regional sectarian divisions, increasing the potential for great-power competition. Therefore, Davutoğlu urges his audiences to see Turkey’s recent active diplomacy in Syria from the aforementioned perspective, portraying Turkey as a power that gives more priority to regional security than to its own.

Fifth, as the Syrian crisis has deepened, some of the geopolitical codes mentioned above – presenting ‘Turkey as an integrative power’, ‘Turkey as a model or wise country’, or ‘Turkey as a regional power’ – have gradually been dropped. Instead, heroic personalities from national liberation struggles and recent revolutions, such as Omar Muhtar (see haber7.com, 2012) and Mohamed Bouazizi, or metaphors like the ‘spirit of Tahrir Square’ have been emphasized (Davutoğlu, 2012e). In both public and diplomatic speeches, Davutoğlu has hinted that Turkey is prepared to cede the initiative to regional currents of history. Thus, as the crisis has continued, Davutoğlu has begun to appreciate that the chain of revolutions in BMENA will lead to a historical conjuncture characterized by Muslim populations sharing the prospect of a common fate. He has emphasized that the insurgencies in the region emerged without outside influences, and that the revolts were authentic and stemmed from similar socio-economic and political problems (Davutoğlu, 2012e). They succeeded, just as once the Turkish people did, in restoring popular sovereignty and creating a new nation. Thanks to those characteristics, the Islamic world currently possesses greater potential than before to develop a feeling of togetherness and regional integration – in other words, to create a new Middle East (Davutoğlu, 2012f).

As a result, one may argue that, as the Arab Spring unfolds, Turkey’s geopolitical codes are also evolving. The ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy seems to be seriously challenged by the ongoing crisis in Syria, leading to the securitization and militarization of security discourses within Turkey’s policymaking elite. Turkey seems to be gradually abandoning the assertive role that it aspired to play in the pre-Arab Spring period, and turning out to be more reactive than proactive in the light of the developments in the region.

Conclusion

This article has tried to reveal how BMENA, as a constructed meta-geography, has been present in Turkey’s security discourses throughout the period of AKP rule since 2002. This new ruling elite’s geopolitical identity, exemplified in the discourses of Ahmet Davutoğlu, has spilled over into Turkish foreign policy practices, resulting in the formulation of a new geopolitical imagination and new geopolitical codes, as critical geopolitics scholars argue. These foreign policy practices, in turn, have been influential in shaping Turkey’s identity as a security provider to the region as a role model. In the period prior to the Arab Spring, therefore, BMENA was invented in the Turkish geopolitical imagination as a meta-geography of which Turkey would be the regional leader and a soft power. Turkey in this meta-geography would provide an example of how Islam and democracy can coexist peacefully and contribute to regional security and stability. The paradoxes inherent in the formulation of the geopolitical codes, however, would render them vulnerable to the developments taking place in the BMENA region.

Occurring rather unexpectedly, the Arab Spring highlighted the inherently paradoxical nature of Turkey’s geopolitical codes regarding BMENA and put its geopolitical imagination at risk. Thus, Turkish foreign policy seemed to swing between the country’s own interests and its moral stance, for instance in Libya. While recommending desecuritization among the Arab states, under changing international and regional contexts, Turkey has redefined its friends and foes, thereby revising the geopolitical codes of the pre-Arab Spring period and securitizing its policies towards the region. On the one hand, resisting democratic transformation, the Assad regime has become the new enemy of Turkey. On the other, Turkey’s developing ties with the administration in northern Iraq have come at the expense of worsening relations with the Baghdad regime and created further crisis with Iraq.

The main dilemma for Turkish policymakers relates to the rise in tensions within Turkey because of the intensifying attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and ongoing debates around the removal of the political immunities of deputies from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which have overshadowed Davutoğlu’s stance of encouraging BMENA states to desecuritize their internal conflicts. Hence, while the future of the region remains uncertain, Turkey’s arguments are currently in danger of losing their persuasiveness. It is also possible to argue that the future of Turkey’s geopolitical imagination regarding BMENA is also closely interlinked with how the present Euro crisis in the European Union unfolds and how Turkey’s relations with the EU evolve. If a possibility arises to overcome the current impasse in relations, it is highly likely that BMENA will be conceptualized in an entirely different manner within Turkey’s geopolitical imagination.

This article has attempted to elaborate on how geopolitics and identity interact in bringing about geopolitical imaginations that, in turn, translate into foreign and security policies. In this way, it has sought to contribute to the critical geopolitics and international relations literature, as well as the literature on Turkish foreign policy, by demonstrating how the Arab Spring has led to changes in Turkey’s geopolitical imaginations and foreign policies regarding BMENA. It further demonstrates how geopolitical codes may reveal changes due to changing international contexts and the continuous redefinition of state identities and interests based on such change.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Author biographies

Aylin Güney is Associate Professor and Chair at the Department of International Relations of Izmir Yasar University. She is the holder of the Jean Monnet Chair in International Relations and European Studies. Her academic area of interest includes European Union studies, the enlargement of the EU and Turkey’s accession, critical geopolitics, US foreign policy, Turkish foreign policy, civil–military relations in Turkey, politics and society in Southern Europe, the Cyprus issue, and issues of decentralization, federalism and ethnicity.

Nazif Mandacı is Professor at the Department of International Relations of Izmir Yasar University. His major interest areas include conflict resolution, nationalism and ethnic conflict, minority problems, comparative politics, contemporary Balkan politics and Turkish foreign policy.

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